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CumbrianLefty
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« Reply #250 on: May 07, 2021, 09:46:17 AM »
« edited: May 07, 2021, 09:50:37 AM by CumbrianLeftie »

There is now a thread up on Twitter about the outgoing Labour MP for Hartlepool, what they were in fact accused of doing and the murkiness of letting them back into the fold (basically unexplained, save for Hill's totally self serving spin that he had been "cleared") to stand again at the last GE.

It is fair to say it does not make pleasant reading.

There is a lot good about the British Labour party - one of the reasons it has endured for so long, even through being written off on more than one occasion. But in recent years belonging to it has become less and less of a pleasant experience, and more of more of a "faction first last and always" sewer.

(and yes, the left are certainly capable of being like this and have shown it since Starmer's election - but for maybe 15 years now, easily the worst offenders have been on the party's right)

Change, or die. You may not get another warning.

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bore
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« Reply #251 on: May 07, 2021, 09:54:25 AM »

Nuts when you think about it.



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.

But not, at least, in wales today, where labour actually are in a position to do something.
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CumbrianLefty
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« Reply #252 on: May 07, 2021, 09:55:40 AM »

Nuts when you think about it.



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.

But not, at least, in wales today, where labour actually are in a position to do something.

Indeed, which shows just how good Drakeford actually is.
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LabourJersey
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« Reply #253 on: May 07, 2021, 10:39:17 AM »

How much of an impact do you all think that Houchen's huge win played in the Tories' victory in Hartlepool?

I get that Houchen styles himself as independent from the Tory leadership but I find it difficult to imagine that there wasn't some kind of coat-tail effect here, especially since he won a second term with a majority of like 50%.

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beesley
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« Reply #254 on: May 07, 2021, 10:47:43 AM »

How much of an impact do you all think that Houchen's huge win played in the Tories' victory in Hartlepool?

I get that Houchen styles himself as independent from the Tory leadership but I find it difficult to imagine that there wasn't some kind of coat-tail effect here, especially since he won a second term with a majority of like 50%.



Not sure about that but Houchen and Johnson promising lots of investment in the area appears to have made a lot of difference.
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Alcibiades
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« Reply #255 on: May 07, 2021, 11:08:59 AM »
« Edited: May 07, 2021, 12:07:03 PM by Alcibiades »

In some ways it is unfortunate that the by-election had to be in Hartlepool of all places, as it can easily be spun into the ‘Red Wall’ narrative by those both inside and outside of the Labour Party. I think Labour have to stop obsessing over and fetishising these places, not merely because it could lead to missed opportunities in other areas with more upside, but because the harder you pander to a group, the more patronising and inauthentic you come across as to that group.

Ultimately, if Labour can find a good, effective message (easier said than done of course), it will lead to gains everywhere in the country - Leave, Remain, North, South, working class, middle class - and they don’t need to worry too much about targeting specific groups. I know how clichéd this sounds, but there truly is much more that unites voters in this country than divides them.
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StateBoiler
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« Reply #256 on: May 07, 2021, 02:39:32 PM »

Corbyn’s biggest failure was compromising too much on the issues with these centrist neoliberal people.

That's the level of political analysis I expect from this board! From a person that got pinned by Jade Cargill twice no less.
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Blair
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« Reply #257 on: May 07, 2021, 04:33:50 PM »
« Edited: May 07, 2021, 04:37:52 PM by Blair »

Wow. I was quite wrong.

As for Starmer, I like him but he's pretty ineffective. He hasn't been out criticising the poor handling of Brexit. How much have we heard about the collapse of negotiations with Norway? (Virtually nothing.)

Late to this but very much doubt that this would have helped at all.

I don't even know what's happened with Norway!
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Red Velvet
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« Reply #258 on: May 07, 2021, 04:56:40 PM »

Corbyn’s biggest failure was compromising too much on the issues with these centrist neoliberal people.

That's the level of political analysis I expect from this board! From a person that got pinned by Jade Cargill twice no less.

“Leave” won the vote and that was always irreversible, something politicians needed to respect instead of creating a telenovela with it. Corbyn should have kept his ground on that and maintained his original positions, there’s a clear reason he had a good performance in 2017, unlike 2019. And that’s directly liked to murky positions about Brexit in 2019 in which you saw the weakening of the red wall in working class communities in order to appeal to big city progressive remainers.

What you’re seeing is the centrist sector of Labour simply strengthening that trend by completely taking out the rest of what appeals to working class communities. With Corbyn 2019 there was mostly Brexit ambivalence as a big problem, now instead of correcting that, the problem is enlarged to almost everything else in the party. There is no vision, no project.

Hartlepool is extremely symbolic of that, as they voted to 'Leave' by 69.5%, making it one of the highest Leave-voting Labour-held seats in the UK. Now they’re going Conservative for the very first time.

Labour strategy should’ve been getting past Brexit as quickly as possible. Remainers would be kinda pissed at first but would eventually accept the democratic decision after it was over. But leave voters would never see a reversal with good eyes. City remainer elites helped to sabotage Labour, which lost its identity and base trust.

Conservatives were much more competent in maintaining both their “leave” and “remain” base. Like him or not, Boris respected voters democratic decision on the referendum. Conservatives were also successful by:

- Vaccination being much quicker than in the rest of Europe
- More economic moderation under Boris in some matters; respect for NHS and other services
- Effective lockdowns enforced gave more credibility to the conservative leadership in dealing with Covid.

Basically, to resume everything:

Boris  > Trump
Bernie > Corbyn
Biden >>> Starmer

The main reason people didn’t vote for Labour in these local elections is because of Keir Starmer leadership.

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TheDeadFlagBlues
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« Reply #259 on: May 07, 2021, 05:56:29 PM »

Considering that Keir Starmer's image is basically, as someone else said, "meh" and about as many voters have no idea who he is as dislike him, I find it hard to believe that "Keir Starmer's leadership" was the reason that people voted for the Tories in Hartlepool - that sounds a lot like a canned response from someone who was never going to vote for Labour in the first place and who hates the party, which will be a plurality of Tory voters just about anywhere, even in Hartlepool.
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bore
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« Reply #260 on: May 07, 2021, 06:04:30 PM »

Its a good pull quote, but the most common reason turns out to mean 14% of voters...

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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #261 on: May 07, 2021, 06:53:51 PM »

And my my they've deliberately shaped some very odd categories in order to make sure that certain logical combinations are not made to better produce the headline-grabbing finding!

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.

Yes this is very true. And this latter issue has been a weakness of all three recent Labour opposition leaders. A silver lining is that because Starmer is really not that well known as a public figure, if he tries he shouldn't find it hard to leave any vague impressions of vacillation behind him. As a more normal political atmosphere emerges with the winding down of the emergency the case for this as a priority is pretty overwhelming.
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jfern
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« Reply #262 on: May 07, 2021, 11:55:15 PM »

Corbyn’s biggest failure was compromising too much on the issues with these centrist neoliberal people.

That's the level of political analysis I expect from this board! From a person that got pinned by Jade Cargill twice no less.

“Leave” won the vote and that was always irreversible, something politicians needed to respect instead of creating a telenovela with it. Corbyn should have kept his ground on that and maintained his original positions, there’s a clear reason he had a good performance in 2017, unlike 2019. And that’s directly liked to murky positions about Brexit in 2019 in which you saw the weakening of the red wall in working class communities in order to appeal to big city progressive remainers.

What you’re seeing is the centrist sector of Labour simply strengthening that trend by completely taking out the rest of what appeals to working class communities. With Corbyn 2019 there was mostly Brexit ambivalence as a big problem, now instead of correcting that, the problem is enlarged to almost everything else in the party. There is no vision, no project.

Hartlepool is extremely symbolic of that, as they voted to 'Leave' by 69.5%, making it one of the highest Leave-voting Labour-held seats in the UK. Now they’re going Conservative for the very first time.

Labour strategy should’ve been getting past Brexit as quickly as possible. Remainers would be kinda pissed at first but would eventually accept the democratic decision after it was over. But leave voters would never see a reversal with good eyes. City remainer elites helped to sabotage Labour, which lost its identity and base trust.

Conservatives were much more competent in maintaining both their “leave” and “remain” base. Like him or not, Boris respected voters democratic decision on the referendum. Conservatives were also successful by:

- Vaccination being much quicker than in the rest of Europe
- More economic moderation under Boris in some matters; respect for NHS and other services
- Effective lockdowns enforced gave more credibility to the conservative leadership in dealing with Covid.

Basically, to resume everything:

Boris  > Trump
Bernie > Corbyn
Biden >>> Starmer

The main reason people didn’t vote for Labour in these local elections is because of Keir Starmer leadership.



The crazy thing was that after 2019 went poorly because Corbyn had taken more strongly anti Brexit stances and I think over 2/3rds of England and Wales constituencies had voted Leave, the Labour party doubled down on this and picked the Shadow Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union to be their leader.
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CumbrianLefty
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« Reply #263 on: May 08, 2021, 04:08:11 AM »

I think that is an.......over-simplistic reading of things. Labour going into a 2019 GE on an openly Lexit platform might have seen them lucky to get 150 seats never mind 200.

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beesley
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« Reply #264 on: May 08, 2021, 04:38:08 AM »

Labour would be hard pressed to be seen as more pro-Brexit than Boris Johnson shouting 'Get Brexit Done', yes. The trends could already be seen in 2017 anyway.
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CumbrianLefty
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« Reply #265 on: May 08, 2021, 04:43:42 AM »

Labour would be hard pressed to be seen as more pro-Brexit than Boris Johnson shouting 'Get Brexit Done', yes. The trends could already be seen in 2017 anyway.

Yes.

Of course the Tories are doing well generally at these elections, and Labour not, but what we are also seeing in the local elections are the last "pre-Brexit" results being removed from the system.
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jfern
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« Reply #266 on: May 08, 2021, 05:07:12 AM »

I think that is an.......over-simplistic reading of things. Labour going into a 2019 GE on an openly Lexit platform might have seen them lucky to get 150 seats never mind 200.



Obviously Labour wasn't going to be pro Leave, but Corbyn was somewhat more neutral in 2017.
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Geoffrey Howe
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« Reply #267 on: May 08, 2021, 05:18:03 AM »

I think that is an.......over-simplistic reading of things. Labour going into a 2019 GE on an openly Lexit platform might have seen them lucky to get 150 seats never mind 200.



Obviously Labour wasn't going to be pro Leave, but Corbyn was somewhat more neutral in 2017.

I'm no fan of Corbyn, but it does seem that there was some anti-Brexit Labour voting in 2019. So it was tough either way. Boris was tough to beat, but they could have come closer with something a like a resigned-to-Brexit-but-we'll-be-more-competent message and focusing on other domestic issues from the left which can be popular. Corbyn wasn't the person to do it.
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CumbrianLefty
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« Reply #268 on: May 08, 2021, 06:24:10 AM »

I think that is an.......over-simplistic reading of things. Labour going into a 2019 GE on an openly Lexit platform might have seen them lucky to get 150 seats never mind 200.



Obviously Labour wasn't going to be pro Leave, but Corbyn was somewhat more neutral in 2017.

Yes, in 2017 the Labour approach to Brexit worked very well.

Unfortunately things polarised much further in the following few years, and not taking a firm line one way or the other became unviable. The final confirmation of this was the European elections (and the results of those put the fear of God into not just many Labour MPs, but several close to Corbyn)
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TiltsAreUnderrated
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« Reply #269 on: May 08, 2021, 03:32:52 PM »

I think that is an.......over-simplistic reading of things. Labour going into a 2019 GE on an openly Lexit platform might have seen them lucky to get 150 seats never mind 200.



I thought this at the time, but the truly abysmal performance of the LDs under Swinson suggests most of the left-leaning Remainers would have returned to Labour. It is not as if they did well amongst right-leaning Remainers even with their pro-2nd referendum stance.
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Geoffrey Howe
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« Reply #270 on: May 08, 2021, 03:37:28 PM »

I think that is an.......over-simplistic reading of things. Labour going into a 2019 GE on an openly Lexit platform might have seen them lucky to get 150 seats never mind 200.



I thought this at the time, but the truly abysmal performance of the LDs under Swinson suggests most of the left-leaning Remainers would have returned to Labour. It is not as if they did well amongst right-leaning Remainers even with their pro-2nd referendum stance.

The LDs didn't do awfully under Swinson. OK, they should have done better; but they came very close in a good few seats, and overtook Labour in much of southern England. With one more percentage point nationally they would have got quite a few more seats.

Of course seats-wise they didn't do well, but that didn't much matter in a Boris landslide.
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TiltsAreUnderrated
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« Reply #271 on: May 08, 2021, 03:43:14 PM »

I think that is an.......over-simplistic reading of things. Labour going into a 2019 GE on an openly Lexit platform might have seen them lucky to get 150 seats never mind 200.



I thought this at the time, but the truly abysmal performance of the LDs under Swinson suggests most of the left-leaning Remainers would have returned to Labour. It is not as if they did well amongst right-leaning Remainers even with their pro-2nd referendum stance.

The LDs didn't do awfully under Swinson. OK, they should have done better; but they came very close in a good few seats, and overtook Labour in much of southern England. With one more percentage point nationally they would have got quite a few more seats.

Of course seats-wise they didn't do well, but that didn't much matter in a Boris landslide.

They absolutely did awfully under Swinson. They went backwards from 2017 in terms of seats and lost their leader's parliamentary representation, failed to retake their most plump Labour-held* target, lost all of the progress they made under Vince Cable, and completely collapsed in most of their Conservative-held targets (especially their former stomping grounds in the Celtic fringe). Even in metropolitan, Remainer-leaning areas, they failed to squeeze all they could out of Labour in, say, Wimbledon. When the dust settled, they had fewer realistic target seats than after 2017, and the list is probably even shorter in reality because ex-MPs like Andrew George have probably lost their appetite to contest these seats again.

*It was actually held by disgraced former Labour MP Jared O'Mara on election day, but this makes the failure to capture the seat even more embarrassing. Labour did a really good job of defending against the LibDems, and could probably have gotten away with being a bit more Lexit-y.
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Geoffrey Howe
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« Reply #272 on: May 08, 2021, 03:51:43 PM »

I think that is an.......over-simplistic reading of things. Labour going into a 2019 GE on an openly Lexit platform might have seen them lucky to get 150 seats never mind 200.



I thought this at the time, but the truly abysmal performance of the LDs under Swinson suggests most of the left-leaning Remainers would have returned to Labour. It is not as if they did well amongst right-leaning Remainers even with their pro-2nd referendum stance.

The LDs didn't do awfully under Swinson. OK, they should have done better; but they came very close in a good few seats, and overtook Labour in much of southern England. With one more percentage point nationally they would have got quite a few more seats.

Of course seats-wise they didn't do well, but that didn't much matter in a Boris landslide.

They absolutely did awfully under Swinson. They went backwards from 2017 in terms of seats and lost their leader's parliamentary representation, failed to retake their most plump Labour-held* target, lost all of the progress they made under Vince Cable, and completely collapsed in most of their Conservative-held targets (especially their former stomping grounds in the Celtic fringe). Even in metropolitan, Remainer-leaning areas, they failed to squeeze all they could out of Labour in, say, Wimbledon. When the dust settled, they had fewer realistic target seats than after 2017, and the list is probably even shorter in reality because ex-MPs like Andrew George have probably lost their appetite to contest these seats again.

*It was actually held by disgraced former Labour MP Jared O'Mara on election day, but this makes the failure to capture the seat even more embarrassing. Labour did a really good job of defending against the LibDems, and could probably have gotten away with being a bit more Lexit-y.

It probably won't stick, but they laid the foundation in many seats across the South, getting by far their best results since 2010; in some places coming close to that. Obviously they should have done better given how bad the others were. It doesn't help much to talk about Scottish seats which have a completely different dynamic.*

*I saw someone say that the loss of East Dunbartonshire showed their anti-Brexit stance backfired, which is ridiculous since they lost it to the pro-EU SNP.
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TiltsAreUnderrated
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« Reply #273 on: May 08, 2021, 03:58:44 PM »

I think that is an.......over-simplistic reading of things. Labour going into a 2019 GE on an openly Lexit platform might have seen them lucky to get 150 seats never mind 200.



I thought this at the time, but the truly abysmal performance of the LDs under Swinson suggests most of the left-leaning Remainers would have returned to Labour. It is not as if they did well amongst right-leaning Remainers even with their pro-2nd referendum stance.

The LDs didn't do awfully under Swinson. OK, they should have done better; but they came very close in a good few seats, and overtook Labour in much of southern England. With one more percentage point nationally they would have got quite a few more seats.

Of course seats-wise they didn't do well, but that didn't much matter in a Boris landslide.

They absolutely did awfully under Swinson. They went backwards from 2017 in terms of seats and lost their leader's parliamentary representation, failed to retake their most plump Labour-held* target, lost all of the progress they made under Vince Cable, and completely collapsed in most of their Conservative-held targets (especially their former stomping grounds in the Celtic fringe). Even in metropolitan, Remainer-leaning areas, they failed to squeeze all they could out of Labour in, say, Wimbledon. When the dust settled, they had fewer realistic target seats than after 2017, and the list is probably even shorter in reality because ex-MPs like Andrew George have probably lost their appetite to contest these seats again.

*It was actually held by disgraced former Labour MP Jared O'Mara on election day, but this makes the failure to capture the seat even more embarrassing. Labour did a really good job of defending against the LibDems, and could probably have gotten away with being a bit more Lexit-y.

It probably won't stick, but they laid the foundation in many seats across the South, getting by far their best results since 2010; in some places coming close to that. Obviously they should have done better given how bad the others were. It doesn't help much to talk about Scottish seats which have a completely different dynamic.*

*I saw someone say that the loss of East Dunbartonshire showed their anti-Brexit stance backfired, which is ridiculous since they lost it to the pro-EU SNP.


When I referred to losses in the Celtic fringe, I was thinking less about Scotland and more about the southwest of England and, to a lesser extent, the Brecon/Montgomery/Ceredigion trio in Wales.

The LibDems built foundations in new places, but the end result was fewer targets where they were within 10-20% than after 2017, in addition to fewer seats held than after 2017.
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Alcibiades
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« Reply #274 on: May 08, 2021, 04:45:17 PM »

I think that is an.......over-simplistic reading of things. Labour going into a 2019 GE on an openly Lexit platform might have seen them lucky to get 150 seats never mind 200.



I thought this at the time, but the truly abysmal performance of the LDs under Swinson suggests most of the left-leaning Remainers would have returned to Labour. It is not as if they did well amongst right-leaning Remainers even with their pro-2nd referendum stance.

The LDs didn't do awfully under Swinson. OK, they should have done better; but they came very close in a good few seats, and overtook Labour in much of southern England. With one more percentage point nationally they would have got quite a few more seats.

Of course seats-wise they didn't do well, but that didn't much matter in a Boris landslide.

They absolutely did awfully under Swinson. They went backwards from 2017 in terms of seats and lost their leader's parliamentary representation, failed to retake their most plump Labour-held* target, lost all of the progress they made under Vince Cable, and completely collapsed in most of their Conservative-held targets (especially their former stomping grounds in the Celtic fringe). Even in metropolitan, Remainer-leaning areas, they failed to squeeze all they could out of Labour in, say, Wimbledon. When the dust settled, they had fewer realistic target seats than after 2017, and the list is probably even shorter in reality because ex-MPs like Andrew George have probably lost their appetite to contest these seats again.

*It was actually held by disgraced former Labour MP Jared O'Mara on election day, but this makes the failure to capture the seat even more embarrassing. Labour did a really good job of defending against the LibDems, and could probably have gotten away with being a bit more Lexit-y.

It probably won't stick, but they laid the foundation in many seats across the South, getting by far their best results since 2010; in some places coming close to that. Obviously they should have done better given how bad the others were. It doesn't help much to talk about Scottish seats which have a completely different dynamic.*

*I saw someone say that the loss of East Dunbartonshire showed their anti-Brexit stance backfired, which is ridiculous since they lost it to the pro-EU SNP.


When I referred to losses in the Celtic fringe, I was thinking less about Scotland and more about the southwest of England and, to a lesser extent, the Brecon/Montgomery/Ceredigion trio in Wales.

The LibDems built foundations in new places, but the end result was fewer targets where they were within 10-20% than after 2017, in addition to fewer seats held than after 2017.

From a purely FPTP perspective, it was bad. But they substantially increased their number of second places (I’m not sure on the exact numbers, but quite possibly more than doubled, maybe almost tripled), and of course increased their vote share by 5 points. Perhaps more importantly, their electoral coalition looked more cohesive than it has in a long time (i.e. affluent, educated Southern Remainers) - not great if you want to recapture the success of Charles Kennedy, but good for achieving the more reasonable goal of maintaining a modicum of medium-term relevance, and trying to clear 20 seats again.
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