UK By-elections thread, 2021-

[Statilius the Epicurean]

It's MRP, which models individual seats by applying the national voting intention of demographics.  Perhaps useful for a broad indication of the "state of play" but isn't going to be very predictive of a by-election.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Lmao apparently NIP may run Thelma Walker, MP for Colne Valley for two years.

I just found out today that the bloke who runs that Twitter account lives in Brighton lmao.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

lmao

I suppose we've been overdue this sort of classic Liberal by-election upset and, as noted above, there were some excellent local issues to work with. Presumably there will be some frothing and indignation on the government backbenches which may or may not have consequences.

Did it really boil down to "NIMBYism" or is there subtler stuff going on locally in Buckinghamshire as well? I wasn't really following this one until seeing the (hilarious) result.

This thread probably downplays opposition to HS2 and the planning laws revision a bit but is a good perspective on the sort of issues percolating that weren't related to Nimby stuff.

https://twitter.com/BridgetFox/status/1405773253705011211

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Galloway's primary goal was to cost Labour the seat which would act as the starting gun for a leadership challenge against Starmer. By any measure he's failed miserably.

If anything Galloway's put the hard left opponents of the leadership on the back foot for seeming to give his gutter campaign a wink and a nudge.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

What’s truly striking is the number of Con -> Lib switchers. With all the talk about tactical voting I don’t think anyone expected that LDs wouldn’t even need Labour votes to win.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

"I will hold regular surgeries" what? Why would you pledge that? That's the bare minimum...

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Yeah I agree that Boris has the best election-winning instincts in the Conservative Party (mostly because he's an unprincipled charlatan rather than an ideologue like most Tories). The problem is if his personal brand is so damaged by the managerial incompetence emanating from Number 10 that it doesn't matter.

It's quite possible people are writing him off early - there was also a lot of speculation about Boris being chucked before the vaccine bounce happened and suddenly he was invincible again. But I think the recurring question marks are because anyone who is familiar with Boris Johnson's career could have well predicted a flameout of the sort that's happened in the past couple of months.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

About as bad a rebuke of Boris one could imagine. Not that I expect it to change his position in the near future, but.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

any guesses on the spin from the press?

The swing against the tories?

or the tories hanging on in Uxbridge?

Even the Sun correspondent on BBC was admitting it was a good night for Labour. I think the Uxbridge result will be played as less a national indication but more of a local issue for Sadiq Khan and the London mayoral election next year.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

My cousin has been selected as the Conservative PPC for Rutherglen, lol. Nice guy, although I hope he loses.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

My cousin has been selected as the Conservative PPC for Rutherglen, lol. Nice guy, although I hope he loses.

Well then

[Statilius the Epicurean]

How come there is a Sussex, an Essex, a Wessex and a Middlesex - but no "Nossex"?

As far as we can tell the Saxons didn't settle far inland north of the Thames, at least not initially. It's "East Anglia" to the north for a reason: the area was settled by the Angles, not the Saxons.