UK By-elections thread, 2021-

[Blair]

If you’re been to Bromley you’ll understand how Bexley is a Tory enclave- it’s very much a completely different world- the fact there are a number of golf courses on the train line down there is a pithy example.

There are parts of Kent that are extremely affluent (owner occupied village with cricket greens) that voted Leave- Brexit has been rewritten since as a largely economic fight but it was very much a cultural one too.

The stuff that comes up on these threads.

Golf courses are a sign of places which have undeveloped land at relatively low cost (or they would have had houses built on them). You will find plenty of golf courses up in the north of England near very depressed communities. As your trainline comment betrays, the affluent people these golf courses attract will often be from elsewhere, in this case often people from closer to central London looking for open space for such activites.

I don't find it surprising how people on the left completely don't understand wealth, or lack thereof, outside major urban areas. Just because there's more open space doesn't mean everyone is well off. Just because there are more owner occupied dwellings doesn't mean they are more well off, because property is significantly cheaper and salaries lower etc etc. These might be a sign of differences in wealth within an urban area, but this doesn't translate between urban and rural.

If you’re been to Bromley you’ll understand how Bexley is a Tory enclave- it’s very much a completely different world- the fact there are a number of golf courses on the train line down there is a pithy example.

There are parts of Kent that are extremely affluent (owner occupied village with cricket greens) that voted Leave- Brexit has been rewritten since as a largely economic fight but it was very much a cultural one too.

Indeed - one of the several archetypes of a Leave voter that I have in my head is a well-off Telegraph-reading retiree in the Home Counties.

The only reason you have this archetype meme in your head is that's what left-wing remainers had to conjure up to convince themselves they were on the good (poor) side. That's why you get all this blatant nonsense like London is oh so poor and everyone outside the M25 is some rich businessman living in a converted barn. It's complete horsesh**t. The places that are closest to that archetype in Kent for example, such as Tunbridge Wells, are the only places around those parts that significantly tilted towards Remain.

Do you think places like Medway or Clacton are well off?

Hi- can you please quote where I said that golf courses= affluence? Or where I said that Bexley & Sidcup voted Tory because it's affluent?

My point was that it's rather different to other London boroughs e.g Lewisham to it's North, where there's a distinct lack of golf courses! The point was made in reference to how B&S is different to other London boroughs.

[Blair]

Not sure there’s anything more insufferable than watching Lib Dem’s and Labour activists argue over who is actually best suited to winning this by election.

Equally hilarious to see either side try to climb the high ground.

[Blair]

The Conservatives also struggle to whip up the same hatred against the Lib Dems compared to Labour; in fact the only proven method they have of attacking the Lib Dems is to generally warn that voting for them will lead to a 'Socialist Government'.*

I've always wondered if that's been a factor behind the bigger swings we've seen to the Lib Dems compared to Labour.

*To an extent Labour had this issue in the mid 2000s- it wasn't until the coalition that they had a reliable way of moving voters from the Lib-Dems to Labour. There were some laughable actions pre 2010, some of which ended up in court action.

[Blair]

The Conservatives also struggle to whip up the same hatred against the Lib Dems compared to Labour; in fact the only proven method they have of attacking the Lib Dems is to generally warn that voting for them will lead to a 'Socialist Government'.*

I've always wondered if that's been a factor behind the bigger swings we've seen to the Lib Dems compared to Labour.

*To an extent Labour had this issue in the mid 2000s- it wasn't until the coalition that they had a reliable way of moving voters from the Lib-Dems to Labour. There were some laughable actions pre 2010, some of which ended up in court action.

Couldn't using Brexit and the Lib Dems incredibly toxic REVOKE policy work in a heavily leave constituency such as this ?

It could do with a certain type of voter- such as those they lost in 2017 and 2019 (and by extension those they lost in 2015)

however the issue isn’t that burning anymore and even this seat didn’t support Leave by a soviet margin

[Blair]

I never want a by-election again where I have to watch the performative activism of both Labour & the Liberal Democrats. It almost resembles a couple who've separated but not fully divorced- both side seems to be surprised & shocked when the other acts as if they're not actually aligned.

The Liberal Democrats would never give Labour free run at a seat where they came 2nd- I mean do we really expect them to give up fighting Wimbledon?

Anyway if the Tories win by a margin smaller than the Labour vote it will be exhausting & annoying because it will essentially be the same type of people bickering with each other, while another group shout at both sides who are already shouting each other telling them to 'work together'.

[Blair]

Rants aside the election is tomorrow.

The Government has had such an awful month that anything other than a lose will be written off by the Westminster bubble as a win for the PM* & a much needed reprieve.  It shouldn't though; this is pretty much how a safe by-election Tory safe seat would look if you designed it in a lab.

My hunch is still that the Conservatives will hold it.

*although it's equally likely that covid news & Christmas makes this all a very short footnote in a bigger story

[Blair]

Would this be the first by-election for a while where the party in third at the GE has won?

[Blair]

Would this be the first by-election for a while where the party in third at the GE has won?

If we discount the two UKIP by-election wins (where the party didn’t stand at the preceding election) and George Galloway’s win in Bradford in 2012 (where Respect had come in fifth place in 2010), this would be the first time since Leicester South in 2004 (which the Lib Dems also won).

Ah the lesser known of the 2004 by-elections- I know of the Birmingham one for it's well, rather yikes, New Labour approach to immigration that only West Midlands Labour could do.

'I know that people here are worried about fraudulent asylum claims and illegal immigration. Yet the Lib Dems ignore what people say. They ignore what local people really want. The Lib Dems want to keep giving welfare benefits to failed asylum seekers. They voted for this in Parliament on 1 March 2004. They want your money -and mine - to go to failed asylum seekers.'

Labour didn't mention that the disputed measure was a plan to take the children of asylum seekers from their parents and put them into care, which Michael Howard had denounced as 'despicable'.

The leaflet implied that Byrne was a comrade of the working class rather than a former City slicker who made his pile as an accountant at Andersons Consulting and a banker at NM Rothschild. 'I know what you want,' he cried. 'Someone who is tough and on your side. Someone who wants the same as you. And I do. I want to push my new baby's buggy along the road without having to face a gang of youths spitting and swearing.'

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2004/aug/22/politicalcolumnists.guardiancolumnists

[Blair]

There's a very good book to write on outlandish by-election campaigns. 

[Blair]

Was it Batley were people were trying to understand the angle of a table to try and work out the pile?

I have developed a very sad trait of waking up in the night for by-elections; happened in both Batley & Old Bexley- so lets see how tonight goes.

I think it will be v close but still feel a conservative win is the obvious answer!

[Blair]

I did forget to ask if there was a reason the Tories didn't select someone local?

[Blair]

Turnout 46%

My hunch was that it seemed higher than expected and the Lib Dems briefed that they wanted higher turnout…

[Blair]

We should all remember this by-election is happening because Boris Johnson was too weak to say no to a bunch of dinosaurs on his backbenches who wanted to protect their mate.

[Blair]

Oh my.

Much like Hartlepool for Labour it will be the size of the majority that will hurt and really anger the Tories; this wasn’t close at all and they can’t even claim that on another night they would have won, or at least come close.

Well this is also worse as Hartlepool is at least a seat that is difficult for Labour demographically and which they could have lost in 2019- this is like Labour losing Glasgow East in 2008. We all know what happened two years later!

[Blair]

Oh my.

Much like Hartlepool for Labour it will be the size of the majority that will hurt and really anger the Tories; this wasn’t close at all and they can’t even claim that on another night they would have won, or at least come close.

Well this is also worse as Hartlepool is at least a seat that is difficult for Labour demographically and which they could have lost in 2019- this is like Labour losing Glasgow East in 2008. We all know what happened two years later!

Glasgow East was (yes I know) only just lost, though.

Hartlepool certainly has some parallels - not least with an almost disastrously inappropriate choice of candidate for the defending party.

I only saw this morning what his pledges where and I would have been very worried running a campaign if it had 'I will live' in the seat (making clear he doesn't- if a candidate has any local link it always gets on!) along with the need to promise not to have a second job!

https://twitter.com/DrNShastriHurst/status/1470830406140313600

[Blair]

It's always so funny to me what high-tension and high-stakes affairs British by-elections are, even if the stakes mostly tend to evaporate by the next GE. Most House special elections in the US are snoozers unless the seat was competitive to begin with (a few special cases like Conor Lamb aside), whereas with British by-elections there are constant wild swings, hilarious interpersonal drama and meme-tier campaigning chops, and often, because of the lack of residency requirements, the same revolving door of wackos eccentrics running for various minor parties over and over again up and down the island. The process is always comedy gold even when the actual result doesn't change much about the UK's political landscape.

Bill Bryson said that following by-elections was in itself an eccentric quirk of the British that he never understood- they’re glorious affairs and have actually got a lot more dull. The ones in the 1980s and 1990s (and before) would have daily press conferences, packed public hall meetings and quite vicious scenes too.

[Blair]

I’d be fascinated to see how members of the farming community voted; Labour made a big outreach (Keir was the first leader to speak at the NFU conference for a decade) and there’s been a number of rows over their treatment by the Government- not helped by Boris saying ‘let the pigs die’,

[Blair]

A lot of people in another  forum are attacking Starmer for the poor by election performance and for "Destroying Corbyns grassroot strength".

Sometimes this sort of discourse annoys me- but yesterday it didn't at all. The Government got a hiding & that's all that mattered. Would they rather Labour took say 25% of the vote & the Tories won? Of course not.

These people are not serious as just two weeks ago they were attacking Labour for increasing its vote share in Bexley because the raw vote in a by-election with 30% turnout was lower than the number of votes as in a GE with 65% turnout. 

It's a very boring & dull school of analysis which spends its whole time looking for proof that the Starmer project is a failure- I know this because people on the Labour right did it for years with Corbyn!

[Blair]

It's very small but there is actually interesting internal politics within the Conservative Party over farming; not just on the issue of trade (to what extend do we allow cheap imported meat which makes it harder for British farms) but also on stuff like rewilding.

It was briefed that Carrie Johnson (a member of the Conservative Environment Network) wanted to get George Eustice sacked- Eustice is irrc from a farming family. I won't even bother going into Geronimo and the split that caused...

[Blair]

FTR only (at this stage) - Birmingham Erdington coming up, following the death of Jack Dromey.

The inevitable speculation and ramping has already started regarding this one.

It's so strange- especially when the same people will spend whole weeks obsessing about it. There will be enough time to waste but it would be nice to see people at least wait.

[Blair]

Labour have shortlisted two candidates- one is a councillor and the other a GMB activist. Would be the first time Labour have selected a black man for a winnable by election since Tottenham 2000?

https://mobile.twitter.com/siennamarla/status/1485534093584617476?ref_src=twsrc%...

[Blair]

Forgive my ignorance but could anyone give a summary of Erdginton as a constituency?

The majority is roughly the same size as Batley and smaller than Hartlepool yet it seems to be treated as if the majority was 15K- I know that the polls are a reason partly.

[Blair]

Forgive my ignorance but could anyone give a summary of Erdginton as a constituency?

The majority is roughly the same size as Batley and smaller than Hartlepool yet it seems to be treated as if the majority was 15K- I know that the polls are a reason partly.

Labour got (just) over 50% in 2019, which is a striking difference from Batley & Spen and even more so Hartlepool.

Thanks- this was a very helpful reminder to look at vote share rather than majority- something that v much distorts a lot of races.

[Blair]

I wonder if this is the most boring by-election for one with a majority below 5K- even pre Ukraine there was virtually no interest. I haven’t even seen politics Twitter pretend to understand the seat!

The fact that the Conservatives held this story back until today, rather than briefing it to the press when it might plausibly have affected the result, tells you something about the expected outcome here.

Was one of the most obvious playbook too- leak to GB news, the letter of outrage to Keir, the point of order in the commons- it felt very 2014 and I hope it created some work for someone who can boast about it!

[Blair]

It was a sign of the times that I actually forgot about this when I woke up and equally there appears to be v little discord about it in Labour world

It does have a similar vibe to the other by elections (Feltham, Manchester central) in the 2010-2015 Parliament.