UK By-elections thread, 2021-

[Cassius]

It will be interesting to see how Paul ‘NO ROME RULE’ Mason reconciles his evangelical fervour for Labour to ignore places like Hartlepool as part of its election strategy with his desire to replace Starmer as Labour leader with a supporter of ‘luxury auto communism’.

[Property Representative of the Harold Holt Swimming Centre]

It will be interesting to see how Paul ‘NO ROME RULE’ Mason reconciles his evangelical fervour for Labour to ignore places like Hartlepool as part of its election strategy with his desire to replace Starmer as Labour leader with a supporter of ‘luxury auto communism’.

Mason backed Starmer for leader, interestingly enough.

[Cassius]

It will be interesting to see how Paul ‘NO ROME RULE’ Mason reconciles his evangelical fervour for Labour to ignore places like Hartlepool as part of its election strategy with his desire to replace Starmer as Labour leader with a supporter of ‘luxury auto communism’.

Mason backed Starmer for leader, interestingly enough.

I mean Long-Bailey was a pApIsT so no good options in the field. My understanding is that his preferred candidate was Clive Lewis, but obviously he didn’t make it to the member’s ballot.

[cp]

Not sure how on earth that happened, Starmer needs to go further in ruthlessly eliminating Labour's negatives and now take the chance to promote some bold sounding policies that poll well. The problem is that Boris right now is pretty popular with the vaccine rollout, hopefully his popularity will fade over the next few years. It's a shame that there is no electoral penalty for the many errors in the Covid response but there's not much that can be done, Covid is in the past.

... took the words right out of my mouth.

[Skye]

So, is this like a Congressional election in West Virginia post-Obama?

[NYDem]

So, is this like a Congressional election in West Virginia post-Obama?

A modern American equivalent would be Tim Ryan retiring and his seat going Republican 61-39 in the special election.

[Continential]

I do wonder what is the future of the Brexit Party/Reform considering that they lost their deposit in a seat where they did well in 2019.

[mileslunn]

I do wonder what is the future of the Brexit Party/Reform considering that they lost their deposit in a seat where they did well in 2019.

They will go nowhere as they get their wish.  Only way they come back is if Labour, Liberal Democrats, and Tories all campaign on rejoining EU, but that will not happen.

[Cassius]

Amusingly enough they were beaten to fourth place by another of the thousand fragments of UKIP, the Heritage Party, which is led by a London Assembly member.

[Conservatopia]

*Rant warning*

Mandy, who used to hold this seat, blames "Covid and Corbyn".

He isn't wrong per se but he definitely isnt right either. Like the left he is saying this to advance his agenda. But this isn't a one off result - it's the outcome of northern areas still feeling like they are talked down to and patronised.

When unreconstructed Remainers (not Starmer to be fair) say that the Brexit vote was a "cry for help" or a way of "kicking the establishment" they belittle those who voted for what they actually wanted (Brexit) out of genuine concern over the EU's direction.  They act like the proletariat are just too dumb to know how to vote properly.

The writing has been on the wall for years with the rise of UKIP and then the referendum.  They should have seen this coming 10 years ago.

Labour needs to stop thinking that throwing money at what they call "left behind communities" will work and start examining the real reasons behind their 15-year long rot in the north.  Starmer possibly has the right idea with "progressive patriotism" but it must be a genuine heartfelt thing not just new patronising nonsense.

Starmer is more likely the solution than the problem.  Yet some want to ditch him now without any clue over what the right course would be.

[Cassius]

I’m not too sure Starmer is the solution. Whilst I don’t think the left are correct when they say the party needs to present a radical image and policies in order to enthuse the electorate, I think they are correct about enthusing the electorate and Starmer just... doesn’t, seem to have it in him. This is the thing, Blair ran as a moderate, but he was able to enthuse a significant chunk of the electorate, whereas Starmer doesn’t seem to elicit any significant emotions at all. To my way of thinking he’s increasingly coming across as a kind of Labour Michael Howard (also a successful barrister funnily enough); someone who’ll be clinical and forensic (which seem to be the media’s main two adjectives for him) and  who can embarrass the government at the PMQs and maybe even stabilise the party’s position and secure some gains at the next election, but not a man who’s going to lead the party back into power.

Obviously, its been a funny old year and Starmer’ shadow a more difficult job than is usual for an opposition leader. I just don’t see what tricks he has up his sleeve post-pandemic to improve both his own image and that of the Labour Party.

[Geoffrey Howe]

What I've learnt in the past few years is that exciting the electorate and having a positive image - or actively making people think you will lead a better government is more important than being moderate. Now you can't be so radical that you scare many people away - Corbyn
probably did that - but it does seem to me that you can run on a left wing platform and do well, as long as you are charismatic etc. Corbyn was not this, except to a select few people who happen to be active on Twitter or CLPs.

[Hnv1]

The SDP still exists in some capacity it would seem. Maybe they should merge with that Liverpool Liberal Party...

[parochial boy]

What this proves is that I was exactly right all along and my opinion is that Labour should do exactly what I want in order to get back in to power. Especially because everyone who lives in Hartlepool is an exact replica of the fantasised flat-cap wearing, whippet owning, pint of mild drinking working class northerner, and despite not having ever met anyone from Hartlepool, I know exactly what Labour needs to do in order to win them over

[Filuwaúrdjan]

An interesting detail is that the 'Sam' in the name of the independent 'Sam Lee' who took nearly ten percent is short for Samantha: she's a local businesswoman. I will admit that when I heard there would be a by-election here I assumed, given the reasons, the Labour shortlist would be AWS.

[CumbrianLefty]

Ugh, that is probably the most depressing by-election result ever.

Its so bad its almost funny. Shades of Bradford West in 2012, even.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Ugh, that is probably the most depressing by-election result ever.

Its so bad its almost funny. Shades of Bradford West in 2012, even.

Funny you should say that as though there are many (many!) differences there are a few things in common.

[CumbrianLefty]

An interesting detail is that the 'Sam' in the name of the independent 'Sam Lee' who took nearly ten percent is short for Samantha: she's a local businesswoman. I will admit that when I heard there would be a by-election here I assumed, given the reasons, the Labour shortlist would be AWS.

Yeah, whilst to blame this result entirely on Starmer is otiose (which hasn't stopped some people doing just that, obviously) the inescapable fact is that he was intimately involved with both the timing and choice of candidate (not to mention *how* that was done) in this byelection.

[bore]

There isn't a quick fix or one weird trick that will make everything ok again, but I can't help thinking that a big part of it is that the tories are able to run against their own incompetence, that the media let them get away with projecting that they're a new government every time they change leader and not a party that's been in power since 2010.

The electorate does not pay much attention to politics outsides elections, and this is doubly true if you're the opposition and the other party have an 80 seat majority, so to have a hope of anything cutting through you have to a disciplined message which you repeat over and over, and not picking one thing (like statutory sick pay) has probably been the biggest failing of the leadership so far. The election is still 3 years off though, there's still time, and a good start would be making every member of the shadow cabinet crowbar the phrase '11 years of tory government' into every interview they do.

[LabourJersey]

What I've learnt in the past few years is that exciting the electorate and having a positive image - or actively making people think you will lead a better government is more important than being moderate. Now you can't be so radical that you scare many people away - Corbyn
probably did that - but it does seem to me that you can run on a left wing platform and do well, as long as you are charismatic etc. Corbyn was not this, except to a select few people who happen to be active on Twitter or CLPs.

Reminds me of one pundit who was comparing Sanders to Corbyn. She said Bernie Sanders reminds people of an old cantankerous uncle who likes to argue but slips his nieces and grandkids a little cash. Corbyn however reminds people of a cold bookshop owner who keeps eyeing customers and guilting them to buy books.

[rc18]

Nuts when you think about it.

https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1390590110052323331

[The Dowager Mod]

The incredible flying brick only got 108 votes, I'm disappointed. 

[CumbrianLefty]

Nuts when you think about it.

https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1390590110052323331

Or is there maybe some actual correlation? "They (Labour) went down to Westminster and did nothing for us" is a refrain first heard in Scotland, then the North, again and again.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Strangely, this by-election result is so humiliating, so devastating, so gutting that it seems like a fluke more than anything else, whereas a ten percentage point loss where Labour's vote share remained roughly unchanged from 2019 would seem worse, at least from my perspective.

There are clearly lessons to be learned from this debacle and the opposition ought to use this outcome to force reflection. As of late, Labour's messaging has been very uninspired and there have been some massive unforced errors to go along with this. For instance, I  have no idea why Labour would brand a tax increase on corporations as "austerity" - why was this decision made? While I doubt many voted based on this in Hartlepool, this is exactly the sort of nonsense that will alienate Labour voters. Overall, I don't think Labour has been presenting an alternative vision of how its government would operate and who it would serve that stands in contrast with the Tories. I think they need to do this.

At the same time, I find myself feeling very annoyed by cocky overconfidence from Tories. Boris Johnson doesn't command a vast ocean of support nor is his party doing particularly well in national polling. In fact, he's rather unpopular, even after everything has gone right for his government. It's pretty likely that merely being a "polarizing" figure is an upper-bound for him - hard to see how this is a good thing for the Conservative Party, which also appears as an uninspired, directionless mess at the moment!

[Skye]

Nuts when you think about it.

https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1390590110052323331

I can't find the video right now, but I seem to remember that back in 2019, the audience gasped loudly when the results for Doncaster North were being read and it was apparent that Ed Miliband's majority had collapsed.