UK By-elections thread, 2021-

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Given Hartlepool's famously... odd local politics, one has to suspect the CLP executive getting someone in from the seat next door might actually help.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

https://twitter.com/PaulWilliamsLAB/status/46719898705072129?s=20

Between this and the 'progressive Saudi Arabia blows my mind' tweet, he, er, certainly seems like a nice fellow.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Numbers like that with a very small sample size in a constituency poll in a by-election would normally just say 'competitive', particularly a month away from the election itself.

However... er... given who commissioned the poll and some of the 'issues' with this company's constituency polling at the last GE, it might be interesting to see the internals. There are a few things that smell odd as it is.

Does it matter that it was commissioned by a trade union?

A notably pro-Corbyn and anti-Starmer union who might be interested in making a point (the poll also contains questions about various policies in the 2019 manifesto it liked).

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

*E.g. A big feature of North East politics for about fifty years now has been very strong grassroots female involvement in local Labour parties, which, to say the least, has not exactly been the case in Hartlepool.

Looking at the council, I can't help but suspect that's part of the problem!

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Scotland: SNP largest party

Probably more interesting to ask 1) if they'll get a majority on their own, 2) who'll come second, 3) does Alba get in.

(ftr, my answers would probably have to be 1) yes 2) Tories 3) Salmond himself will probably make it but no one else)

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

The situation right now is unsettled enough that who knows, but I'm expecting Reform to flop yet again unless proven otherwise.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

https://twitter.com/electpoliticsuk/status/1465813823814836230?ref_src=twsrc%5Et...

Fake news, a clued-in LD activist I know says no postal votes had been opened when that was posted.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Fairly crap Tory result and decent Labour one (thanks partly to the crap turnout), and this does provide the first piece of evidence we have that anyone might care at all about Reform.

https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1466586000021495810

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Most of those pledges are... the same pledge.

Neil Shad-Trombone

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Ed Balla not standing in Wakefield.

Whomsoever could have foreseen this shocking turn of events

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

It would have been terrible for Labour if he had as the leadership speculation would have ensued immediately.

Not being an MP hasn’t stopped baseless leadership speculation before.

Old hands will remember Keir Starmer was being tipped as a future leader about 15 minutes after being elected as an MP for the first time...

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Just saw figures showing Labour spent 93K in the Birmingham by election. 

More interesting is that the Conservatives spent nearly as much which is... bizarre... as they were never in contention.

Love-bombing the council wards?

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

The number of signatures is a bit lower than I'd thought it might be, and the percentage considerably lower than in the other two successful petitions.  I don't know whether that should be taken as a sign that it might not be quite such an easy Labour gain or not; we don't exactly have a lot of data on recall petitions.

I think, above anything else, it's a reflection of the fact that the thing she did that led to her recall happened almost three years ago. It also helps that, while she did whine a bit, Ferrier never publicly compared herself to Jesus on the cross, and her party immediately cut her loose.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

The SNP vote has almost always been remarkably evenly distributed, which has variously been their greatest asset and their greatest burden depending on quite how high that vote has been. The Labour vote in Scotland has historically tracked both traditional patterns of industry (now usually long-dead, but that isn't the point) and also regional urban centres, the latter actually more so than has often been the case in England. Within more urbanized regions, there were also sectarian patterns to the votes of both parties, though this has faded quite rapidly in recent years.

Although one thing that did stick out in 2019 was that, with some exceptions, the further away you got from Glasgow, the harder the SLab vote collapsed. It may be interesting to see if any of that lingers.