UK By-elections thread, 2021-

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Uh oh. Galloway says he's standing in Rochdale.

By my count this will be the eighth essentially different constituency he's been a candidate in.

He'll presumably also be a candidate at the general election (probably not in Rochdale) and in the meantime I think he's also standing for the London Mayoralty. Quite a busy year for him.

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The hustings could be quite a spectacle.

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There's a definite possibility that the immediate weekend after Wellingborough and Kingswood could be one of 'those' weekends. You know, where journos spend all day refreshing their Twitter feeds to see if any other journo has made a tweet that mentions words such as 'confidence', 'letters' and 'resignations' in the previous few seconds.

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On the subject of Rochdale, is that horrible Mrs Duffy woman still around? Here is the video of the (in)famous showdown in 2010:

Note how when Brown says "you're a good woman etc", she says "yes I am" (or something to that effect). No sense of modesty whatsoever. That's what got me more than the whole immigration stuff that Brown landed himself in trouble for over this encounter.

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One is starting to suspect that the stars (or the asteroids) are aligning for another Galloway upset.

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This has now been dramatically transformed from the most boring to the most interesting of the trio of by-elections currently taking place.

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Polls are open in Wellingborough and Kingswood.

Unlike other recent by-elections, the BBC doesn't seem to have any dedicated overnight coverage scheduled. BBC One broadcasts BBC News throughout most of the night, but I think it usually does anyway. In any case we are long past the days when broadcasters would commission exit polls for by-elections.

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One thought I've just had is that both of these seats fall into a category that doesn't get talked about much by the commentariat these days. That is, the classic English marginal and regular bellwether. Okay, maybe Kingswood more than Wellingborough. I don't think either of them tend to be placed in the Red and Blue Wall nonsense.

On a rather grim related note, don't you just know that the phrase 'Yellow Wall' is going to be heard a lot during the next Parliament if the Lib Dems make major advances in the South of England. Is the Tory leader appealing to it, would an alternative Tory leader be more appealing to it etc.

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Poor result for the Tories, but dreadful for Sunak himself.

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I wish Labour had gotten 0.5% more in Kingswood, or the Tories 0.5% less, or Reform 0.5% less etc. It would have spared us the stupid "Vote Reform, get Labour" comments.

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"Labour actually lost 540 votes. It's just Tory voters staying at home; they're not shifting to Labour."

Come to think of it, I'm surprised that idiot from Massachusetts hasn't shown up in this thread to make this point.

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Average British political tweet regarding an election result is like this:

OMG, a party I don't like won this seat by 0.000000009%. Everyone who resides in this seat must have something wrong with them. Also, if Party X had stood down in favour of Party Y, then Party Y would have won, as the people who vote for Party X and Party Y all believe the same things and they are all decent people (even though no one in this seat is decent). Also, this (a ward result in some obscure part of the country) proves that the polls are completely wrong.

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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68375450

But it was clear from speaking to voters in the rain-lashed town centre on Tuesday evening that some Labour supporters were either not aware of him being dropped by the party or did not care.

Truly bizarre. Not so much the 'don't care' part but the 'not aware' part. The dropping of Ali was the main national news headline for a couple of days. Surely anyone who is engaged enough to be voting in a by-election (or even aware that there is a by-election on) would also at least be glancing at national news headlines, especially when your town is a major subject in them. Were there people voting in the Bermondsey by-election of 1983 with the presumption that Peter Tatchell was a heterosexual Labour moderate?

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https://twitter.com/NickGriffinBU/status/1763133155408564608?s=20

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He’s not exactly tweeting like a man expecting to win either.

Mostly it just seems to be retweets. Over the past few hours the only two tweets composed by him are a video of him out and about on the streets and a post regarding alleged Labour corruption. I believe he's strongly criticised returning officers on those occasions where he's won.

Incidentally he created his account in July 2008, well before Twitter became a prominent platform in politics, here or elsewhere. Must be one of the longest running accounts of any notable British political figure.

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Mason (BBC) says that "Team Galloway are sounding confident".

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LBC reporter:

https://twitter.com/HenryRiley1/status/1763328899583537530

A further tweet says that Chris Williamson (Galloway's Deputy and another former Labour MP) is going to the count. Usually a sign of a good night for any party when they are getting their biggest guns out. Galloway himself has been known not to turn up to declarations when he hasn't done well.

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The above Henry Riley thread now quotes Galloway's campaign manager as saying that they have won.

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Riley (LBC) saying that the independent David Tully has done well. Probably means not much more than a saved deposit.

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Saull (BBC) saying that the 'central areas' are being counted and Galloway is performing well as expected. Not exactly precinct level reporting but about as specific as you usually get here.

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Henry Riley is now reporting that Tully's team say he has come a "comfortable second".

The fact that this is the second solid rumour/report after 'Galloway has won comfortably' suggests that the latter is probably accurate. The barrier separating 'dodgy early rumours/reports/spin' and 'this is how it's going to turn out' is probably around midnight in most overnight counts.

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https://twitter.com/mshafiquk/status/1763352178586968114?s=20

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Tom Harwood (who makes Owen Jones resemble a centenarian) of GB News says that the declaration could be within the next hour.

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Salt required, but Farage says some boxes are 95% Galloway.

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Can Galloway hold the seat in the general election?

The only certainty is that it will be quite a nasty campaign.