UK By-elections thread, 2021-

[beesley]

One potential huge issue for Labour is that the by-election is likely to be held on local election day (6th May) where the extremely popular Tory mayor of the Tees Valley (which includes Hartlepool), Ben Houchen, is expected to cruise to a landslide re-election. It's likely that he will have at least some coat tails which will significantly boost the Tory candidate's chances of gaining the seat.

Local politics rarely influence national voting, usually it's the other way round. It seems more likely that Labour's candidate for mayor will gain a bit from Labour supporters voting straight ticket who'd otherwise have voted for Houchen.

Spot on.  Plus it's difficult to have "coat tails" when turnout is only 25%.  Nobody cares about the metro mayors.

I don't think any metro mayors have coat tails but I think there's already two-tiers of them. Burnham, Street and Rotheram do actually have some sort of presence. I'm sure Houchen appears in the local newspaper a lot, and is obviously more well-known than Jacobs, but because Houchen has no real presence or relevance to national politics I'd be surprised if many voters even knew he was up for election, at least before they receive their poll card. Bowles, Jarvis and Palmer must be even less well-known.

[beesley]

If the UK ever federalises I will advocate for a province named Wessex for sure
I think we have the "identity" necessary for such an entity.

Yes! With a parliament in Winchester maybe.

[beesley]

If the UK ever federalises I will advocate for a province named Wessex for sure
I think we have the "identity" necessary for such an entity.

Yes! With a parliament in Winchester maybe.

I was hoping Bath but Winchester would work too.

Also I think if we included Dorset and Cornwall we could also lay claim to the nickname of the "Sunshine State" a la Florida and Queensland.

I only selected Winchester due to it being the seat of King Alfred, though Bath has the advantage of being more central I suppose.

[beesley]

Do people often resign from the UK parliament to run for Scottish parliament?

This is the first time it has happened - the SNP have now said "double hatting" is not allowed.

There are plenty of examples of former MPs becoming MSPs however: David Steel, Anas Sarwar, Angus Robertson potentially, but in terms of leaving the UK Parliament mid-term, there aren't so many. In fact, many MPs have been elected to the Scottish Parliament mid-term but obviously didn't resign their Westminster seats.

• Donald Dewar, the inaugural First Minister was MP for Glasgow Anniesland and ran in the equivalent Holyrood seat in 1999.
• Henry McLeish, Dewar's successor as First Minister, was MP for Central Fife and again ran in the equivalent Holyrood seat in 1999. He stood down from his Westminster seat at the 2001 General Election.
• Jim Wallace, the former interim First Minister and long-standing Deputy First Minister, was MP for Orkney and Shetland and ran for the Orkney Scottish Parliament seat in 1999, again waiting until 2001 to stand down from Westminster.
  
• Sam Galbraith, the inaugural Secretary for Education, was MP for Strathkelvin and Bearsden and again ran in the equivalent seat in 1999. He left both his Westminster and Holyrood seat in 2001.
• Dennis Canavan, a Labour MP for Falkirk West ran as an independent in the equivalent seat. He did resign his Westminster seat after being elected.
• Alex Salmond was a Westminster MP for Banff and Buchan when he was elected to the Scottish Parliament in 1999. He didn't leave his Westminster seat, but instead his Holyrood seat. He returned to Holyrood in 2007 as the new First Minister and left his Westminster seat in 2010.
• Douglas Ross will almost certainly return to the Scottish Parliament this May. He has no plans to resign his Westminster seat.

There may be a few I hadn't thought of. Gray however is the first to be affected by this rule (arguably Joanna Cherry was, as she didn't run for Edinburgh Central because of it.)

[beesley]

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.

It's also very odd.  It was conducted in 83 Northern seats, not particularly focussed on marginals (both safe Labour and safe Tory seats were included, but many Northern marginals were not; also the one Lib Dem seat in the North was not included), but it did include Hartlepool.  It produced predictions for all of those seats, but not for seats outside the 83.  Overall it shows Labour making modest progress, with a reasonable number of gains, including one in a seat Labour didn't win even in 1997 (Altrincham & Sale West, but note that the details in this sort of thing can be badly off), but also some 2019 losses not regained (Sedgefield the most striking, note same caveat).  Because of the weird selection of seats, it's hard to translate into a national picture, but I'd guess hung parliament with the Tories the largest party but a little short of a majority.

I don't think it says as much about the by-election as some people seem to think, even if it's accurate.  People don't vote in the same way in by-elections as in general elections.

Altrincham and Sale West is pretty similar to seats like Canterbury that went for Labour post-2016 due to Brexit, albeit more rural hence why it didn’t switch in 2017/19, so I could see Labour winning it next time even on a middling night.

I'm not sure how Altrincham and Sale West is more rural, even if the seat does contain Partington, but the broader point stands. There are quite a few of those potential 'Major/Labour' seats: Chipping Barnet, Kensington, Chingford and WG, Truro and Falmouth, and Wycombe, and if Labour were to win a majority there would likely be loads of them: Bournemouth East and West, Basingstoke, York Outer, Worthing East and Shoreham, etc.

[beesley]

Obviously Labour would need to win back loads of seats they lost in 2019. But there are seats they lost in 1997 that they would be more likely to win than seats they won even in 2010. That would apply even on a uniform swing.

[beesley]

I'm kidding, I'm kidding.  But it is kind of weird to have 3 former MPs running.

What's more remarkable is that none of them are actually from the seat or even a neighbouring seat. Indeed, only one is from the same statistical region. I can think of an example where two former MPs ran against the incumbent in a general election (Northampton North, 2015) but I can't possibly think of the last case exactly like this.

[beesley]

Well, Williams has strong ties to the constituency and represented another Teesside constituency even if it doesn't share a boundary, so that would ordinarily count as quite local. Dawson represented a constituency in northern Lancashire, but is actually from the North East - except that he is in no sense local as he is from and based in Northumberland. Walker's former constituency might as well have been in Cornwall.

Walker was a teacher in Stockton for a while, though.

Oh right - I assumed she was a teacher in Colne Valley. I expected too much!

[beesley]

John Prescott (no, not that John Prescott), will be the Reform candidate in Hartlepool. He stood in Stockton South in 2019, so this is his second race against Paul Williams.

[beesley]

Sad news about Dame Cheryl Gillan. Obviously there is little that can be/needs to be said about the by-election there at the moment.

The SNP and Labour have selected their candidates in Airdrie and Shotts. The SNP have selected Anum Qaisar-Javed, a modern studies teacher, while Labour have selected Fortissat councillor Kenneth Stevenson - he defeated the former MP Pamela Nash in the selection.

[beesley]

It now looks like Sadiq Khan will do very well in the London Mayoral election. Do you think his coattails will flip some GLA constituencies?

I'm thinking particularly of South West (Hounslow, Kingston, Richmond) and West Central (Westminster, Kensington, Hammersmith).

Havering and Redbridge less likely I think because of the strong UKIP vote last time.

Wrong thread, I'll respond in the other one.

[beesley]

Apparently Ben Houchen is wildly popular too with a lot of crossover support and the hope is he could pull us over the line.

I've heard the same, which surprised me at first because I didn't expect him to be so well-known. The Labour candidate is not incredible but a bit of a non-entity too.

In your area I've heard that Labour expect to win the West of England mayoral race. I suppose even if Bowles was running it would make little difference based on what you've said.

Not sure whether I support metro mayors, to be honest. As a supporter of devolution and regionalism I want them to go further with it but that will not happen under this government.

[beesley]

I don't like the metro mayors.  My view on devolution is double-or-nothing.  Either Canadian-style federalism (yes please) or no devolution at all for England.  To that end I also support the ongoing abolition of County, District and Borough councils and their replacement with large Unitary Authorities.  For example I wrote to the govt in support of One Somerset.

The metro mayors are just this weird, patchwork halfway post between centralism and federalism.  And I don't want to go all Gordon Brown but I believe federalism is what we need.

Fully agree with most of it. As you may have seen I am a supporter of federalism and regionalism more generally (Wessex Parliament when?) I'm not sure about large unitary authorities but they're better than some of the small district councils and their little power. I would keep community councils and their little power but have unitaries/metropolitan boroughs everywhere. In Somerset's case the district council boundaries are rather meaningless in my view and the government merged the two district councils that were geographically logical. The thing is with Metro Mayors is that across large areas they can be a more powerful force than the office affords and I believe in the absence of a First Minister or equivalent that can be a good thing. I find posts like the Bristol Mayoralty somewhat ridiculous though, especially with a Metro Mayor and a unitary as well. I have a whole list of gripes with local government but that's for another time.

I realise I've derailed the thread so I'll mention something about Hartlepool: there is a rather perplexing situation with Liberty Steel that combines the traditional Labour industry and jobs platform with some of the scandals. The government aren't exactly celebrated for their support of steel but they are especially reluctant this time as it all ties in with Greensill and David Cameron. Of course, none of this could matter at all based on previous results and I doubt it does, but Keir Starmer seems to be pushing the issue in the hope that both issues become more salient and from what I've seen Labour are trying to make it an issue on the ground too.

[beesley]

Though it may or not be significant that Labour people are starting to brief "think we will do it".

Interesting I seem to have missed this?

I typed in 'hartlepool labour win' into the Twitter search to have a look and instantly regretted it.

[beesley]

I would say that this is a poll with some problems: sample of only 301, looks to be out of date, and the telephone polling. It also goes against the 'consensus view of the ground' is but obviously that could also be wrong.

I would also say that this is still a very good poll for the Tories, as YL said: credible enough that I'd be concerned about the Tory lead.

Also, if it lines up with the other polling from the last few days then it's a mixed picture that we should only draw conclusions from with caution and after the results.

[beesley]

https://twitter.com/JoshHalliday/status/1389628163320393729

Could just be expectation management, considering Boris Johnson apparently doesn't expect to win (again, also expectation management)? Though if true, I would place more stock in that than the Survation poll.

[beesley]

We shall see. How many people will be caught out by the fact they need to bring their own pencil to the polling station?

Nobody is required to bring their own pencil, it is just encouraged.

[beesley]

We shall see. How many people will be caught out by the fact they need to bring their own pencil to the polling station?

Nobody is required to bring their own pencil, it is just encouraged.

You’re allowed to use a pen aren’t you?

Yes. If I'm correct, the reason why polling stations are stocked with pencils rather than pens is to avoid smudging of ink which could make your vote unclear.

[beesley]

Not sure why the mayoral predictions are here, but nevertheless:

Hartlepool: Within 5% either way.
Cambs, Tees Valley, and West Midlands go Conservative.
Greater Manchester, Liverpool, London, West of England, and West Yorkshire go Labour.

[beesley]

I think a lot of people need a holiday.

Didn’t they just have one on Monday? Not that I could use one on this side of the pond though.

Yes, and it pissed it down all day.

[beesley]

Ugh, I have woken up to no result?

[beesley]

How much of an impact do you all think that Houchen's huge win played in the Tories' victory in Hartlepool?

I get that Houchen styles himself as independent from the Tory leadership but I find it difficult to imagine that there wasn't some kind of coat-tail effect here, especially since he won a second term with a majority of like 50%.

Not sure about that but Houchen and Johnson promising lots of investment in the area appears to have made a lot of difference.

[beesley]

Labour would be hard pressed to be seen as more pro-Brexit than Boris Johnson shouting 'Get Brexit Done', yes. The trends could already be seen in 2017 anyway.

[beesley]

I maintain that the Swinson leadership was awful, even if the performance was not, because her tenure consisted of throwing away most of the gains the LDs had made under Cable and alienating even more Brexiteers. Some of that was inevitable, but the scale of the retreat over a few months was astounding. Even in traditional Tory-Lib Dem fights like Cheadle, Labour voters went back to the red team in significant - and electorally fatal - numbers.

I think it was actually far worse than that. Obviously the 2015 and 2017 GE results and the loss of many incumbents paved the way for this to happen, and things were trending that way anyway, but she basically sealed the demise of the Lib Dems in many of their traditional areas by throwing away any credibility they had in those areas. It will take them a long time to recover and it will probably require lots of local work.

[beesley]

Though the usual GALAXY BRAINS are likely suggesting Ed Balls already......

There will be someone somewhere who'll suggest John Grogan, I'm sure.