UK By-elections thread, 2021-

[JimJamUK]

Wellingborough is one of those places that has massively deindustrialised over the decades in a way that has been overlooked compared to elsewhere but has of course been very nasty to Labour’s prospects of winning the constituency. That said, it’s also the sort of place where they have been bouncing back the most in the past couple of years (tho no local elections since 2021) so could produce another truly appalling by-election result for the Tories.

[JimJamUK]

There is quite a bit of cope in that ‘leaked’ memo given it talks about how Sunak is relatively very popular compared to his party but Starmer is not (relative to what?). That Starmer’s personal ratings are much better than Sunak’s is conveniently left out.

There’s also a lot of focus on the limited number of switchers. Given this is a by-election, a lot of people (including potential switchers) will just be staying home, so for them to find 8% of all Conservative voters are intending to vote in the Tamworth by-election for Labour is not as comforting as they seem to think.

[JimJamUK]

How do you think Little Aston voted in the 1996 by-election?

FWIW, the Tories got 84% in a straight fight in 1995…

[JimJamUK]

How do you think Little Aston voted in the 1996 by-election?

FWIW, the Tories got 84% in a straight fight in 1995…

What a ridiculous place.

Ben Walker (Britain Elects/New Statesman) did a broadcast this afternoon which included estimates of how each ward in Mid Beds and Tamworth voted yesterday (YouTube link).  The numbers for the ward containing Little Aston don't look as lopsided as I'd expected, though I think his model does have a tendency to even things out across constituencies.

The Little Aston ward now also includes the village of Stonnall, which while very Conservative, is nonetheless noticeably less rusted on than Little Aston.

[JimJamUK]

I don't know much about U.K. Politics. My question I have . if Tories are losing Mid Bedfordshire district how many safe seats can they have? 100?

In a by-election held today, probably less than 100. In a general election, there’s probably ~125 seats* they could realistically expect to hold in a landslide of say 15% Labour lead nationally.

*Not all 125 would be ‘safe’ ahead of time, but there would be some combination of differential swing, split opposition vote etc that would save them (some surprising holds, some surprising losses).

[JimJamUK]

Rightly or wrongly, the Lib Dem’s tend to have a consistent but narrow approach to which by-elections they target. These are seats they are already the challenger in, and seats where Labour are perceived as unable to win. The latter can vary, as shown by Labour campaigning properly in Mid Bedfordshire but not Chesham/Tiverton/North Shropshire.

[JimJamUK]

It strikes me as the sort of constituency where the Lib Dem’s would (successfully) target instead of Labour. Ironically the Greens are clearly 2nd on council results but I seriously doubt they could challenge across the whole constituency.

[JimJamUK]

Solihull would definitely be an interesting by-election because the Lib Dems really are much weaker locally now than when they were winning the seat. (I think they actually have no councillors within the boundaries of the parliamentary seat; the Lib Dem seats on Solihull council are all in Meriden.) I wonder if the Greens would seriously contest.

The Greens kinda fell apart in Solihull the past few years. Some of their councillors went independent, they’ve lost a couple of seats to the Tories (in the Meriden constituency), and they’ve failed to make further gains which looked likely pre-2021.

[JimJamUK]

Is someone going to do a write-up of the seat for the benefit of the uninitiated? Could be, ahem, interesting.

It’s basically the southern part of Blackpool (and a majority of the council itself). It’s largely working class, in some cases very (very) poor. It’s actually not really a pensioners seat despite the reputation, though the suburbs are noticeably older and more middle class than most of the seat. Blackpool is of course a famous seaside resort. It went into decline many decades ago, and is basically the poster child of downmarket British holiday destinations.

Politically, it was originally a safe Conservative seat. I don’t believe boundary changes have been that big, so for the Conservative majority to be smaller in 1983 than 1945 is suggestive of a long term trend towards Labour. This occurred in many seaside towns, but the marked decline of the town will have helped. Labour finally gained it with a large majority in 1997, and still held on in 2010. It looked fairly secure at this point, but of course 2019 happened and both the size of the majority and the ~70% Leave vote led to a Conservative gain. The swing at the 2023 local elections was on the lower end of what Labour was getting in this sort of place, but not enough to suggest a Conservative hold, especially in a scandal caused by-election.

[JimJamUK]

My prediction for Wellingborough is as follows:

LAB 51
CON 29
RFM 7
IND 6
GRN 3
LDM 2
OTH 2

Which, putting the precise numbers aside because they don't actually matter, is that if Bone stands (him standing is not in itself a prediction, just to be clear) he will just about save his deposit but overall perform rather poorly. I might be reading too much into past support for right-of-the-Conservatives parties in my Reform prediction but I underestimated them last time, so. A steady Green vote on the surface, plenty of churn beneath, but the Lib Dem vote collapses and tactically heads for Labour.

I think you’ve overestimated the swing in Wellingborough. Repeating the swing in Selby & Ainsty/Tamworth you would get a Labour win of about 10%.

[JimJamUK]

Choosing Bone would always have been an odd choice considering their campaign nationally is against Tory sleaze.

Are they really campaigning against sleaze? That seems much more of a Labour thing. Reform are more immigration, tax and net zero.

[JimJamUK]

It looks like we can add Kingswood to the list of likely by-elections, following Chris Skidmore's statement just now.

It's in the Bristol suburban belt outside the city boundary in South Gloucestershire.  It's a marginal, Tory-held since 2010, with some mining history, and is being split at the next election, with the more Labour bits going into a new (and essentially safe Labour) Bristol North East, and the rest having Jacob Rees-Mogg inflicted on them, at least as Tory candidate.

Emphasis on the word ‘history’, as the coalfield closed so early and the suburbanisation of Bristol is so dominant that it has had basically no electoral impact for decades now.

[JimJamUK]

Reform UK have announced they will not stand in ‘protest’ against the “disgraceful abuse” of the soon to be former member.

Given current polling would get them 10%, and UKIP would have done a lot better in a by-election, you can read into that what you will.

[JimJamUK]

The wrong decision.

May narrow the margin a little given the focus on him being a London mayor, and it also suggests Labour are not seriously targeting Mogg given they’d want an incumbent in place to challenge him in the redrawn seat.

[JimJamUK]

On the subject of Rochdale, is that horrible Mrs Duffy woman still around?

Apparently so, as in 2020 she was expressing concern for unemployed immigrants and coming up with policies to help them.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/woman-gordon-brown-called-bigoted-21942544

[JimJamUK]

Man - this by-election is absolutely cursed. You’ve got bigotry from the Green and Labour candidates, Simon Danczuk flirting with the Great Replacement conspiracy on social media, and Galloway racing to outdo even his own track record.

It’s a testament to the anonymity of the modern Lib Dems that they’re not even in the conversation, despite holding this seat within the past decade and a half (although, that’s hardly going to be the Liberal MP people think of when you mention them on the doorstep - which might be the problem, come to think of it).

Presumably Labour are praying they overcome Galloway despite taking a large step backwards, and can then deselect Ali and parachute Waugh in for later in the year?

Am I alone in thinking that Ali’s controversial remarks will hurt the Galloway vote? It’s obviously going to lose some voters and turnout will fall due to the lack of campaigning, but presumably it helps dent Galloway’s Gaza based campaign.

[JimJamUK]

I assume that Azhar Ali continues to run as an independent?

He’s still the Labour candidate on the ballot paper, and will presumably have some local support to continue campaigning.

[JimJamUK]

Surprised at the Reform vote in Kingswood, as that’s what national polling suggests they should actually be getting. On the other hand, Wellingborough is still an underperformance, especially given the collapse in the Tory vote and Reform supposedly targeting the constituency.

[JimJamUK]

Reform had a high profile candidate in Kingswood, surprised more wasn't made of that at the time.

In Reforms case, that is very much a relative statement.

[JimJamUK]

Made the mistake of reading some of the linked Twitter threads, and was reminded of how much better Atlas is than most other sites for discussing politics. Bunch of morons going on about how there was no swing to Labour in absolute vote count and it conservatives only lost because of turnout.

The fun thing is you genuinely can’t tell whether such people voted Conservative or Labour at the last election!

[JimJamUK]

Mmm... relations with certain key people became very difficult when Respect broke up (I don't know the details), so he might have his reasons to avoid East Birmingham.

But it is the sort of place with an unpopular local Labour council and was the epicentre of ‘anti-woke’ Muslim protests…

[JimJamUK]

I think Stephen Flynn is the other sponsor.

Different bald Scotsman, it’s Alba’s Neale Hanvey.

So another Scot who’s famously not a fan of Israel or transgender people.