UK local by-elections, 2017

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Mostly it just tells us that truly we have returned to normal; that the LibDems are distant enough from government that they can once again randomly win local polls all over the place based on anti dogsh!t campaigns or whatever. This was very common before 2010.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I think the likes of Mansfield and Walsall North (both very populist places) will definitely be easy to win back for a Corbynite Labour party on it's way to victory

Bluntly, both seats were largely lost because of their incumbents.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

That's an odd way of looking at things given Meale and Winnick had both been underperforming for years, which probably wasn't unconnected with them both being regarded in their constituencies as sh!t MPs.* Obviously the specific climate of the election was responsible for turning underperformance into defeat, but...

_{*Unfairly in the case of Winnick as he was an outstanding parliamentarian but if voters would prefer someone more locally active then that's democracy. Meale, though, was a thoroughgoing nonentity everywhere.}

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Completely off topic, but that area of urban sprawl between Southampton and Portsmouth is, without a doubt, the most depressing part of the country

It's one of the few areas in England to have something of a New World* suburban feel. Except in a land of perpetual rain. And therefore so much worse.

_{*Or Dublin...}