In 2018, the Russian presidential election produced an entirely expected victory for the incumbent Vladimir Putin, who won 78 per cent of the vote. The process was widely condemned by observers and beset by allegations of fraud and ballot stuffing.
In Liverpool Walton in 2017 and 2019, we saw an even more emphatic result – minus the vote-rigging and the Potemkin competition between regime-controlled candidates. Labour’s Dan Carden won around 85 per cent of the ballots cast; higher than even an autocratic Putin cares to muster for himself in the pantomime theatre of a managed democracy.
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