UK By-elections thread, 2021-

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Reports that Scott Benton (Blackpool South) is facing a 10 day suspension, with the Standards Committee ruling on his lobbying case in the coming fortnight. Guido and the Mirror are main sources for the story right now, so waiting for confirmation.

Conservative majority of under 4,000 - so probably a cakewalk for Labour if a vacancy is forced.

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Rutherglen was called at 1.25am in 2019, so shouldn't be too late declaring, at least compared to some of the rural seats we've had in the past few years!

BBC coverage doesn't start until 23.40 - runs until 2am.

Unlike recent seats, they've picked someone local, rather than one of their national names as the host - BBC Scotland's Martin Geissler. Which is kinda nice.

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David Linden (SNP) is now going with the line that it's a bad thing that Labour are winning over Conservative voters, because it proves they're just *Red Tories*.

I know better than most that there's a history of anti-Tory purity politics in Scotland, but Linden is taking it to some odd places tonight. It's one thing to accuse Labour of being centrist. But saying they're morally wrong for expanding their vote share (and seemingly winning more votes than the SNP) is some wild stuff.

Edit: Newsnight is holding interviews with Linden and Ian Murray, for context.

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Little bit of news creeping in:

• BBC projecting a 1am declaration - Herald's rumour that declaration would come by midnight has been walked back.
• Votes expected to be verified at midnight, so should get turnout number around then.
• Jackie Baillie (Labour Depute Leader) is grinning like it's Christmas, while Keith Brown (SNP Depute Leader) is looking a tad funereal. That's basically in character for both, so don't read *too much* into that, evne if it does confirm some priors.
• Rumours about a lost Conservative deposit abound

Edit: Turnout for the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by election is 37.19%
Total votes: 30,531

To put turnout in perspective, it's just below the 39% average turnout in byelections across this parliament. But higher than the 34% turnout in the 2021 Airdrie and Shotts by-election (the other Scottish by-election in this parliament).

Edit at 00.30: SNP and Labour candidates have both arrived at the count. Anas Sarwar (ScotLab leader) is in attendance, Humza Yousaf will be staying in Edinburgh.

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https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1710094705667567753
Those are Blair-era numbers - and the SNP reduced to *half* the Labour vote. Their vote share is smaller than Labour's 9,446 majority.

Hard to describe that as anything other than a landslide.

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Mid Beds I suspect is going to be close between Lab and Con with the Lib Dems in a respectable but clear third, and my guess is that no-one else saves their deposit.  I'm not exactly confident about either aspect of that, though, still less who actually comes out on top.

Aye - three saved deposits feels right. If voters believe it's a three-way race, it's unlikely to be a hotspot of Reform or Green voters.

One other thing - Ann Kelly is going for her fourth consecutive run in the seat for the Monster Raving Loony Party. A genuine perennial candidate! Struggling to get my head around spending £2,000 on lost deposits.

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Labour's candidate in Mid Beds is shooting videos with (alleged) Lib Dem voters, who've crossed over to "keep the Tories out". Ironically, it's all very Lib Dem in the approach and language.

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Per Bloomberg's Alex Wickham, Conservative sources are briefing that they're still confident of narrowly holding both Tamworth and Mid Beds, in next week's by-elections.

Pinch of salt, given CCHQ's mishandled expectation management this year.

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I know it's a Lib Dem leaflet - but still, by even their own recent standards, this is a stretch:

Especially given the graph seems to be invented wholecloth.

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https://twitter.com/breeallegretti/status/1713858746709897346
For the reference, his seat of Wellingborough has an 18k majority, and was held by Labour between 1997-2005. Slimmer majority than Tamworth or Selby, but still a big lift required.

I believe the Standards Committee has to sign off, and he gets several weeks to appeal before this is actioned.

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I'm with JimJam on this one - there's some cope/spin in there that definitely reads like it's setting the groundwork for a Friday morning media round. It does *read* like it's been leaked by CCHQ for that reason. Those lines do seem harder to run if they lose both, rather than just Tamworth (given what double losses would do to the media narrative), so I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Also, Dorries has chipped in to try and undercut the strategy, which seems on-brand (given we're only having her by-election thanks to a desire for revenge against the party anyway):
https://twitter.com/NadineDorries/status/1714330745613828218
I'm currently leaning towards Labour making it in Tamworth and coming up short in Mid Beds, but that's all vibes at this point.

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Small subplot in the Tamworth by-election today. The Conservative candidate shared a joke flowchart, telling parents who can't feed their children to "f**k off", a year or two back - which was discovered by the papers yesterday.

It came up at PMQs, and the candidate has now given an interview where he offers a qualified apology:
https://twitter.com/BestForBritain/status/1714687235230961855
Very late in the game for this to have *any* sort of impact. But given it got picked up in the Commons, and then by the candidate himself, thought it was at least worth noting.

If nothing else, it reopens the discussion about the state of Conservative vetting. I'm not saying they should have dropped him, but surely they could have at least taken a skim through his public Facebook profile for anything the Mirror might jump on?

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Last trip back to my hometown, the prices had almost doubled. And that’s in a fishing village that lands most of the fish they then fillet and fry. Crazy times.

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Aye...

Lots of commentary about the impact of Storm Babet on election-day turnout, but hard to know how seriously to take that. Especially given the commentary is getting a bit "rain in NoVa".

Lib Dem line in Mid Beds is quite defensive, sounds more like they're geared up for third place than anything else.

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https://twitter.com/joncraig/status/1715149656953328117
https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1715153322871521673
As they say - big if true.

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Yeah - it’s a weird line to take. If Labour do win, they’re piggybacking on a campaign they tried badly to suppress. And if Labour lose, they’ll be pilloried for vote-splitting.

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https://twitter.com/joncraig/status/1715160138229625165

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Peter Kyle (who’s been running the show down there), says Labour have done “very well” in Mid Beds. Still not calling it, but…

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https://twitter.com/ionewells/status/1715173242040643752

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Aye, and Labour’s Jonathan Ashworth is doing some sort of comedy routine on the BBC. All the body language says they’re home and dry. Mixed signals!

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Mid Beds provisionally expected in the next 20 minutes.

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Second-largest Con-Lab swing since 1945 in Tamworth tonight.

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…

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When presented with two warning by-elections earlier this year, Sunak put all his eggs in the Uxbridge basket. He ripped up his party’s climate strategy, pandered to motorists, and went full anti-woke.

And now - if tonight’s told us anything, it’s that these new by-elections look a lot more like Selby than Uxbridge.

Feel like Sunak might have a credibility problem emerging here. He can’t u-turn on all those policies - he’s used his first, and possibly only conference speech to stake his reputation on them.

So what now? 

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With these kind of polls and by-election results, the Tories will only call an election at latest possible date, maybe just in January 2025.

Even with Rishi Sunak and Greg Hands running CCHQ, I doubt they’d run an election over Christmas, amid what’s likely to be another NHS crisis, in weather conditions that the Conservatives’ pensioner base-vote won’t be allowed to venture out in.

For my money - it’s still a tossup between going in May (sacrificing six months in office to avoid having to face the outcome of another round of local elections), or October (which means spending the whole summer recess as a defacto election campaign - which could backfire, giving the funding disparity between the major parties).