Eloise's Thoughts and Fancies

In the UK, we have a variety of local elections, for councillors and mayors, every year on a four yearly cycle, so roughly a quarter of the seats change every year. It so happens that this year in the cycle all the seats that were up for grabs were in England. In addition, there was a by-election because the former Labour MP for Runcorn had stepped down after being found guilty of assaulting a constituent. Not a good look for an MP. The big headline is that Reform UK won the Runcorn by-election. Labour losing is, perhaps, not a shock. Incumbent governments tend not to do well in by-elections, even in (formerly) safe seats like Runcorn. Turnouts are low, indeed the total votes in the by-election were lower than the votes the now disgraced MP got last year. There’s always a protest against those in power - every government has to make hard decisions and those upset people. Labour are doing that really spectacularly “well”. Removing the winter fuel allowance and the welfare reforms may ...

Final places will be determined this weekend but the normal procession of matches on Super Saturday has been disrupted by outside events. Italy were meant to host Wales in Rome but a slightly more important event, the funeral of Pope Francis, was also taking place so the rugby was pushed back 23 hours. The part of me that is an atheist rugby tragic might want to grumble, but the part of me that avidly consumes the news every day thinks that the pope’s funeral is just a bit more important. Anyway, on the reviews. The Matches Scotland v Ireland I wanted to like this game, but for large periods it seemed to promise much and not really deliver. That’s not to say there wasn’t plenty of effort but it felt like a game where both sides were well matched and, rather than producing an interesting tussle, they largely nullified each other. Even when one side or another crossed the try line, the ball was held up several times. I can enjoy a good defensive tussle, but this didn’t feel like that ...