On the morning after the UK election results, senior members of the board arrived at work, only to find that someone had tied a large live donkey to the boardroom door. We feel the incident was connected to our insistence that Labour would only receive a majority somewhere around 20-30 Parliamentary seats, as opposed to the 170 they in fact obtained. And that therefore someone among the lower ranks of staff was trying to imply, that we, the Members of the Editorial Board of Learning, Science and Society were, collectively, a donkey.

But are we? Yes, Labour picked up many more seats than we expected. But if you look at their share of the vote, it was only 34%, just 10% above their Tory rivals. What’s worse, the turn out overall was 59.9%, which is appalling in the world’s oldest democracy. All in all, although we wish the new Government the very best, that isn’t much of a mandate. Not very different from only having a 28 seat margin perhaps? Maybe we are not so much Donkeys as Wise Owls after all. If you want to see how all this might pan out for Sir Keir Starmer and co, Larry Elliott of the Guardian has sketched a couple of possible roadmaps of the future her. [1[

Now as for the Donkey. Ok a joke’s a joke. But can someone please come and take it away? It smells, and the noise it makes during board meetings is intolerable. As for other matters, there aren’t enough rose beds in southern England to spread that lot on. There will be no enquiries into how it got sneaked in past security cameras and up the lift, no names called, PROVIDED SOMEONE COMES SOON AND TAKES THE BLOODY THING AWAY! OK?

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/jul/07/uk-economy-two-possible-endings

ukelection 2024 #sir keir starmer #rachel reeves #economics