This is Sarah Edwards. Soon to be sworn in as Tamworths’ MP under a Labour Government with Kier Starmer as Prime Minister. This is what we in Tamworth are waking up to today, although Debunking was one of the sad few to stay up and watch the election results in real time. After many strong coffees, we felt we should write something.
Notice we didn’t say Sarah Edwards becomes MP for Moseley North. Because the fact is, after her trial period of 8 months, the people of Tamworth have indeed decided she is worthy to be their full time MP. Which is just a stark fact that even Tory sympathisers Debunking Tamworth have to acknowledge and accept and we congratulate her on her genuine victory (this time) regardless of what we think of her. It’s a surprise to us, because in our own opinion Edwards has done little to earn being worthy (oh do come on and give us some room to be bitter). We stand by everything we have said about her and truly believe she likely won’t be the best representative Tamworth could have hoped for. We expect her climb up the slippery government pole to ascend new heights, as rather than dig right in to the job for Tamworth, she was immediately earmarked for greater things within her party. She is a career politician from the off, and that is not good. She is however very much our elected member of parliament.
Edwards as part of a strong Labour Government now has to prove that she and that Government will actually do what they said they would for Tamworth. She has made much of reopening a police station front desk, and clearing out the Asylum hotel by the Snowdome. Many people will be watching how this government deals with immigration especially, given that reform have done so well on that platform in Tamworth. Labour have history of opening the floodgates to immigration and asylum seekers, with Cherie Blair having made a nice packet out of it nearly 20 years ago now. Unfortunately we expect more of the same. What can we do now the genie is out of the bottle, they’ve got 5 years and all of that pent up woke energy has got to go somewhere.
So here we are, a red dawn for the UK and Tamworth. Of course it was inevitable and we here at Debunking knew it was coming. As did the Tories whose battle cry became “let’s stop the Labour supermajority”. Well they’re in now, and inevitably the finger pointing has started amongst senior Tories in the party as to what went wrong. Those in Westminster of all parties have a disconnect generally with the people, and we don’t see that changing any time soon. Tories though need to shed their skin and decide what they want to be in their next iteration if they hope to win back any seats at the next general.
Here in Tamworth, next year our County Council is up for grabs and we can already of course see where this is going. It is the same back and forth played out over the decades across all levels of government. Do we believe there is a third option in Reform? No we don’t, and will never buy in to the Farage hype. Now they’ve been encouraged, the likes of Reforms Ian Cooper who amassed a sizeable amount of votes here will be encouraged to continue. Will he take a stab at a County seat next year? Quite likely.
It’s time for us here at Debunking to consider our future too. We have been here for a relatively short period of time, but have covered a fairly tumultuous period of political activity which makes it seems like many years. We’ve heard plenty of positive and negative opinions about us from many places as we move amongst those who speculate on our identities. Are we fighting a losing battle against trolls and ignorance we have wondered many times.
We genuinely worry for the people of Tamworth and indeed the country who have so little interest and knowledge of the world around them. The likes of Facebook have essentially ruined whatever dignity there was in debate and triumphant nasty unjustified tribalism is rife. Is there a place for us here, an outpost on the Internet that few who are most in need to see different opinions actually see? We will consider our options in the coming weeks, as we see the general election as somewhat a watershed moment for our cause and mission here at Debunking.
For now, we are going to go and get some sleep!
Full Tamworth election results can be seen here.
