UK By-elections thread, 2021-

[CumbrianLefty]

Not just that, but kinky Simon as well.

Though it does give voters the chance to tell both they are not welcome.

[YL]

If you believe this Guardian report from Wellingborough the Tories have "all but given up" and are in danger of being overtaken by Reform UK.

[Estrella]

It would appear that Rochdale's divine punishment for its electoral past is to have not one but two extremely obnoxious former Labour MPs running in the by-election there, as Simon Danczuk has been announced as the Reform candidate...

Given the reason why he is a former Labour MP, is this a wise choice?

Originally elected as a member of the Labour Party, he was suspended from the party in 2015 after it emerged he had exchanged explicit messages with a 17-year-old girl. He has co-written two books, Smile for the Camera: The Double Life of Cyril Smith and Scandal at Dolphin Square.

Hm.

[YL]

‘Abandoned by the Conservatives’ - insiders say Wellingborough Tory by-election campaign is struggling to attract top-level support: the Northamptonshire Telegraph on Wellingborough

[Property Representative of the Harold Holt Swimming Centre]

There's a definite possibility that the immediate weekend after Wellingborough and Kingswood could be one of 'those' weekends. You know, where journos spend all day refreshing their Twitter feeds to see if any other journo has made a tweet that mentions words such as 'confidence', 'letters' and 'resignations' in the previous few seconds.

[CumbrianLefty]

Possibly, but there is now a school of thought in the Tories that the right time to dump Rishi is after what are very likely to be disastrous local (and other) elections in May. This would give any successor around six months to at least avert a total GE drubbing.

[DL]

Even if the Tories dumped Sunak after the local elections who come next? Another Boris Johnson comeback ? A Liz Truss comeback? Suella Braverman?

[Property Representative of the Harold Holt Swimming Centre]

On the subject of Rochdale, is that horrible Mrs Duffy woman still around? Here is the video of the (in)famous showdown in 2010:

Note how when Brown says "you're a good woman etc", she says "yes I am" (or something to that effect). No sense of modesty whatsoever. That's what got me more than the whole immigration stuff that Brown landed himself in trouble for over this encounter.

[JimJamUK]

On the subject of Rochdale, is that horrible Mrs Duffy woman still around?

Apparently so, as in 2020 she was expressing concern for unemployed immigrants and coming up with policies to help them.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/woman-gordon-brown-called-bigoted-21942544

[Coldstream]

If you believe this Guardian report from Wellingborough the Tories have "all but given up" and are in danger of being overtaken by Reform UK.

Possibly the most desperate case of expectations management in history if they expect us to believe it’ll be a victory if they can manage second in a seat with an 18k majority.

[CumbrianLefty]

I agree, but there are multiple reports the Tories are fighting a remarkably desultory campaign.

[YL]

I agree, but there are multiple reports the Tories are fighting a remarkably desultory campaign.

Still, they got 62% in Wellingborough in 2019. Even a North Shropshire level campaign adjusted for the current environment shouldn’t be at risk of coming third behind Reform UK.

[Duke of York]

I agree, but there are multiple reports the Tories are fighting a remarkably desultory campaign.

Still, they got 62% in Wellingborough in 2019. Even a North Shropshire level campaign adjusted for the current environment shouldn’t be at risk of coming third behind Reform UK.

If the Tories can't hold this seat then no seat is safe and not only will the next general elections be bloodbath the next general election will likely surpass the 1997 election in terms of seat gain and swing.

[EastAnglianLefty]

I agree, but there are multiple reports the Tories are fighting a remarkably desultory campaign.

Still, they got 62% in Wellingborough in 2019. Even a North Shropshire level campaign adjusted for the current environment shouldn’t be at risk of coming third behind Reform UK.

If the Tories can't hold this seat then no seat is safe and not only will the next general elections be bloodbath the next general election will likely surpass the 1997 election in terms of seat gain and swing.

The latter half of the sentence may be true, but the former half isn't. The Tory majority in Wellingborough was extremely large in 2019, but not many of those are people who could only ever conceive of voting Tory. There are plenty of other seats where the share of the electorate who will vote Tory no matter what is much higher.

[Duke of York]

I agree, but there are multiple reports the Tories are fighting a remarkably desultory campaign.

Still, they got 62% in Wellingborough in 2019. Even a North Shropshire level campaign adjusted for the current environment shouldn’t be at risk of coming third behind Reform UK.

If the Tories can't hold this seat then no seat is safe and not only will the next general elections be bloodbath the next general election will likely surpass the 1997 election in terms of seat gain and swing.

The latter half of the sentence may be true, but the former half isn't. The Tory majority in Wellingborough was extremely large in 2019, but not many of those are people who could only ever conceive of voting Tory. There are plenty of other seats where the share of the electorate who will vote Tory no matter what is much higher.

makes sense
the local elections in may will probably be a bloodbath too.

[YL]

Another Guardian article on Wellingborough: Labour are "not complacent", though if you were hoping for a Tory hold you'd struggle to find cause for optimism in the article.

[Joe Republic]

Another Guardian article on Wellingborough: Labour are "not complacent", though if you were hoping for a Tory hold you'd struggle to find cause for optimism in the article.

Some might argue that Harrison’s campaign is failing even on basic optics: anyone visiting her Wellingborough HQ, hastily repurposed from Bone’s constituency office, is greeted by an abandoned car dumped directly outside, its tyres flat and interior filled with rubbish.

You almost want to pity the Tories, but schadenfreude is far more tempting.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Another Guardian article on Wellingborough: Labour are "not complacent", though if you were hoping for a Tory hold you'd struggle to find cause for optimism in the article.

Some might argue that Harrison’s campaign is failing even on basic optics: anyone visiting her Wellingborough HQ, hastily repurposed from Bone’s constituency office, is greeted by an abandoned car dumped directly outside, its tyres flat and interior filled with rubbish.

You almost want to pity the Tories, but schadenfreude is far more tempting.

This photo is aesthetically quite similar to how I'm told points north of St. Albans tended to look after eleven and a half years of the Milk Snatcher, so what goes around comes around.

[CumbrianLefty]

There is a claim that the optics there are deceptive, and the "real" Tory campaign is based elsewhere. But even so, there doesn't seem to be much optimism from their quarter.

[YL]

The Green candidate in Rochdale has "decided to leave the stage" following a fuss about some old Twitter posts. (It's not hard to see why they were controversial, but they were 10 years or so old.)  He will of course still be on the ballot.

[CumbrianLefty]

Not that the Greens were ever likely to be a big factor in that one.

[Blair]

It’s telling that Tamworth and Mid Beds were genuinely close in the week before whereas everyone will be shocked (rather than surprised)if both seats don’t fall to Labour.

Am curious what the Kingswood majority will be.

[YL]

It’s telling that Tamworth and Mid Beds were genuinely close in the week before whereas everyone will be shocked (rather than surprised)if both seats don’t fall to Labour.

Am curious what the Kingswood majority will be.

You shouldn't take bookies' odds very seriously, but they are somewhat indicative of the vibes, and at the moment you can get slightly longer odds on Labour in Kingswood than you can in Wellingborough, and in the latter you can actually get longer odds on the Tories than you can on Reform UK. (No, I don't think this actually means that the Tories are going to come third.)

Here are the changes in Tory vote share (in percentage points) in their by-election defences this Parliament, excluding the effectively uncontested Southend West:

Uxbridge & South Ruislip -7.4
Old Bexley & Sidcup -13.0
Wakefield -17.0
Chesham & Amersham -19.9
Tiverton & Honiton -21.7
Tamworth -25.6
Selby & Ainsty -26.0
Mid Bedfordshire -28.7
Somerton & Frome -29.6
North Shropshire -31.1

A loss of 25 percentage points would put them on 37.2% in Wellingborough, which would probably translate to a Labour win by a little more than in Tamworth, and 31.2% in Kingswood, which would make for a rather bigger Labour win. However I suspect the Tories will fall by more in Wellingborough than in Kingswood.

[YL]

Not that the Greens were ever likely to be a big factor in that one.

But now it is Labour who have issues with their Rochdale candidate.

[CumbrianLefty]

Yes, rather sub-optimal isn't it.

Though you do have to ask why this recording has only come out now.