UK By-elections thread, 2021-

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Labour has one attacking Lib Dem drug policy

I realize this isn’t necessarily the best example, but still, genuine question: is there any “social issue” on which a Starmer government would be different from the current one?

Labour quite often attack the Lib Dems on drug policy.  Blair mentioned Oldham East & Saddleworth, referring to what happened there in 2010, but in its predecessor constituency Littleborough & Saddleworth there was a 1995 by-election where Labour (with the same candidate as in 2010) attacked the Lib Dem candidate as "high on taxes and soft on drugs"; as a Lab/LD swing voter, it's not unheard of for Labour leaflets to be more effective at making me want to vote Lib Dem than Lib Dem ones.

(Littleborough & Saddleworth was actually a Tory-held seat, but it was 1995, so they were out of contention and it was between the Lib Dems and Labour.  The Lib Dem won, but the 1997 boundary changes which replaced Littleborough with eastern Oldham made it more Labour and Labour took the seat then.)

Lab/LD squeeze material was often aimed at Pennine communities with decidedly reactionary attitudes. In 2010 I was campaigning in Cambridge and we were sent some national Lab/LD squeeze leaflets that went straight into a shredder, because we'd have haemhorraged votes if we put them out.

Oldham East & Saddleworth more than Hebden Bridge?

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The interesting thing is that I reckon even before the SNP wars begun this seat might have flipped- iirc even in May 2021 labour almost won a by election in Scotland despite putting absolutely no investment in it.

I can’t recall the seat name perhaps begun with an A?

Airdrie & Shotts.  The 2019 result there was quite similar to that in Rutherglen & Hamilton West and both had been very close in 2017 (though with different winners).  The SNP still won by 8 percentage points and the swing was only 2.5%, about half of what Labour need in R & HW.

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Because a lot of Scottish Conservative support seems to be associated with the "Unionist" part of the party's name more than the "Conservative" part, I've been assuming that their vote will fall considerably as voters focussed on Unionism switch to Labour to defeat the SNP.  In the prediction competition in another place, I didn't quite go as far as them losing their deposit, though.

This was my entry, to be taken with a pinch of salt of course:
Lab 49.1
SNP 35.8
Con 6.3
Ind for Scotland 2.9
Green 2.5
Lib Dem 1.1
Family 0.8
SSP 0.5
Volt 0.3
Reform UK 0.3
TUSC 0.1
Daly 0.1
Cooke 0.1
Emperor of India 0.1

[YL]

Because a lot of Scottish Conservative support seems to be associated with the "Unionist" part of the party's name more than the "Conservative" part, I've been assuming that their vote will fall considerably as voters focussed on Unionism switch to Labour to defeat the SNP.  

Which itself is kinda a big question mark that probably still won't be answered by a by-election with unique circumstances.  IIRC Labour have not led a Scottish poll so far (if I'm wrong, my mistake!) but they have come very close to the SNP.  But unionists locally have shown signs of strong tactical voting,  obviously made easier by the transfer system. 

Basically. If we are to go to a GE, the party that is going to be the primary challenger to the SNP in a particular seat is already locked in.  The Tories have approximately 10ish seats in the rural northeast and borders,  the Lib-Dems have 5ish depending upon their targeting, and Labour has the rest of the urban and suburban seats mostly but not exclusively in the central belt. How strong will the unionist tactical voting be when presented with this divide? How will the SNP defectors stand if the opposition is not Labour, but Labour are still obviously running in the seat? There obviously are still some seats the SNP just can't lose, but the answers to these questions will determine if it I'd a SNP loss, or a blowout.

I would expect tactical voting to be weaker in a General Election than in a by-election, because that's the usual pattern, and while there are various explanations for it I think they will apply here.  So I'd expect the Tories to do worse on Thursday (and Labour better) than they would in a General Election context.

Evidence from local by-elections doesn't actually suggest that the "Unionist" vote behaves that strongly as a bloc.  Tory voters do quite strongly prefer Labour over the SNP, but quite a lot of their votes end up as non-transferable rather than going Labour in the end.  And Labour votes often actually split quite evenly between the Tories and SNP, sometimes even favouring the latter.  So I think the Tory floor will be higher than, say, the Labour floor in Con/LD contests in England, and I'm sceptical that Labour supporters will help the Tories much at all in SNP/Con contests.

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If it were just Tamworth town I could see that, but the commuter and rural territory attached to it to make up the numbers is as bovinely Conservative as can be found anywhere in the entire country: Little Aston in particular. Surreal if true.

Yes, I think Labour are more likely than not to win this but I would be surprised if they are so dominant that the Tories have really written it off already.

One of the Lichfield district wards, Bourne Vale, hasn't had anyone challenge the Tories in local elections since 1999.  That's six consecutive unopposed elections, including the one this year.

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Polls have now opened in Rutherglen & Hamilton West.  Here's Andrew Teale's take.

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It looks like we're in "not even close" territory based on the vibes at the moment.

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It looks like we're in "not even close" territory based on the vibes at the moment.

New prediction for those active in the thread: Torys save their deposit or nah?

Cause it can go both ways. In a Scottish blowout, you would think they all just hopped over to the leading unionist. But there is also the possible of just the expected decline, and it's more the SNP voters staying home or getting turned off by the bad campaign.

I will stick with my prediction that there will be enough hard core Tories who won't vote Labour for them to just about hold it.

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Rumors that Labour have won with a 7% majority.

If that's accurate and the Tory vote has collapsed as much as rumoured, I don't think the SNP will actually be too unhappy: they'd be able to say that Labour only won with Tory votes and their own vote wouldn't have fallen that much.

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BBC now seem quite confident of a declaration around 1:15.  Seems a bit optimistic to me...

... and it's now 1:32 and they're saying 10 minutes.

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Didn't catch all the numbers, but that's a big Labour win.

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Lab 17845 (58.6%, +24.1)
SNP 8399 (27.6%, -16.6)
Con 1192 (3.9%, -11.1)
Lib Dem 895 (2.9%, -2.3)
Green 601 (2.0%, new)
Reform UK 403 (1.3%, new)
Family 319 (1.0%, new)
SSP 271 (0.9%, new)
Ind for Scotland 207 (0.7%, new)
TUSC 178 (0.6%, new)
Daly 81 (0.3%, new)
Volt 46 (0.2%, new)
Emperor of India 34 (0.1%, new)
Cooke 6 (0.0%, new)

[YL]

Rumors that Labour have won with a 7% majority.

If that's accurate and the Tory vote has collapsed as much as rumoured, I don't think the SNP will actually be too unhappy: they'd be able to say that Labour only won with Tory votes and their own vote wouldn't have fallen that much.

So it was miles out: the majority was actually 31%.  Dreadful result for the SNP, excellent for Labour.

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https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1710097379569893680

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How big an effect do people feel the cause of the by-election had?

Personally I tend to think that the effects of such things on results can get exaggerated: voters can be quite forgiving of parties when their previous incumbent had found their way into the MPs Behaving Badly file (as Andrew Teale calls it) and on the other hand voters can still punish an incumbent party after a death (see Chesham & Amersham). But that does not mean that causes don’t have some effect.

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My prediction, made this morning, is as follows:

54 LAB
33 CON
04 REF
03 LDM
03 GRN
03 OTH

Given Reform's electoral record so far, I've a measured skepticism about them outpolling even a tactically marginalized LDM/GRN.  Or certainly not at a 4% level...

They did get 6% in Old Bexley & Sidcup and Tamworth is likely to be relatively favourable territory for them.  If I actually believed Reform UK's polling I'd be predicting them to get 10%.

As for the Lib Dems and Greens, there's no evidence that either party is taking much interest and it is not an obvious hotbed of natural support for them.  So in fact, once you factor in the inevitable squeeze, I suspect that 6% for the two combined is on the high side; in Uxbridge & South Ruislip the combined Green and Lib Dem total wouldn't have saved the deposit.

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Also, I think everyone should perhaps prepare for the Tamworth election in two weeks to potentially "break the swingometer." Selby was itself the second largest swing from Tory to Labour ever in a by-election, with a 23.5 point two-party swing or 47.5 point change. This falls behind the 1994 Dudley West by-election,  with a 29 point swing or 58 point direct change.

Tamworth has a larger Tory majority than Selby, the circumstances surrounding it are better for Labour,  and we just got even more confirmation last night that Tamworth viscerally wants the Tories gone. It's not hard to imagine Dudley West getting surpassed.

My prediction, made this morning, is as follows:

54 LAB
33 CON
04 REF
03 LDM
03 GRN
03 OTH

That really would be a terrible result for the Tories -- a swing of nearly 32%, comfortably beating the Dudley West record -- to the extent that if something like that happened and they lost Mid Beds as well I can imagine discussion of leadership challenges might flare up again.

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.

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There is probably some expectation management going on with that being leaked, of course.  But if it is accurate then they are doomed in Tamworth but still have a chance in Mid Beds; one thing about these two by-elections is that the same Tory vote share (mid to high 30s, say, so a bit higher than in the "leak") could produce both a catastrophic defeat in Tamworth and a reasonably comfortable hold in Mid Beds, if Labour and the Lib Dems split the opposition vote.

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Polls have opened.  Here's Andrew Teale's preview.

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It's insane how this government is so unpopular that comfortable Labour victories are now the boring, expected outcome in by-elections even in deeply Tory seats.

I suppose that applies to Tamworth (if you count it as deeply Tory, which is fair enough based on the last three General Elections but not on what came before that) but not really to Mid Beds, though I think the feeling that the Tories may well hold that is only because of the potential for the opposition vote to be deeply split.

The other thing is that a lot of people commenting will remember the 1992-97 Parliament, when the Tories managed to fail to win a single by-election in the entire Parliament, even losing Christchurch in a landslide to the Lib Dems.  So there's an impression that unpopular Conservative governments don't win by-elections, though in that Parliament the stronger Tory seats always went Lib Dem, not Labour; Labour only won the three seats (including South East Staffordshire, i.e. Tamworth) they were always likely to win if they got a reasonable majority in a General Election in that period.

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Rachel Wearmouth on Twitter "hearing Labour's ahead on postal votes in Tamworth".  Tories usually do better on postal votes so if that's true...

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

It's almost like they're gearing up to repeat the line they came up with in Batley & Spen that their campaigning took Tory votes which were never going Labour.

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What time roughly should they finish the counts in these seats?

1.30am for Mid Beds and 3.30am for Tamworth (I think might be wrong way round!)

No, I think that's the right way round.  But I wouldn't put too much faith in these times, even if there aren't any recounts.

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If some of these Mid Beds rumours are true the scale of the Tory collapse is going to be up there with North Shropshire.

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This Staffs journalist has been quite reliable in the past:

https://twitter.com/journoontheedge/status/1715177319394869444