UK By-elections thread, 2021-

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Shropshire was v strange because there was actually barely no liberal tradition at all- I feel the possible scale of tactical voting in 2024 could really cause a lot of surprises.

There had been quite a strong one, but a while back and not enough to take the seat: it was one of those areas (common in the Marches for various reasons) where the Liberals needed universal manhood suffrage to unlock their full electoral potential, except that by the time this happened the party was in freefall. They retained a solid core vote and had a minor revival, including at local government level, in the 60s and 70s but things didn't quite click and cohere and they fell back. But the circumstances were a huge deal at the by-election last year, and the Tories responded to being on the back foot incredibly badly and it was then one error after another...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Simon Lightwood selected for Labour.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Simon Lightwood selected for Labour.

A rather rude hunch but wonder if this is a reaction to the fact he very much seemed the spare, rather than the heir on the shortlist.

I don't know, he's an obviously strong candidate on paper from a selection point of view (quite a few union endorsements, member of multiple Party panels, Co-op Party membership etc), so I think it's more a case of two 'acceptable' candidates being put forward and the members choosing the one with strong local ties: he's who I expected to be selected anyway! A selection that's rigged for someone is generally that candidate plus one or more candidates picked to be as unappealing to the selectorate as possible.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Worth noting that most of Labour's district councillors in the area are not young even in political terms, which usually precludes trying for a parliamentary career.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It wasn't so much that he was from Birmingham but that he managed to make it extremely clear that he had no interest in the constituency other than as a necessary requirement for a political career. He actually had some biographical details of the sort that could have been used to easily neutralise any quibbles about a parachuted candidacy (especially as Birmingham isn't that far away: most people in Shropshire are not that parochial.), all that army doctor stuff and so on; could have played very well in a constituency with military ties as significant, as overwhelming, as North Shropshire. But instead all people heard was a man who wanted to cut pensions and appeared not only to know nothing of the area, but to have no interest in ever doing anything to rectify that state of affairs. And this went down worse than it would have done in most places as historically the Conservative nomination had been controlled, informally but absolutely, by the NFU in North Shropshire - the candidates picked were never simple local farmers (usually they were very posh!), but were always people who could easily demonstrate that they understood the concerns of agriculture and the many industries locally dependent on it.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

At least on paper, the Tory candidate for T/H looks fairly strong. I think any doubt about which of the two seats they were going to prioritise holding has been pretty much removed now.

I suspect very strongly that they will go right up to the spending limit - which for those who don't know is as high as £100,000 for by-elections; which is much higher than for constituency campaigning at a GE - to try to hang on there. It will probably be a very brutal, very nasty campaign.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

What will all the money be spent on ? Flyers and online ads loose effectivness at a certain point.

Daily leaflet drops (at least after a certain point in the campaign) quite possibly produced differently for different parts of the constituency, hiring venues, various stunts (including large billboards and so on), adverts in the local media, perhaps some full-time staff for the campaign, perhaps market research and/or polling during it, that kind of thing. I never said anything about effectiveness, mind...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It isn't impossible - things only fell apart for them in North Shropshire in the last week or so by most accounts: they might still have lost as the circumstances were really foul and the campaign a shocker, but it would have been relatively tight - but I think at this stage it would surely be too early to be sure. I suppose the thinking is that they can buy their way to a win as the candidate is local? I don't know.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

T & H and N Shrops have a fair amount in common demographically

Strikingly similar, actually. A large agricultural element dominated by dairying and several small-but-sizeable market towns with more of an industrial history and, to an extent, present, than outsiders might assume. Those fancy carpets are made in the constituency (Axminster) and so on.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Shouldn't it be easy enough for the Liberal Democrats to fundraise the money they need to compete ?

They have a long history of being able to concentrate resources to extreme pitch when required.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yes, whereas North Shropshire and Tiverton & Honiton fall much more obviously into the category of usually monstrously safe seats where a by-election would traditionally have always entailed the risk of slipping on a Liberal banana-skin. The significance of the North Shropshire result, of course, is that it confirmed that as both memories of the Coalition and the electoral salience of Brexit have faded, this remains true in such places.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Anyone whose been out in Wakefield would have seen that the independent candidate Akef Akbar (an ex-Tory councillor) is campaigning heavily, his posters are everywhere - probably more than for Labour and certainly more than for the Tories (of which I saw none). 9/10 times. independents do poorly, and the fact he has a lot of posters on lampposts isn’t indicative of actual support, but he may end up taking a good chunk of Tory votes which increases the overall margin of victory for Labour.

I saw on Twitter a Labour activist who has been to the seat claim that he might take more from Labour than the Conservatives. Given that he’s a Muslim from the usually safest Labour ward in the constituency, that may well be the case.

Suspect that will depend on how much traction he gets outside his ward: if the answer is none, then he will mostly take votes (and not all that many on balance - the Pakistani population in Wakefield East was about 12% in 2011 and while it's clearly higher now and more likely to turn out in low turnout polls this isn't exactly Manningham) from Labour. If he gets any traction elsewhere it will be as an Independent Conservative, in which case he'll presumably take more from his former party.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Very early muttering about a Reading (East?) by election if Alok Sharma quits to take up a UN climate position.

Doing so would be an FU to the Government as it would be a hard by-election to defend- I didn’t realise how marginal it was even in 2019.

West. Sharma's performance in 2019 was surprisingly poor, but it is an absurdly socially polarised constituency.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Boris visiting Tiverton.

Was rumoured to be happening- did he visit North Shropshire?

A mildly interesting fact is that Prime Ministers never used to do campaign visits to constituencies holding by-elections. Blair breached this once (Beckenham) but it didn't work out, so never did again, and so things remained until May started making such trips normal and Johnson completely routine.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Do visits by high profile figures tend to make much difference in by elections ?

Mr Tony was massively popular in the late 90s and his visits (CL was an adult at the time and will remember stuff that I won't, so we'll run with the plural here) made no difference to the results so...

Meanwhile, closer association with a bad result then becomes a risk.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yeah this is an interesting situation because, unlike North Shropshire or even more so Chesham & Amersham, there's no sense that the Conservatives have been caught napping here: they're throwing the kitchen sink at the place. Which means a very different dynamic. LibDems putting out the obvious tactical squeeze message tells us they think it's competitive, but we all assumed that anyway!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

If the Old Bexley and Sidcup by election  was being held right now. Would the conservatives be likely to loose it ?

I don't think we're yet at that point, but there's a chance the majority might have fallen to around two thousand votes or so, which would have certainly looked bad.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

issuing correction on a previous post of mine, regarding the serial killer Dr Harold Shipman. you do not, under any circumstances, "gotta hand it to him"

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Ordinary people who are not particularly political make jokes at his expense quite frequently now. That's... not a good situation to be in.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

No, I don't think this is correct. Everyone knew that e.g. Crewe & Nantwich would be lost by Labour in 2008, but it was still a significant blow when it came - this was also true of by-election defeats suffered by the Major administration and so on. The idea that all the damage is 'priced in' is cope from court 'journalists'.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Anyway, the Lib Dems released some more numbers.  They now claim that they and the Tories are tied on 45%.

Do they now.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Let's just say that issue noted with horror at Bolsover in 2017 was (is?) not an issue unique to that constituency amongst East Midlands constituencies outside the Nottingham City constituencies...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I suspect the main issue is the numerical majority vs. percentage majority - it's absurd, but a lot of MPs and political insiders still tend to think in terms of the former, even though it's really not that helpful to do so. But 'we're going to get hammered' is quite a shift in briefing from a few days ago: perhaps a different source, perhaps it's just a hard constituency to get a handle on, perhaps a matter of different briefing games to different journalists, I don't know.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

You do sometimes get a last minute stampede effect with Liberal challenges in by-elections, so we shall see...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

How plausible is it that Tory loyalists are temporarily switching to Lib Dem (or just staying home) just for this specific by-election, purely as a protest against Boris damaging the party's overall prospects?  I would imagine that even if Boris is still leading the party into the next GE they'll all fall back in line (because GEs actually matter), but for now?

Very plausible.  Even in 1997 the Tories won Christchurch back.

Yes, it's the 'free hit' issue. You can quite happily vote against the a government that you have come to dislike for this or that reason without risking letting in a government led by those awful Labour chappies. Been a definite phenomenon since the late 1950s.