UK By-elections thread, 2021-

[Blair]

I think these would be the first by-elections for peerages for a while-especially when it isn't being done to make the seat available for someone else.

Will be curious how people react...

[Blair]

Not another one!

Rosie Cooper, long serving backbench MP for West Lancs, is quitting to become head of the NHS trust locally or something.

[Blair]

In true British pol tradition I have no idea about the seats demographics nor it’s location other than it’s a safe ish Labour seat.

The majority in 2019 was funnily enough larger than it was in 2005.

It’s imho the type of seat that is crap for an opposition to defend- not marginal enough to justify throwing the kitchen sink but I guess a low turnout affair with little enthusiasm nor effort from anyone involved.

[Blair]

Already the talk of parachutes being unfurled are spreading.

Yet to see the usual ‘will David Miliband’ return- tbf the new version of this is ‘will Andy Burnham’ run.

It could easily be his best chance but would break his pledge iirc.

[Blair]

Already the talk of parachutes being unfurled are spreading.

Yet to see the usual ‘will David Miliband’ return- tbf the new version of this is ‘will Andy Burnham’ run.

It could easily be his best chance but would break his pledge iirc.

Wouldn't he have to stand down as Mayor, as you can't be an MP and have the Police and Crime Commissioner powers at the same time, and the Greater Manchester Mayor has those?  (Same reason as Tracy Brabin had to stand down from Batley & Spen when she became West Yorks Mayor.)

Yeah he would- my hunch is that he’s hoping a Manchester based seat becomes available through retirement at the last minute and he can run in the GE. But ofc events have been changed from this time last year when he needed a seat to theoretically depose Starmer whereas now who knows- become Secretary of State for the North in a KS cabinet?

He seems to enjoy being Mayor anyway and is young enough to wait.

[Blair]

Such a boring by election that there hasn’t been a single piece of discord over this selection!

[Blair]

Writ was moved for Chester earlier this week- so likely an early December election.

Will be interesting whether Labour go for the old tried and tested local Cllr or whether they try and get someone more high profile in- the seat is at risk of getting carved up though in the review.

[Blair]

We could face a rather high number of by elections this term- especially considering how few are from ill health or death.

[Blair]

Didn’t a Labour MP die after getting ill at some sort of banquet?

[Blair]

Think Chester might be the least covered Labour by election in recent years… no beef over the selection, no handwringing about a certain demographic, no worries about a protest vote and all just very calm.

[Blair]

Think Chester might be the least covered Labour by election in recent years… no beef over the selection, no handwringing about a certain demographic, no worries about a protest vote and all just very calm.

I think Stretford & Urmston might be even quieter.  There wasn't even a Labour selection there, the candidate having been selected some months ago.

I did wonder whether either might be a chance for the Green Party to put in a respectable challenge in a parliamentary by-election, but I haven't seen any evidence yet.

That's true; it's just slightly stranger by the fact that Chester isn't an uber-safe seat-it was only won by 93 votes in 2015, although its similar to a lot of those sort of seats that were narrow wins or misses in 2015 but which are now safe thanks to the Conservatives branding change.

[Blair]

Mutterings of a big win expected tomorrow.

I also think the local CLP have a good reputation and run a tight ship which doesn’t always matter but can help…

[Blair]

What’s the lowest the Tories could realistically come?

3rd?

[Blair]

OK thanks everyone for the background about Chester - maybe a better question is why was City of Chester ever a Tory seat in the first place. Its in the north, a medium sized urban area - sounds like the kind of place that could have been a perennial Labour seat in the 60s and 70s...

Historically just a little bit too prosperous, but then there 'was' always a random element to these things: similar things could have been said of other small city and/or large town constituencies that Labour did often win in the 50s, 60s and 70s.* Another issue was that the constituency used to  The mention of Liverpool is maybe relevant: North West Cheshire and South West Lancashire were more Conservative-voting than might have been expected in the middle twentieth century, and then became progressively less Conservative-voting than might have been expected in the late twentieth century and beyond.

_{*e.g. Gloucester, Reading and Watford had a vaguely similar SES profiles in the 1960s and early 70s.}

Still baffles me that Robert Maxwell of all people was the Labour MP for Buckingham.

[Blair]

Postal services have also been quite bad recently even on non strike days.

I enjoyed watching a certain political commentator say that the by election shows Labour will only be a minority Government- only to be told that it matches the prediction in the MRP poll.

Their response? ‘Well you can’t use by elections to predict the elections’.

 

[Blair]

An interesting result in the Plymouth by-election- the ward was Moor View (it’s in the constituency of the same name)

Labour won on a 17% swing- there’s been a lot of turmoil in the Tory Group and I think a 1/3rd of seats are up in May- Plymouth has generally been a very good bellwether- Labour winning it back in 2018 was a sign they were doing well.

[Blair]

Didn’t even see the Green result!

I assume it’s a case or wanting to punish the antics of the Conservatives locally and tbh nationally too.

[Blair]

The Bedfordshire seat would not be a fun one to campaign in- iirc it’s very large and doesn’t really have a centre.

The Tories recently won the mayoral race there but that mostly seemed to be thanks to it being FPTP.

[Blair]

Seb Pain is apparently on the shortlist for Selby which opens the banter chance that he might have to fight a tricky by election… some poor staffer will have to listen to all his podcasts.

[Blair]

Crick rather than Crichton - sometimes fiction does turn up on his Twitter feed, but only because his fact-checking is poor enough that he has fallen for obviously made-up names of potential candidates, such as the rumoured Labour candidate for Worcester 'Amon Gus'.

Think SP confirmed it at the think tank report launch or something similar: if he was wise he would not fight a by election as iirc he’s not even vaguely local (although tbh that didn’t stop them before!) and it’s said above it would bring a high focus on him.

I am though doubting these by elections will even happen; been rumoured for nearly what 8-9 months now and there’s clearly wrangling over the rules. I know nothing but the idea of being able to defer a peerage while you clock out your parliamentary term seemed very bad and should be stopped on the basis every party would then do it for retiring MPs. And ofc it breaks the historic tradition of giving an old hand a peerage to create a tactical by election…

[Blair]

Not sure what it achieves; makes it a huge target for the Lib Dems, he might lose and even then the privileges committee could just do another report or apply this one again.

[Blair]

Not sure what it achieves; makes it a huge target for the Lib Dems, he might lose and even then the privileges committee could just do another report or apply this one again.

Can they do that if he's been re-elected since the report?

I think that if Dorries's resignation really was to set him up to come straight back in Mid Beds it's a huge risk and he could easily lose, especially as we now have two by-elections, one for Labour to focus on and one for the Lib Dems.

It’s an unknown but the committee have sanctioned ex MPs who tried to quit before sanction but god knows with all this

[Blair]

Can someone smarter than me do an idiots guide re the political geography of each seat?

[Blair]

Its funny on reflection the Tories who won in 2015 in the South-West really were the canary in the coalmine in terms of the Conservatives errrr candidate quality.

[Blair]

We also have the chance of a Scottish by election which I actually think will be the most interesting one; we've had a complete lack of them for the last decade. The last one iirc actually saw Labour do relatively well and they might have been able to win if they hadn't been throwing everything at the rather ill-fated local elections.

I wonder if the lack if because the SNP MPs have broadly kept themselves out of trouble, are quite young & there's an internal culture where you don't quit to screw the party over.