TORIES TO LOSE SEATS FORMERLY OCCUPIED BY JOHSON, MAY, CAMERON
By the time this Worm hits your inbox, polls will have just closed in the UK, where Labour is expected to win big over the incumbent Conservatives.
There appears to have been an extraordinary amount of people who showed up to vote — as The Independent reports, “it’s believed turnout could be one of the highest in recent election history”. Opposition Leader Keir Starmer cast his ballot in London, while Prime Minister Rishi Sunak cast his in his North Yorkshire constituency. Both were accompanied by their wives.
Later this morning, Australian time, results will begin to trickle in. As of the time of writing, hard info on how the election is going is scant. As The Evening Standard reports, there are strict restrictions on what media outlets can publish while polling booths are open.
“Ofcom — which regulates broadcasters in the UK — says ‘discussion and analysis of election and referendum issues must finish when the poll opens’ in its election guidance,” the newspaper reports. “It is a criminal offence to publish an exit poll or survey when polls are open — meaning any new polling data published on social media will not be trustworthy.”
As a result, the BBC — which said it was on “sit and stay orders until the polls close”, after which it could begin “yapping about the election again” — has been posting a lot of dog pictures on its election blog. Other outlets have done the same, including The Guardian, which wrote in a blog post: “Thank you for sending in your pictures of dogs at polling stations today”.
Polling company YouGov said before the vote the final opinion surveys showed Labour was on course for a “historic election victory”, with a projected “431 seats for Labour, 102 for the Conservatives, 72 for the Liberal Democrats, 2 for the Greens and 3 for Reform UK”.
The same figures indicated numerous Tory ministers and senior MPs were set to lose their seats in Parliament, including Jeremy Hunt, Alex Chalk, Grant Shapps, Lucy Frazer, and Penny Mordaunt. The seats formerly belonging to Conservative stars such as Theresa May, David Cameron, Dominic Raab, Michael Gove, Boris Johson, Iain Duncan Smith and Jacob Rees-Mogg were also projected to be lost to either Labour or the Lib Dems.
GAS REPORT LEAK SPELLS TROUBLE FOR EAST COAST
Australia’s east coast will run out of gas sooner than previously thought — by 2027, rather than 2028 — according to a competition watchdog report to be released today, The Australian reports.
“In its June 2024 gas inquiry interim report being released on Friday, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission [ACCC] concludes shortages on the east coast market will emerge by 2027 ‘unless new sources of supply are made available’,” the newspaper reports.
A quote from the report said: “This is earlier than our last forecast (in December 2023) of a possible shortfall from 2028, reflecting lower forecast supply due to delays in anticipated regulatory approvals for new projects and problems with legacy gas fields.”
“Yes, we really are dumb enough to import our own gas,” reads the headline of an analysis piece by The Sydney Morning Herald’s energy correspondent Mike Foley.
“Consider the developers’ reassurances last decade that their vast Queensland coal seam gas fields would yield so much gas that the local and international markets would be in perpetual oversupply. Sounds too good to be true, right? It was — but the federal government swallowed it,” he writes.
Capital Brief quotes Treasurer Jim Chalmers as saying the ACCC report “shows that our efforts to deliver more gas at more reasonable prices are making a meaningful difference … Gas will play a crucial role in the energy and net zero transformation and our policies will help to ensure there’s sufficient domestic supply at reasonable prices.”
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
Can an apple tree grow 200 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle? An artist in Sweden is determined to find out.
Apolonija Šušteršič told Swedish public service television station SVT there is also a symbolic element to the experiment: “It’s about apple trees as communication tools, about how the trees have brought people together and awakened curiosity”.
The tree Šušteršič has planted in the village of Jukkasjärvi came from a shoot off what was considered Sweden’s largest apple tree. The mother tree was cut down in 2017 to make way for a new housing development in Gävle, a city far further south, against the wishes of some passionate local protesters.
The art piece — that is, the planting of the tree — is named “Apple tree in midnight sun”.
Say What?
There’s going to be a new champion.
Hot dog eating contestant James Webb
The world of competitive hot dog eating is going through some major upheaval — now that the nearly unbeatable, 16-time Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest winner Joey Chestnut has bowed out. Webb, from Australia, already holds a world record for eating 70 doughnuts in eight minutes. He was narrowly edged out in a victory to Patrick Bertoletti of Chicago, who ate 58 dogs in the 10-minute timeslot according to the Associated Press.
CRIKEY RECAP
“Early profiles of West Australian Senator Fatima Payman — Parliament’s first hijab-wearer, first Afghan Australian, and youngest member — feel somewhat prescient.
The union organiser and community leader hadn’t expected to win in 2022; a red wave saw her elected from the usually unwinnable third spot on the WA Labor ticket. But the comments given by the newly elected Payman now seem prophetic, foreshadowing those she made last week after crossing the floor on a Greens motion to recognise the state of Palestine — a position that aligned with the ALP platform, but went against its binding parliamentary caucus.”
“Former Liberal Party staffer Bruce Lehrmann will face trial on two counts of rape after the Toowoomba Magistrates Court found there was sufficient evidence to take the case to trial. The Toowoomba charges were an archetypal social media-era story, with months elapsing between Lehrmann being charged and the media being able to name him, beyond noting that a ‘high-profile man’ was facing rape charges in Queensland.
Similarly to the case of George Pell four years earlier (though it did not lead to the same dramatic clash between media and judiciary) his identity was widely known among journalists, political and legal figures, and a big chunk of politics-pilled Twitter users, where Lehrmann was frequently named, defying a non-publication order.”
“What does it say when the party of business is far more vocal about the need for much more stringent regulation of business than the party of labour?
Peter Dutton’s embrace this week of company break-up powers, at least for the retail sector, is less surprising when you realise where he is from. Dutton is a Queensland Liberal-National leading the Liberal Party — meaning the Liberals look a lot more like the Nationals on his watch (thus the big-government nuclear idea, which is the ultimate National Party boondoggle).
I mean, hello — who, exactly, did Liberals feeling ‘ambushed’ over the supermarkets issue think they were electing as leader in 2022? Yet another Sydney Liberal?”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Hezbollah fires 200 rockets into Israel after commander killed (Al Jazeera)
Hurricane Beryl churns toward Mexico after leaving destruction in Jamaica and eastern Caribbean (Associated Press)
Ukraine calls them meat assaults: Russia’s brutal plan to take ground (BBC)
Democratic Republic of Congo military court sentences 25 soldiers to death for fleeing fighting (Africa News)
New Cuban radar site near US military base could aid China spying, think tank says (Reuters)
‘We’ve been there’: French Resistance fighters speak out against rule by the far right (France24)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Who can we blame for Joe Biden’s gamble? Angry Democrats are starting to point the finger — Emma Brockes (The Guardian): “In the wake of Joe Biden’s disastrous performance in the US presidential debate last week, the national tone shifted from shock and horror to fury. Biden himself, pityingly regarded, was spared the worst of the criticism.
Instead, the two people who seem to have incurred the most anger have been his wife, Jill — suddenly thrust into the unhappy mould of the new Nancy Reagan — and, esoterically, the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Biden’s refusal to stand aside has thrown everyone back to RBG’s late-in-life vanity that ended in the overturning of Roe v Wade. Terrible as things are, there was, it has to be said, some relief in finally being able to say the quiet part out loud.”
Think the Middle East doesn’t affect us? Payman’s exit tells a different story — Roger Shanahan (SMH) ($): “Few would have predicted that nine months after the October Hamas terrorist attack against Israel, an Australian Labor Party senator would break decades of caucus solidarity and cross the floor of Parliament to vote with the crossbench. Nor could anyone have predicted that local uprisings in Syria beginning in March 2011 would eventually see several hundred Australian men and women travel to that country and Iraq to support a group committed to attacking Australia, and that dozens more would help facilitate or conduct attacks in Australia itself.
By contrast, equally significant and tragic world events, such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or the civil war in Sudan that has raged for the past 18 months, have made barely a ripple in Australian society. Claims of genocide being carried out in Gaza are routinely raised in Parliament and in street protests, while Greens leader Adam Bandt has accused the Israeli military of engineering a famine.”
