UK By-elections thread, 2021-

[Torrain]

…

[Torrain]

When presented with two warning by-elections earlier this year, Sunak put all his eggs in the Uxbridge basket. He ripped up his party’s climate strategy, pandered to motorists, and went full anti-woke.

And now - if tonight’s told us anything, it’s that these new by-elections look a lot more like Selby than Uxbridge.

Feel like Sunak might have a credibility problem emerging here. He can’t u-turn on all those policies - he’s used his first, and possibly only conference speech to stake his reputation on them.

So what now? 

[adma]

Absolutely thrashed the Lib Dem’s. Should kill them off across the country and force them to stick to a few dozen deeply Tory seats.

Actually, when it comes to Mid Beds, they may have had a point in spinning their effort as an "assist" in defeating the Tories.  That is, as a valid vote park for "never-Labour" disgruntled ex-Tory voters.  Or had they only offered a token effort a la Tamworth, Labour might have been *less* likely to win, rather than more...

[adma]

Incidentally, this would have been the weakest byelection mandate since...when?

[Blair]

What is again notable is how much tactical voting there is for Labour in Tamworth

Monstrous swing. The parts of the constituency outside Tamworth town put a hard limit on things, and yet nevertheless...

Btw, as far as social and economic structures are concerned, the area has changed quite substantially since the 1990s (not in Labour's favour at all) and Pincher had a 2:1 lead over Labour in 2015.

It is also an extremely strong Leave voting seat; not sure of the top of my head of numbers but it was in the top 100 leave vote seats.

A few vox pops I saw had some voters displaying some errrr rather right wing views which perhaps suggests why the various populist right parties got 1,000+ votes but still there was a time when the lobby and co would insist labour and keir had a problem with leave voters…

[Blair]

God losing Mid Beds is mad. Absolutely mad- this is a seat that has never had a Labour MP and which has no real base for Labour to even start in.

Absolutely thrashed the Lib Dem’s. Should kill them off across the country and force them to stick to a few dozen deeply Tory seats.

Actually, when it comes to Mid Beds, they may have had a point in spinning their effort as an "assist" in defeating the Tories.  That is, as a valid vote park for "never-Labour" disgruntled ex-Tory voters.  Or had they only offered a token effort a la Tamworth, Labour might have been *less* likely to win, rather than more...

I did suggest this earlier; the issue has been a very small number of hyper online Lib Dem activists, councillors and others who have ran a rather rude and arrogant campaign- they suggested labour were not campaigning in the villages, said Labour couldn’t win in rural seats like Mid Beds and it even infected the official campaign as they attacked Labours candidates in Lib Dem leaflets- there is a reason why both Conservative and Labour activists generally dislike Lib Dems activists and the party culture.

It’s something deeper than the stupid bar charts but still a small piece of joy to take at how much some of them really embarrassed themselves.

[Pericles]

The Tories are so unpopular and f**ked, and Sunak is so unpopular, that I could even see a leadership change emerging as an option again. I doubt they'd go for it, they don't have anyone better and there is a lot of downside risk to go through it a third time. The Tories are in a dark place though, MPs are going to be desperate and in despair.

[WD]

The Tory GE campaign next year is gonna be some of the most desperate and embarrassing stuff of all time.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

The Tory GE campaign next year is gonna be some of the most desperate and embarrassing stuff of all time.

Dare I say it? Febrile?

[OSR stands with Israel]

https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1715209538398191909

https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1715211956980785483

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

Oh, they are so f**ked.

[Blair]

Andrew Bowie had the hilarious line that people are supportive of what the Conservative Government is doing, they’re just not prepared to come pout and vote for them.

[Blair]

I am annoyed I didn’t post how this felt similar to the Ealing Southhall by election in 2007- it was a safe Labour seat which on paper was relatively fireproof.

Cameron and the Tories tried to make a big show of running a hard campaign in it and ended up coming third- this is politically the same in a way as if the Conservatives had won. It would have led to a meltdown in Labour and a real panic…

[Alcibiades]

I actually thought Labour would win this by a bit more - doesn't point to these 'swingy' ex-marginals swinging hard back to Labour. If the swing in the national polls does indeed come to pass, we may well need to get used to a very unfamiliar looking map.

I think they'll take a 23% swing lol

My point was not to do down the Labour performance (not at all! It is clearly a spectacular result) - it was purely about the way a large Labour swing in a general election will present itself. It may be that the shifts we saw in 2019 are more permanent than many expected.

There's always a floor for each party meaning hig swimgs won't be uniform,  and i expect that Brexit voters have changed what the Tory foor is in certain former Labour safe seats or marginals. Is that what you're getting at?

Pretty much - the size of the swing in the polls has led many (including myself) to conclude that Labour will see a bigger swing back in their favour in Brexit-voting marginals and ex-marginals, whilst possibly falling short in a place like Rushcliffe, a remain voting area which has recently become semi-marginal.

This result (not to over-extrapolate!) may indicate that the swing at the next GE is going to be more uniform than expectations.

I don't know what you're talking about. In July we saw a swing of five points in an affluent suburban London seat and a swing of more than twenty in a Brexit-voting Red Wall seat.

I don’t agree with icc’s argument here, but just worth noting that Uxbridge had an essentially identical Brexit vote share (a substantial 57% Leave) to Selby.

[Cassius]

When presented with two warning by-elections earlier this year, Sunak put all his eggs in the Uxbridge basket. He ripped up his party’s climate strategy, pandered to motorists, and went full anti-woke.

And now - if tonight’s told us anything, it’s that these new by-elections look a lot more like Selby than Uxbridge.

Feel like Sunak might have a credibility problem emerging here. He can’t u-turn on all those policies - he’s used his first, and possibly only conference speech to stake his reputation on them.

So what now?  

I doubt that the environmental and ‘anti-woke’ policies had much if anything to do with the losses (and, of course, ‘pandering’ to motorists is never a bad idea in a country where most journeys are still made by car, especially those journeys made in Tory constituencies).

The issue is that the party put the country through a year of really embarrassing bullsh**t (from the Paterson debacle to the Truss denouement), a year of really embarrassing bullsh**t that also coincided with the worst inflation that this country has seen in decades and a time of real financial pain for many, financial pain compounded for mortgage holders (traditionally a core constituency) by a financial scare prompted by the Truss’ mini-budget. We all know this but it’s worth repeating, there’s absolutely no coming back from that. Sunak may not be a political mastermind, but the gallows was already built for him by Johnson and Truss (and of course, these by-elections were caused by two Johnsonite MPs, one of whom specifically resigned in order to damage the present government). All persuadable voters have stopped listening to the party (and why would they, given all of its tergiversations over the last 13 years, I certainly don’t).

The concern now is that the right starts going off on one trying to manoeuvre one of their own into the leadership before the next election and I suspect the fact that if you added the Reform party tally to that of the Tories in both seats they would have held both will provide some grist to that mill (even if we know that’s a silly argument).

[Alcibiades]

Anyway, hilarious pair of results. You’re almost tempted to feel bad for the Tories trying to tell us that they’re not that bad, actually, because reasons — until you remember how utterly they deserve it.

[Conservatopia]

Andrew Bowie had the hilarious line that people are supportive of what the Conservative Government is doing, they�re just not prepared to come pout and vote for them.

In some ways there's a kernel of truth to that but not in the way Bowie is thinking. The Tories are in a mess due to their incompetence and the whiff of death rather than unpopular policies.

Of course that means that they're even more screwed because it means there's basically nothing they can change to turn the ship around.

[afleitch]

Mid Beds may be one of the most outstanding Labour by-election wins in their history.

They shouldn't be winning there. It is as has been suggested, and seen in the local symbolic of the Tories 'respectable' rural loyal core vote being disengaged. Abandoned.

'What's Tory about the Tories anymore' should be a bigger discussion than it is.

[Pericles]

Andrew Bowie had the hilarious line that people are supportive of what the Conservative Government is doing, they�re just not prepared to come pout and vote for them.

In some ways there's a kernel of truth to that but not in the way Bowie is thinking. The Tories are in a mess due to their incompetence and the whiff of death rather than unpopular policies.

Of course that means that they're even more screwed because it means there's basically nothing they can change to turn the ship around.

In some respects the Starmer branding is "the Tory policy approach but we do it competently/get the basic rights", obviously there are serious real policy differences between the parties and we'll have to see how Labour actually does when they return to government next year.

[somerandomth]

Mid Beds may be one of the most outstanding Labour by-election wins in their history.

They shouldn't be winning there. It is as has been suggested, and seen in the local symbolic of the Tories 'respectable' rural loyal core vote being disengaged. Abandoned.

'What's Tory about the Tories anymore' should be a bigger discussion than it is.

This. It's not even that the Tories have catastrophically lost the voters they won in 2019 (they have) or the more median-y voter that generally decides election (they also have), but they're just fundamentally losing their core base as well. I'm just in awe at how badly they've ed up.

[Blair]

Yes the line appears to be ‘well labour vote only rose by 1000 in Mid Beds’ which is mad considering it’s a by election with 44% turnout compared to what 70% plus in the GE.

I’m really don’t get the effort to spin -why not just say ‘it’s bad, we’re listening and we’re going to do better’ and eat some humble pie!

I kept saying this after the last locals- this never ending effort to pretend it’s all okay is going to make it harder especially when CCHQ still appears to be running an electoral strategy based on 2021.

Mid Beds may be one of the most outstanding Labour by-election wins in their history.

They shouldn't be winning there. It is as has been suggested, and seen in the local symbolic of the Tories 'respectable' rural loyal core vote being disengaged. Abandoned.

'What's Tory about the Tories anymore' should be a bigger discussion than it is.

Equally even though it’s a rural seat it’s is not as if it’s very farming heavy like other by election loses have been; they can’t even blame it on the NFU and countryfile!

[Blair]

This all stems from the morally bankrupt decision to put Mr Blobby in charge.

[Cassius]

As a historical note, this parliament has now seen ten seats change hands as a result of by-elections, thus overtaking 1992-1997. You now have to go back to 1970-1974 to find a parliament in which as many seats changed hands (ten as well, although only five were government losses). The government has lost eight seats as a result of by-elections during this parliament, equalling the figure for 1992-1997. Given that we may well have a couple more by-elections coming down the pipeline before the next general election (Messrs Benton and Bone perhaps), this record could well fall and we’ll have to go back as far as 1966-1970 so see a worse rate of loss at by-elections for an incumbent government, when Labour lost fifteen (!) by-elections over the course of the parliament.

[Pericles]

As a historical note, this parliament has now seen ten seats change hands as a result of by-elections, thus overtaking 1992-1997. You now have to go back to 1970-1974 to find a parliament in which as many seats changed hands (ten as well, although only five were government losses). The government has lost eight seats as a result of by-elections during this parliament, equalling the figure for 1992-1997. Given that we may well have a couple more by-elections coming down the pipeline before the next general election (Messrs Benton and Bone perhaps), this record could well fall and we’ll have to go back as far as 1966-1970 so see a worse rate of loss at by-elections for an incumbent government, when Labour lost fifteen (!) by-elections over the course of the parliament.

Absolutely bonkers that they had a historic by-election gain off Labour in the same parliament, that was pretty much peak Boris right there.

[Pericles]

As a historical point, I'm surprised the Wilson government had such a horror run of by elections-does that mean they were always going to lose 1970?