UK By-elections thread, 2021-

[DINGO Joe]

https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1471696617950568452

Is it just BritainElects that truncates ReformUK to REFUK?  Because to a casual observer, that looks a little....profane.

[DINGO Joe]

When computing the swing for T&H is it done from the difference between 1st and 2nd in the prior election or from the difference between Con and LD in said election?

[DINGO Joe]

Lib Dems claiming a “clear win” in Tiverton & Honiton.  Yellow returning to the map of the rural West Country after a 7 year break.

Seen several jokes of LD breaking the Corn Wall next.

[DINGO Joe]

I see Jayda has hit a new low of irrelevance

[DINGO Joe]

If we look at English by-elections (and excluding Southend West) we have the following average vote share changes

Conservative: -10.7%
Labour -4.4%
Lib Dem +11.4%

These elections also include Hartlepool (the first by-election; a Conservative gain) and Batley and Spen (intervention).

Without Hartlepool (a reverse intervention), the Tory vote drops on average by 15.5

If we look at the same picture in the 1992-1997 Parliament, but only during the years Blair was leader of the Labour Party, the Tory share dropped by 17.7 points on average (Labour up 13.9, Lib Dems down 2.0). These were contests on more favourable seats for Labour than the current crops of seats up for election.

So the Tory share is as down by almost as much as it was during the period in which they were heading for the exit.

The Lib Dem gains now are even more impressive given that in most seats they are recovering from relative historic lows for a third party.

Though is that Lib Dem average that meaningful? In three out of elections they got more than 45% of the vote, in the remaining five they couldn't break 4%. It's a pattern of really striking advances where they're the most plausible anti-Tory option and absolutely nothing where they aren't.

I presume that as long as strategic voting is all the rage, you'll see more and more of that.

[DINGO Joe]

I don't know the numbers for Wakefield, but for T&H there were very few blank ballots--60 or so plus 50 overvotes.  There was some suggestion that angry Tories would vote blank, but they didn't.

[DINGO Joe]

So when does Somerton and Frome likely become a by-election?  Or can the Tories actually stall it for a time?

[DINGO Joe]

https://mobile.twitter.com/RespectIsVital/status/1510338799288688644


Well, he looks rather impatient awaiting his fate.

[DINGO Joe]

Is there a chance the Lib-Dem By-election machine might start getting fatigued ?, the supply of new activist seems rather top heavy and I don't think they're recruiting that many new ones given the anemic polling numbers.

With regards to Somerton, as noted, they won in recent local elections in Somerset, the Lib-Dems have already chosen their candidate for the "next" election, and they're literally next door to T&H.  If the situation with the current MP had happened to be at the petition phase already, they probably would have collected enough signatures just driving back from T&H.