UK By-elections thread, 2021-

[CumbrianLefty]

They were still the bookies favourites a day or two ago, mind - but nowhere near as much so as when Dorries first announced her "resignation". And similarly, Labour's odds have come in massively.

[Blair]

Yes it increasingly appears that the Lib Dems are making a fuss online but it’s hard to see the evidence other than an increasing shouting about ‘rural seats vote Lib Dem’ from activists which errr ignores that this seat isn’t NFU central as we’ve said.

I also think along with the greens labour and the Lib Dems need to get use to campaigning against each other- there’s a very weird online trend of thinking that they’re some sort of rainbow coalition and its wrong to campaign against each other.

The greens will be eyeing up a lot of labour council seats in 2026!

[CumbrianLefty]

And of course Bristol Central before that (plus a few other Labour seats no doubt, but they don't have any chance of winning those - yet)

[YL]

The Tories moved the writ for Tamworth yesterday, but it's not to be issued until Thursday, which following the 21 to 27 working days rule puts polling day on 19 October, the same as for Mid Bedfordshire.

The Tories have a three name shortlist which according to Michael Crick does not include Eddie Hughes's wife but does include another Tory MP's wife, Karen Treacy, wife of Craig Tracey, and Tom Byrne, an advisor to Andy Street (West Midlands metro mayor), who missed out to Hughes in the original selection. I haven't seen anything new on whether whoever is selected is just a stopgap for Hughes.

[Blair]

Already seeing Mid Beds being described as a marginal and a tough race! The funny thing is Tamworth is easier to win and  you can make a case re it being on labours paths to a large majority/winning back the Blair coalition but like losing Mid Beds is just hilariously awful.

The Tories moved the writ for Tamworth yesterday, but it's not to be issued until Thursday, which following the 21 to 27 working days rule puts polling day on 19 October, the same as for Mid Bedfordshire.

The Tories have a three name shortlist which according to Michael Crick does not include Eddie Hughes's wife but does include another Tory MP's wife, Karen Treacy, wife of Craig Tracey, and Tom Byrne, an advisor to Andy Street (West Midlands metro mayor), who missed out to Hughes in the original selection. I haven't seen anything new on whether whoever is selected is just a stopgap for Hughes.

I think re the last line that assumption still holds- although the sitting MP if they won gets to go on the lifeboat list which lets you seat shop.

[Coldstream]

Already seeing Mid Beds being described as a marginal and a tough race! The funny thing is Tamworth is easier to win and  you can make a case re it being on labours paths to a large majority/winning back the Blair coalition but like losing Mid Beds is just hilariously awful.

The Tories moved the writ for Tamworth yesterday, but it's not to be issued until Thursday, which following the 21 to 27 working days rule puts polling day on 19 October, the same as for Mid Bedfordshire.

The Tories have a three name shortlist which according to Michael Crick does not include Eddie Hughes's wife but does include another Tory MP's wife, Karen Treacy, wife of Craig Tracey, and Tom Byrne, an advisor to Andy Street (West Midlands metro mayor), who missed out to Hughes in the original selection. I haven't seen anything new on whether whoever is selected is just a stopgap for Hughes.

I think re the last line that assumption still holds- although the sitting MP if they won gets to go on the lifeboat list which lets you seat shop.

Ironically if the stop gal wins Tamworth they may end up with an even safer seat out of this from a last minute retirement,

[YL]

14 candidates for Rutherglen & Hamilton West

Gloria Adebo (Lib Dem)
Bill Bonnar (Scottish Socialist Party)
Garry Patrick Cooke (no description) [1]
Andrew Vincent Daly (Independent) [2]
Cameron Eadie (Scottish Green)
Prince Ankit Love Emperor of India (no description) [3]
Niall Fraser (Scottish Family Party) [4]
Ewan Hoyle (Volt UK) [5]
Thomas Jordan Kerr (Con)
Katy Loudon (SNP)
Christopher Anthony Sermanni (TUSC)
Michael Shanks (Lab)
David Stark (Reform UK)
Colette Walker (Independence for Scotland Party) [6]

[1] This guy.  Platform "Alba dhan Phrìomh Lìog/Scotland for the Premier League": that Scottish football clubs should be allowed to join the Premier League.
[2] Possibly this guy?
[3] Stood for Mayor of London and in some by-elections in 2016. In Richmond Park he stood as "Maharaja Jammu and Kashmir" so he has clearly expanded his territorial claim.
[4] This party frequently stands in Scottish local by-elections. I think their platform is roughly what you'd expect from the name.
[5] Yes, we have a Volt too.
[6] This lot

[YL]

The Tories have a three name shortlist which according to Michael Crick does not include Eddie Hughes's wife but does include another Tory MP's wife, Karen Treacy, wife of Craig Tracey, and Tom Byrne, an advisor to Andy Street (West Midlands metro mayor), who missed out to Hughes in the original selection. I haven't seen anything new on whether whoever is selected is just a stopgap for Hughes.

... and they've picked the other one, Andrew Cooper, a Tamworth councillor (Mercian ward) and an engineer with Network Rail with a previous military career.

[Wiswylfen]

The town is right on the historic boundary between Warwickshire and Staffordshire, which meant that parts of it went into two separate county divisions, one in each county.  

SNIP

And in traditional fashion, the roots of much of this go all the way back to pre-Norman times. Tamworth became a place on the map because it was the center of royal power for the various Mercian kingdoms in what is now the West Midlands. This of course made it a target for various Scandinavian raids and extortions, that eventually diminished the town and kingdom.

 When Wessex established governance over the region, they specifically carved up the Tamworth region between the precursors to Warwickshire and Staffordshire. The was no "Tamworthshire." Historians have theorized a very modern reason for this: gerrymandering away the towns political relevance and transferring that power to other areas in the West. Divided, Tamworth could not utilize it's Mercian legacy to centralize discontent and serve as the core for projects to revive Mercia.

And it worked. The division shifted centers of control to the point Tamworth is not in the Domesday Book.

Well: Mercia was a kingdom; this gerrymandering extended beyond Tamworth to the whole of Mercia; and London and Winchester aren't in Domesday either.

[EastAnglianLefty]

The division wasn't just between Warwickshire and Staffordshire. Repton ended up in Derbyshire for similar reasons, and to a certain extent Worcestershire was involved in the carve-up, though the areas it took in (now part of the West Midlands county) were more peripheral to the core Mercian heartland.

[CumbrianLefty]

LibDems online are still pretty relentless in their spin that they are the front runners in Mid Beds and Labour are nowhere ("they are only campaigning in Flitwick" is one suspiciously frequent claim)

If so, you might expect one of their famous "leaked private polls" to boost this line wouldn't you?

[Oryxslayer]

Anyway,  the writ was just confirmed and the by-election is happening the same day as Mid Bedfordshire.

[EastAnglianLefty]

LibDems online are still pretty relentless in their spin that they are the front runners in Mid Beds and Labour are nowhere ("they are only campaigning in Flitwick" is one suspiciously frequent claim)

And a fairly obviously untrue claim if you follow any Labour activists on Twitter.

[icc]

LibDems online are still pretty relentless in their spin that they are the front runners in Mid Beds and Labour are nowhere ("they are only campaigning in Flitwick" is one suspiciously frequent claim)

If so, you might expect one of their famous "leaked private polls" to boost this line wouldn't you?

Meanwhile the bizarre Labour spin is that the Lib Dems are fighting the by-election in a way similar to a homophobic family values campaign.

Also worth remembering that the Lib Dems have never leaked an internal poll this early (and with good reason - opinion in by-elections moves fast).

[CumbrianLefty]

They haven't normally had to, though.

We all knew - either right at the start or pretty soon after - that they were the main challengers in Chesham/N Shropshire/Tiverton/Somerton. This time round, the question is genuinely in some doubt.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Also worth remembering that the Lib Dems have never leaked an internal poll this early (and with good reason - opinion in by-elections moves fast).

Pull the other one, it has bells on. The Lib Dems do not leak "internal polls" because they have a deep interest in putting out accurate information about public information. They are not a polling company. They do it to send two messages to the electorate - firstly that they can win, and secondly that it really is too close to call, honest, and they really need you to get down the polling station on Thursday. These are messages you can put out at any time and you can do it as often as the electorate finds it credible.

[icc]

Also worth remembering that the Lib Dems have never leaked an internal poll this early (and with good reason - opinion in by-elections moves fast).

Pull the other one, it has bells on. The Lib Dems do not leak "internal polls" because they have a deep interest in putting out accurate information about public information. They are not a polling company. They do it to send two messages to the electorate - firstly that they can win, and secondly that it really is too close to call, honest, and they really need you to get down the polling station on Thursday. These are messages you can put out at any time and you can do it as often as the electorate finds it credible.

Sure, no-one’s claiming there’s no ulterior motive, but you actually have to have the data / poll result if you want to put it out. Or I suppose we could all follow the lead of Labour’s campaign in North Shropshire and put out totally made up numbers.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Isn't that exactly the point? The campaign has been going on long enough that the Lib Dems will have some evidence about how well they're doing. If it's not being shared, that is a choice.

[icc]

Isn't that exactly the point? The campaign has been going on long enough that the Lib Dems will have some evidence about how well they're doing. If it's not being shared, that is a choice.

But at this stage in the campaign you wouldn't expect to be able to show a poll with you neck and neck. Shifts take a bit of time to work through - hence why Lib Dems haven't produced polls this early in other by-elections (and the continuing shift means the poll is well out of date by election day).

[EastAnglianLefty]

If at this stage in the campaign, you don't have canvass returns (which is what most of the "leaks" have been), then you don't have a campaign.

Moreover, the fact that the figures are frequently out of date is besides the point. The point is to drive the narrative, not to check them for accuracy after the election - if that was the point, then the methodology is clearly rubbish, because it always finds the Lib Dems just narrowly behind in contests they go on to win by more than 5000 votes...

[afleitch]

Of course not all parties leak good canvas returns in seats they are winning or successfully defending. There's capital in the 'shock' result. The Lib Dems use it more, as has been discussed, to demonstrate they are the horse to back, regardless of the closeness of the result.

[icc]

If at this stage in the campaign, you don't have canvass returns (which is what most of the "leaks" have been), then you don't have a campaign.

Moreover, the fact that the figures are frequently out of date is besides the point. The point is to drive the narrative, not to check them for accuracy after the election - if that was the point, then the methodology is clearly rubbish, because it always finds the Lib Dems just narrowly behind in contests they go on to win by more than 5000 votes...

No they’ve been internal polling for the most part, not canvass returns. No-one said that the party didn’t have any canvass returns, I said that opinion changes fast in a by-election, so polling in a seat set to go Lib Dem might still show a decent Tory lead a few weeks out - it’s the direction of travel which is important, but obviously to wouldn’t release that.

[Blair]

If at this stage in the campaign, you don't have canvass returns (which is what most of the "leaks" have been), then you don't have a campaign.

Moreover, the fact that the figures are frequently out of date is besides the point. The point is to drive the narrative, not to check them for accuracy after the election - if that was the point, then the methodology is clearly rubbish, because it always finds the Lib Dems just narrowly behind in contests they go on to win by more than 5000 votes...

No they’ve been internal polling for the most part, not canvass returns. No-one said that the party didn’t have any canvass returns, I said that opinion changes fast in a by-election, so polling in a seat set to go Lib Dem might still show a decent Tory lead a few weeks out - it’s the direction of travel which is important, but obviously to wouldn’t release that.

I can't recall the by-election but the Lib Dems have often used some sort of fudge language such as e.g 'internal data' which can mean anything.

I don't know if the parties actually pay for regular polling in by elections; they are all richer than they once were but the going rate quoted a while back was north of £10,000 and they are dubious and all over the place in quality- some have been accurate, others vaguely correct and others just wrong.

But anyway with this entire argument my view has just been to wait and see the results; as the Liberals discovered after Shropshire you just wait for the results to vindicate you.

[CumbrianLefty]

Eddie Hughes has said he will not seek the Tory nomination for Tamworth at the GE if their candidate wins the by-election. I can't imagine he is best pleased with this, nor are some others possibly.

[JimJamUK]

Eddie Hughes has said he will not seek the Tory nomination for Tamworth at the GE if their candidate wins the by-election. I can't imagine he is best pleased with this, nor are some others possibly.

He’s said he will do a chicken run to another seat if Tamworth becomes unavailable. Will there be an association left which can offer a seat seat and that actually wants him?