UK By-elections thread, 2021-

[patzer]

It would be interesting to see how he would go down in Hartlepool today.

Honestly if the Hartlepool by-election had happened today, it wouldn't entirely surprise me if the independent Sam Lee would have won.

[patzer]

I wonder if this is the most boring by-election for one with a majority below 5K- even pre Ukraine there was virtually no interest. I haven’t even seen politics Twitter pretend to understand the seat!

Had it happened a year ago I suspect there would have been much more interest, it could have been another Hartlepool.

But the Conservatives have fallen a lot since those days.

[patzer]

I wonder if this is the most boring by-election for one with a majority below 5K- even pre Ukraine there was virtually no interest. I haven’t even seen politics Twitter pretend to understand the seat!

Had it happened a year ago I suspect there would have been much more interest, it could have been another Hartlepool.

But the Conservatives have fallen a lot since those days.

The 2019 result was not like Hartlepool in the key ways. So even if Labour was down by as much as they were in 2019 or in May 2021, it would be much less vulnerable and a reliable Labour seat.

It certainly wouldn't have been as bad as Hartlepool- you wouldn't have seen the swing there was there- but I'd still certainly say that pre-Partygate the Tories would have had a shot at a seat they only lost by 10% in 2019 and which voted 63% for Brexit.

[patzer]

Do these Lib Dem victories portend anything enduring in all these safe Tory seats? Or are they just one time by-election protest votes and these seats will return to the fold in the GE? Would be interesting if we saw a similar phenomenon to what happened in Australia here.

Tiverton and North Shropshire look like normal Leave voting safe Tory seats. The LibDems are on track to do very well in highly educated Remain voting (or narrowly Leave seats) imo, I think they retain Chesham and Amersham. It does show the Tories have a very low floor to a minor party opposition.

Tiverton is also in an area with significant LD history, though. I think they could well retain this one, although the boundary changes will be a bit of a wildcard. I agree North Shropshire is the biggest stretch - but you never know, if the Tories are getting walloped nationwide they won't have the resources to spare to try to fight to win it back.

North Shropshire was unique due to the circumstances surrounding Paterson’s resignation, it’s not really that favourable to the Lib Dems - though farmers turning on the Tories doesn’t hurt them - whilst Tiverton isn’t that different from other rural West Country seats like Yeovil that they held for a long time, it’s just never had the local organisation in the past which is why they didn’t win it 1997-2010.

Worth mentioning that on occasion even seats with little local LD presence have managed to stay with the party for a while, but yes, Tiverton and Honiton is likely especially vulnerable to the LDs staying in. I'd actually say that a lot of the pre-2015 LD southwestern seats now held by the Tories would also be vulnerable, e.g. I feel that Andrew George is favoured to retake St Ives.

[patzer]

Will be interesting to see the minor party results. How much the SDP and Reform eat into the tory vote.