I thought it was implied by your mentioning of the green party and another left wing party. But regardless, the question of how Labour will react to competition from the left is going to be very important.

It's interesting to observe the implied threat of the Green party and Your party causing a Reform government. Why is Labour's unwillingness to work with others a subject that is rarely discussed? The refusal of Labour to form a centre/left voting block will likely cause a future Farage govt

Labour sadly cannot imagine sharing power or electoral pacts even if the alternative is Farage standing outside Number 10 in less than 3 years time, waving to his supporters and walking in to meet his new team.

There is no one in Labour with any chance of reaching power who could imagine electoral pacts. Prepare for your life after Farage stands outside Number 10, waves to his supporters and walks inside to meet his new team.

Labour could possibly agree not to stand in Lib Dem - Conservative contests. However the Labour party's focus is winning everything to satisfy personal ambitions and the historical psycho dramas of their particular faction.

Could Labour reach an agreement with the Green party or Your Party to stop Farage becoming prime minister? The answer is no, even discussing the idea will horrify Labour.

So true, the right (and to be fair, what's there still is of a left) of the Labour party are trapped in past battles.

Wouldn't it be easier to join the Green party?

Besides the "work with" bit, what if the spouse was fruitfully employed?

Was that the most important element of the news about a new party though? Or just desperately looking for a bit of drama? I'm not a fan of this new party btw.

I fear the new party is going to be undone by the conservatism and intolerance of difference that the old left suffers. When the Green party's policies are to the left of Labour's 2017 and 2019 manifestos, why is joining the Greens such a hurdle?

I was struck by how predictable and depressing
Lewis' recommendations were: reshuffle, better comms, no big spending etc. The centre left have so few ideas about policy.

Join the groupscule they belong to and then leave.

If that works-great but what will stop Trump from completely withdrawing?

If ultimately, Trump does not support Ukraine or NATO or Europe in any meaningful way, then what is the benefit of pretending? Do people still think Trump will give anything to Ukraine and if we just keep to the "US is our ally" script, some compromise can be worked out? It's Normalcy bias.

The stipend is reasonable when we reflect on the power councillors actually have. The hard slog of spending hours on committees and responding to residents problems continues, but the ability to meaningfully alter a budget or decide on policy is not an option for local govt. Why keep pretending ?

Starmer is deluded. If he believes Ukr will only be secure with a US backdrop, there is no conceivable peace that just involves Europeans.

Trump is pro Putin'now, so why is Starmer mouthing platitudes? Either he directly discusses how Europe alone can protect Ukraine or at least stop the pretense.

I do worry about all future elections of consequence in the US. The people around Trump will have motive and access to a supportive media. Do they have the means though to actually annul vote counts? Will it come down to the moral courage of judges?

The Metro mayors have very little power and not much discretionary money. They aren't tax raising regional governments. My worry is that they feed into the emerging narrative that politicians are unable to make any positive difference, and the growth of fascism.