Snapshot of _Wellingborough parliamentary by-election, result: LAB: 45.9% (+19.5) CON: 24.6% (-37.6) REF: 13.0% (+13.0) LDEM: 4.7% (-3.1) IND: 3.7% (+3.7) GRN: 3.4% (-0.1) Labour GAIN from Conservative_ :
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Perhaps putting up Peter Bone’s partner as his successor candidate in the by-election triggered by Bone being recalled in the first place was not the wisest idea
This has just reminded of when Sunak first became PM and he gave a massive speech about how his government was going to have integrity and accountability at every single level lol.
This whole situation is a really neat encapsulation of why the Tories have got themselves into such a mess: they just will not call the bluff of their worst members. The smart play would have been to dare Bone to stand and let him risk being personally humiliated. Instead, they bowed down to him in the hope they'd score an easy win, and ended up not only losing, but looking like spineless cretins too.
The Conservatives keep doing this on the whole, and it's boxing them into worse and worse positions. They're going to end up like the Republicans at this rate.
They aren't winning elections. The Republicans have been historically underperforming in the US midterms since 2020 and there's good reason to believe that they're going to lose again in 2024, precisely because they have become too right wing.
Good post.
Actually do not mind Sunak too much, but incredibly weak leadership to continue pandering to the repulsive elements.
Could have done with learning from Starmer and confronting unsavoury, militant elements of the party head on.
> they could have done so with at least some dignity in tact
At this point I feel that the only thing to have left the country on a flight to Rwanda is the Tories' dignity
That's the narrative.
But it should be noted that Bone, while still suspended, did unexpectedly attend and vote for Sunak's (then assumed) knife edge Rwanda bill.
They’d probably struggle to find a serious candidate who wants to waste months of their life campaigning for a lost cause. Might as well let her have at it.
The 2019 Tory intake was weird as they won a lot of no-hope seats, and so didn't really put much thought into the candidates. God help us with who they manage to scrounge up for this one, as no-one with any serious political hopes will be starting their career *here*.
Were they trying to repeat a trick that worked before?
It worked when Charlie Elphick stood down for Sexual Assault allegations and now his wife Natalie Elphick is the MP for Dover.
According to [Curtice](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68305798) it’s... *”the second highest swing from Conservative to Labour in any post-war by-election”*
[eta] the [biggest swing](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/by-election-wellingborough-kingswood-results-2024-b2497239.html): *”...the largest post-war by-election swing from Tory to Labour, which was 29.1 percentage points at the Dudley West by-election in December 1994.”*
It’s the swing from Conservative to Labour. Swing is less useful as a measure when dealing with multiple parties - in this case the Conservatives are haemorrhaging support in all directions.
Swing from party A (loosing vote share) to party B (gaining vote share) is calculated as:
(percentage from A + percentage to B)/2
So here it is (37.6+19.5)/2 which gives the 28.5% swing
Swing is calculated by adding the absolute value of the change in vote for each party and dividing by 2.
Lab +19.5 Con -37.6
19.5 + 37.6 = 57.1
57.1/2 = 28.55
Its rounded down so it they may have used more accurate numbers for the initial change in vote figures.
1994 Dudley West is a good comparison. Not exactly the same since the base turnout (from 1992) was higher and there were no third party factors, but the dynamics of the votes were very similar. Labour vote didn't change all that much, but the Tory vote went off a cliff. Switchers from Con to Lab enough to compensate for the lower turnout (it's unrealistic to assume all Labour voters voted, that's simply not what happens in by-elections), but everything in the wrong direction for the Tory vote.
I'm not sure what he sees his road to recovery being. Short of some black swan event, his party seems doomed.
I'm not sure what he's hoping to achieve with his time left either. It's a dead government clinging to the vestiges of power that it lacks the ability and will to actually employ it toward any moral cause.
We need a Genny Leccy now.
Sadly for us, his only option is to cling on until the very end in the hope of a black swan emerging.
The real question is whether the PCP let him stay in post. What reason can Sunak give his party to retain him as leader? They're at the stage where they have nothing to lose by giving someone else a go.
Most of the people I know are tired and frustrated with all the changes at the top which they see as undemocratic. We vote for parties not people in the UK so they can do it but I can't see that another change at the top would go down well with the public.
Also who is going to want to take that role knowing they are likely to be on the end of a huge electoral defeat? I think the time to have ejected him was 6 months ago and now they'll let him stay on to take the loss.
The bar is set so low with Sunak's leadership that any disruption caused by replacing him could easily be more than counterbalanced by a new leader bounce. It's hard to imagine anyone doing a worse job than him.
The conversation about having a 4th leader in a single parliament isn't that different from the one about the 3rd and they rode that out by ignoring it. Didn't the Aussies have a similar game of musical chairs at the top a little while back?
> who is going to want to take that role knowing they are likely to be on the end of a huge electoral defeat?
Anyone with a strong desire to get PM on their CV. For most of the senior Tories, this will be their last ever opportunity and doing it in this manner is better than never doing it at all.
Plus there are those who'd never have the chance normally and would jump at the chance. We all thought they couldn't go lower than Truss, but we're in a timeline where Mark Francois PM is a genuine possibility.
Who else even is there? They've already scraped the very bottom of the barrel for Tory leadership, and each successive one is ousting or alienating the few remaining vaguely serious and competent Tories.
The only 'big move' would be to bring Boris back, but even the PCP diehards must realise that he comes with _so_ much more baggage and attack material now than in 2019.
I just can't see why a serious Tory leader would want to take over *now*. There's no Boris Johnson-esque charisma magnet with broad support who could sweep in, like 2019.
Chances are anyone coming in now gets a fractured party and no time to sort it before the election. Better play is to wait for the GE, hope you survive the wipeout, and take over when Sunak inevitably resigns.
That way, you're not sullied with the election loss, and you have a smaller party that'll be easier to manage and shape to your purpose.
There isn't really anyone left in the PCP who could realistically be the leader in normal times. Possibly Mordaunt, though she's been rejected by her party twice. But that doesn't mean nobody would take the job - it would just be a perennial no hoper.
Why would you want to be a LotO who has close to zero chance of becoming PM? Nobody wants to be this generation's William Hague.
If you become PM, that's locked in forever. Even Liz Truss is held in high regard in certain quarters and you wouldn't have to try hard to be better than her.
They would rather avoid potentially having Liz Truss-level polling and lose nearly all their seats. Under Sunak they might yet only lose by about 10-12% in an actual election, and thus keep a good 220-240 MPs.
It depends on how an individual MP's constituency polling looks.
220-240 is optimistic on recent polling, and all it takes to get a new PM is a combination of MPs who are on course to lose their seats and the ideologues who didn't want Sunak in the first place that reaches over 50% of the current (360?) PCP count.
The 220-240 is better than current polling, I got the number by comparing to pre-1997 polling. Until literally the day before the 1997 election, polling was a lot better than the actual result - it was averaging well over a 20% lead (not unlike current polling). Given that it eventually reduced to 13%, if the same thing happened in 2024 it would be something like an 11% Labour lead (which electoral calculus says would give a Labour 365-224 Conservative result).
Anyway if that actually happened most Tory MPs would survive.
At the moment his hope is damage control.
If by November the Economy is growing, inflation is below 2%, interest rates have been cut 2 or 3 times, and the Tories have handed out some tax cuts, their base is going to be much happier.
It's very likely that all those things happen, and while the Tories will still get hammered in those conditions it probably won't be as brutal as if they had a GE now.
So they might as well wait till November. Although the added danger is that a cold GE day will deter the older voters from coming out, and they rely heavily on them.
>Sunak should just end this shit already
See if the weekend papers have the balls to call this week's economic news the Rishession, associating his name with the recession would surely be the nail in the coffin
Christ, that'd be a genius move. Something Labour would find very difficult to oppose too given their base's support for PR.
Of course they'd never consider it. It'd be good for the country at the end of the day, which appears to be antithetical to Conservative values.
This isnt how by-elections work. There is zero chance that *every* Labour voter from the general election voted and most of the Tories stayed at home. It’s much more likely that turnout dropped proportionally for each party. Assuming anything else is just the losers trying to cope with the result.
If Labour have such a well oiled election machine that all their GE voters turn out in a by-election, that should worry the Tories more than just taking the results at face value.
I mean they're so fucked.
Like even if you assume Reform breaks ONLY for the tories in a GE (Which it wouldn't), they still lose this seat. number 226 on Labour's target list.
It's going to be a bloodbath. Now the question just is do they want a bloodbath in warm or cold weather? I mean if I was them I'd rather hopelessly canvass in beer garden weather, but I'm not an empty husk of a politician.
Yes, the magic money tree will suddenly start producing soon in the build up the next election.
Tax cuts, interest rate cuts, increased public spending etc, all money we've been told hasn't been available when we needed it will suddenly appear when the Tories (and to be fair, Labour would do it as well) need it to.
They probably will but they don't have a good hand either way, cut taxes then they are under fire for spending money we don't have in a recession as public services fail. If they don't cut taxes then they are responsible for the highest tax burden in decades with people short on money in a cost of living crisis.
> They’d also like to keep their job and salary for as long as possible
Probably the only benefit to knowing you're going to get absolutely slaughtered in the next election, is that they will now spend their time in power doing things that exclusively put money in their own pockets and set themselves up for big £££ jobs in the private sector AND advance policy that will hobble the next government and make life as hard as possible for them so they can campaign on that, knowing their voters will fall for that shit.
It wasn’t Boris per se. It was a combination of people believing Boris (get Brexit done, 40 new hospitals) and hating Corbyn. Neither of those things exist anymore
I couldn't stand Johnson but it's fair to say his charisma did have an affect on the situation as well. People love voting for someone who looks like they're off a 3rd reality TV show
I do because it'd be funny and it won't work.
The spell is broken with Boris and the general public hate him like an ex who can't understand what they saw in him in the first place.
While some might swap back tories at a GE, personally i dont know what the tories could possible do in the next 6 months that would make me consider voting for them over reform. Because regardless of what they promise between now and then weve got a decade of promises failed. They actually have to tangible do something while in government. Which is unlikely to happen because the main blocker on anything they want to do is their own party blocking it.
If these seats are anything to go by they won’t even be canvassing. In which case they will probably pick cold weather to stick it to their opponents, that’s indicative of the sort of spiteful, lazy people that make up the Tory party
They apparently lost 10 votes, so had to go back through to make sure they were accounted for.. Seems reasonable regardless of result, as everyone should have a say.
100%, the Conservative candidates response to this result was that they will be standing again in the general election.
We've got a toys out of the pram situation going on.
Today it's 346 days until the absolute latest date for the next GE, and coincidentally the Tories still have 346 MPs in this Parliament who haven't been Prime Minister yet. Considering everyone's agreed that Rishi is toast, maybe it's now time for a grand "PM for a day" strategy where each morning we pull another Tory name out of a hat. Would keep the King on his toes as well and make for interesting conversations like "where were you during the 24 hours of Selaine Saxby (North Devon)'s reign of terror?".
This massive swing to Labour, plus the Kingswood result, seasoned with a little “UK in recession” is the perfect recipe for another drive from the Tory right for a leadership contest.
It will be interesting to see who the Today Programme has got on for their 8:10 interview. I hope it’s someone out of their depth a la Laura Trott who is unable to spin this as anything other than a disaster for the Conservative Party and for Rishi in particular
Do you really think there'll be another leadership struggle? It'd be a bit like fighting for who gets to be in the cockpit as the plane crashes at this stage, imo the smarter move would be see this out under Sunak, then regroup after and go from there, there's no way the Tories aren't getting absolutely hammered next election and I don't think anyone else would want to be the person who led them to electoral disaster
You’re right, it would be an act of self harm for the Tories to embark on yet another leadership circus.
The grown ups in the room will council against it but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. That party is so out of balance and disconnected from the expectations of people outside of Tory political life that nothing would surprise me.
There are plenty of MPs openly talking of ousting Sunak, the question is whether they will be quietly mollified before they gain too much party support.
Nah, that’s the ‘my family has been voting blue for generations’ gang. There’s an annoyingly large crop of them voting for every party in every constituency, as people want to vote but don’t want to have to use their brains
There's also any number of people for whom Labour ate my dog/The Tories nailed my hand to a table/The Greens used my children in unholy rituals. So, while they're not exactly voting for a party, they really don't like one of the others. This may be because of something back several governments ago.
Ooh yeah I've got one.
Gordon Brown doubled my tax rate (when the 10% band was scrapped - https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/apr/30/economy.gordonbrown)
>There's also any number of people for whom Labour ate my dog/The Tories nailed my hand to a table/The Greens used my children in unholy rituals.
Ah, the classic "I REMEMBER THE 70S" morons.
I'm way more sympathetic to that shit now than I used to be because after the last fifteen years I genuinely struggle to imagine a possible future where I'd be willing to vote Conservative.
I'm not, and I will freely admit that. Look at anything from policy to political satire from the last 50 years and you'll see that the Labour party has changed. Meanwhile, you watch the 1987 Spitting Image Election Special the every single god damn criticism of the Tories still applies. It'd be hilarious if it weren't so depressing.
From what I've seen at work people don't think they've done a good enough job. They just really hate labour and won't bother voting for a smaller party
I find it interesting that with Starmer's reforms to the party, the media has all of a sudden become much less interested in internal Labour shenanigans which leaves a good chunk of the public thinking the party is identical to how it was under Corbyn.
About a quatre of people being not far right enough to vote for Reform but not centrist enough to vote for Labour makes sense.
These people are largely ideologically lost, being only ever able to vote Tory despite their incompetence.
Really enjoying that Helen Harrison intends to stand again in the general election. She clearly thinks she’s entitled to this seat in parliament. It’s attitudes like hers that are helping drag down the Tory party.
She must know the optics of standing for this seat as the partner of the former, disgraced, MP are terrible. But she just doesn’t care.
It says a lot about the state of the party that they are willing to let her stand. They obviously think it doesn’t matter that Bone was removed, and are oblivious to the appearance of it.
A lot of the party have worked with her for years. She was big in the Brexit campaign. They are 100% on board with her being entitled to a seat due to her previous work.
Other comments have already covered the glorious collapse of the Tory vote.
But what happened here with the Lib Democrats? I thought they would gain a little bit, but their vote decreased. Not a good sign for them.
There's nothing unusual here. Over the past couple of years the LD vote has been suppressed in by-elections where Labour win, but also the Labour vote is suppressed in by-elections that the LDs won too.
It's just tactical voting for the most likely non-Tory winner.
While it’s certainly not positive, I wouldn’t read too much into it. They were a non entity in both seats anyway and good chance there was a lot of tactical voting to smash the Conservatives out, they will be focused on the 80 or so seats where they are the strongest opposition.
Is it not as simple as:
1. In a situation where many people are driven most by “Tories out!” you’ll have more people voting tactically. Labour had a bigger vote share than the Lib Dem’s here before as well as more national momentum so make much more sense for tactical voters.
2. There’s a chance Ed Davey’s reputation is still smeared by the Post Office scandal. Though this assumes a small number of people actually know he’s the Lib Dem leader.
That was my first thought actually, and in Kingswood same story. Its slightly worrying for the LDs who historically feast on hyper local contests like this...post office related maybe? Or just that they've lost their touch?
I think the LDs have largely dropped off the radar in recent years.
If you're actively interested in politics you might be able to name one or two leading figures in the party but the average member of the public wouldn't be able to name their leader without Googling, let alone outline any of their policies.
>I think the LDs have largely dropped off the radar in recent years.
Except, of course in their massive by-election wins over the past couple of years (North Shropshire etc)
They may well have collected decent results in by -elections – that's always been their thing – but by 'radar' in this context (TBF maybe I should have been clearer) I mean 'The public consciousness.'
No-one really talks about them any more (except here). They have lost much of their media visibility due to the emergence of upstarts like UKIP and (latterly) Reform.
Yes, I think that’s a fair assessment. Starmer has seen how the voters responded to Corbyn’s radical rhetoric and has repositioned Labour as a sort of lo-cal Conservative party. With Reform hoovering up votes from the wingnut right, Rishi is a polar bear on a shrinking iceberg.
Oh for sure and really until Nick Clegg, I suspect lots of people couldn't name an LD figure that wasn't the leader - I guess I'm 'worried' (for want of a better word) that they suddenly think they are a 'national' party (especially after 2015) rather than a party that is 'local' and does some good local campaigning.
That or it could be a lot of tactical voting and a good chunk of the slightly brexity-er LD supporters ahve just gone over to Reform!
Christ so you people not even look at geography? The Lib Dems only run by elections in areas where they're certain they can be a clear choice. There's no point doing a hard campaign when they can get the same result (con loss) without spending a penny.
Speaking as a party member - we didn't campaign here at all really. We seem to be pursuing a policy of focusing on what we can win. There's a lot of work going into target seats in anticipation of the GE at the moment - we were never going to compete in Wellingborough and as a party with limited resources it makes sense to focus on actual winnable seats.
Living in the area, it is not quite as simple as that, there is a lot of working class industry still around here, shoemaking in particular (Dr Martens for instance are just down the road from me, as are DB Shoes). However, while it has been solid Tory since 2005, I would call it more of an aspirational middle class seat with a tendency to swing with the general political opinion of the country rather than a safe Tory seat.
Rishi later this morning “It is important to remember that midterm by-elections are always difficult for an incumbent government. Stuck to the plan. Square one. THIS. IS. FINE”
In reality: yikes.
'Stick to the plan' is really starting to annoy me. WHAT IS THE PLAN?
At this point I don't think we've heard the *aspiration* let alone the practical route for achieving it.
Huge encouragement there for Reform. A little *too much* encouragement, some of us might say. I think that although it's unlikely, it's just about possible that we could see the Conservatives pushed into 3rd place in quite a few constituencies come the long-waited GE.
I'd wait for the locals before making any solid judgements on reforms capabilities.
By-elections can have resources concentrated from across the country where's in locals things are spread far thinner and more like a GE. Reform are still doing crap compared to how UKIP were doing so I'm of the view it's very much wait and see.
Should be pretty disappointing for Reform really.To copy my own comment, it's not a bad percentage, but considering this is a by-election (where you'd expect them to do better than an actual election), they were focusing on it, the Tory candidate was awful and the Tory campaign pretty much gave up, it's surely a disappointment. For comparison UKIP got 19.6% here in 2015.
The ultra right won't get what they want if this bunch of Tories win the next election - there's no equivalent of a super hard Brexit on the table to convince them to thumb the scales this time.
But a strong showing from Reform and a decimated Tory party in opposition leaves the blues in a prime position for a takeover from the former. Then they'd have a genuine opportunity to enter government in a couple of cycles instead of being a sideshow with more perceived than actual influence.
Based on this result, Reform definitely aren't going to replace the Conservatives. It's not a bad percentage, but considering this is a by-election (where you'd expect them to do better than an actual election), they were focusing on it, the Tory candidate was awful and the Tory campaign pretty much gave up, it's surely a disappointment. For comparison UKIP got 19.6% here in 2015.
Reform vote holding up is super interesting. Wonder if there might be a tipping point at play here. If the Tories are doing so apocalyptically badly, reform voters have no incentive to vote tactically (not that they would all vote Tory anyway). But the opposite could also be true. If the Tories close the gap even a little, then maybe we will also see more tactical voting.
May be a local effect too- normally loyal Tory voters choosing not to vote for Bone 2.0.
ITV aired a vox pop when the purdah was lifted at 10 p.m. last night and more than one voter said *I'm a Tory but I signed to recall him/ I'm a Tory but I can't vote for his partner*
The things Bone 1.0 did were just very very bad.
Most people realise the antisemitism stories are blown out of proportion and barely factor into any consideration as to who they would prefer to be running the country
I think one of the most interesting things is that the Reform vote has finally begun to manifest into reality instead of just being a polling phenomenon, bad news for the Tories.
The numbers are interesting from a pure vote analytical perspective.
2019
||2019|2024|
|:-|:-|:-|
|Labour|13737|13844|
|Conservative|32277|7408|
|Turnout|51913|30220|
Labour only managed to increase their votes by 107
Conservatives lost 24,869 votes. Some of those votes went to Reform (3919). The overall majority of the vote loss came down to 21,713 fewer people turning out to vote. I suspect the general would be a lot closer but a Labour hold.
That isn't how elections work.
With 21,000 less votes overall, the fact that Labour increased their vote shows a remarkable swing. It's why looking just at raw numbers tells us very little in by-elections.
This would be interesting if it wasn’t completely inconclusive. Are you suggesting that every single prior Labour voter turned out?
There’s no way of telling whether every prior Labour voter turned out and most of the Tories stayed at home, or a huge proportion of Tory voters switched to Labour but drop in turnout was evenly distributed across all parties.
As it is, this information tells you nothing unless we poll voters on what they voted in 2019.
Very interesting. But we don’t know how many labour voters from 2019 didn’t vote/changed vote/moved away/died.
Probably not many but felt I should say!
Bearing in mind that we are comparing a by-election result to a GE result. Normally by-election turnouts are way down so the fact that Labour got the same number of votes indicates a significant increase in people turning out to vote for them (relatively).
A major party increasing their raw vote numbers in a by-election is huge news. Before last year it had only happened three times since 1997 (once for Labour, twice for Conservatives). Labour have now done it three times in a year.
Is this a poor result for Reform? They were throwing everything at this seat, with a relatively well known candidate, and by-elections should naturally favour them, but their vote share is barely above their national share according to YouGov. Okay, there are reasons to believe that YouGov are inflating the Reform figure due to their methodology, but I still think they should have outperformed it if they are really as much of a threat as some Tories seem to believe.
Snapshot of _Wellingborough parliamentary by-election, result: LAB: 45.9% (+19.5) CON: 24.6% (-37.6) REF: 13.0% (+13.0) LDEM: 4.7% (-3.1) IND: 3.7% (+3.7) GRN: 3.4% (-0.1) Labour GAIN from Conservative_ : A Twitter embedded version can be found [here](https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?id=1758341963848298863) A non-Twitter version can be found [here](https://nitter.net/BritainElects/status/1758341963848298863/) An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1758341963848298863?t=JcMLAZRmZqFTvwb-BYCYlA&s=19) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1758341963848298863?t=JcMLAZRmZqFTvwb-BYCYlA&s=19) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
You have to give it to Sunak, he’s managed to stop the votes
Take your upvote
Even Sunak the Mighty can't stop upvotes
Perhaps putting up Peter Bone’s partner as his successor candidate in the by-election triggered by Bone being recalled in the first place was not the wisest idea
Didn't they only do it because Bone threatened to run as an independent?
But they were going to lose anyway - they could have done so with at least some dignity in tact!
This has just reminded of when Sunak first became PM and he gave a massive speech about how his government was going to have integrity and accountability at every single level lol.
The great thing about integrity is that if you don’t have any, you just lie and say you’re the most integralish person in the world.
Tories and dignity... i don't think they've ever met
Shame it wasn't dignitas
This whole situation is a really neat encapsulation of why the Tories have got themselves into such a mess: they just will not call the bluff of their worst members. The smart play would have been to dare Bone to stand and let him risk being personally humiliated. Instead, they bowed down to him in the hope they'd score an easy win, and ended up not only losing, but looking like spineless cretins too. The Conservatives keep doing this on the whole, and it's boxing them into worse and worse positions. They're going to end up like the Republicans at this rate.
The Republicans may be far right nut jobs like the Tories but they still win elections. Let's hope the Tories continue losing.
They aren't winning elections. The Republicans have been historically underperforming in the US midterms since 2020 and there's good reason to believe that they're going to lose again in 2024, precisely because they have become too right wing.
Good post. Actually do not mind Sunak too much, but incredibly weak leadership to continue pandering to the repulsive elements. Could have done with learning from Starmer and confronting unsavoury, militant elements of the party head on.
> they could have done so with at least some dignity in tact At this point I feel that the only thing to have left the country on a flight to Rwanda is the Tories' dignity
I thought that the last of their dignity was vomited against the wall during a Downing Street party?
Do they know the meaning of the word. If they had any sense of dignity, a general election would have been called months ago.
That's the narrative. But it should be noted that Bone, while still suspended, did unexpectedly attend and vote for Sunak's (then assumed) knife edge Rwanda bill.
She says she's going to run again in the General Election.
Holy shit seriously?! We are so far beyond even regular delusion levels for some of these maniacs.
They’d probably struggle to find a serious candidate who wants to waste months of their life campaigning for a lost cause. Might as well let her have at it.
The 2019 Tory intake was weird as they won a lot of no-hope seats, and so didn't really put much thought into the candidates. God help us with who they manage to scrounge up for this one, as no-one with any serious political hopes will be starting their career *here*.
Were they trying to repeat a trick that worked before? It worked when Charlie Elphick stood down for Sexual Assault allegations and now his wife Natalie Elphick is the MP for Dover.
The best bit about that was Peter Bone's ex-wife being one of the nominators for his former mistress being the candidate.
This season of house of cards is shit
The tories really *dropped the towel* on this one
My advanced political commentary: Holy shit.
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Roflmfao?
ROFLCOPTER
SOISOISOISOISOISOISOISOI
Arby & Chief in a UK Politics thread? Well I never…
There are dozens of us left.
LMAOBORGHINI
ROFLMAOASTC as us cool internet kids said in the 90s.
I believe we’ve finally met the criteria for “It’s jo-ver Rishi-bros”. Though this is dependent on determining whether it even ever began.
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I can't find a result ever with this big a drop in their vote. Certainly not within living memory. Even North Shrops they "only" dropped by 31.
According to [Curtice](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68305798) it’s... *”the second highest swing from Conservative to Labour in any post-war by-election”* [eta] the [biggest swing](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/by-election-wellingborough-kingswood-results-2024-b2497239.html): *”...the largest post-war by-election swing from Tory to Labour, which was 29.1 percentage points at the Dudley West by-election in December 1994.”*
Why is this only considered a 28.5% point swing?
It’s the swing from Conservative to Labour. Swing is less useful as a measure when dealing with multiple parties - in this case the Conservatives are haemorrhaging support in all directions.
Swing from party A (loosing vote share) to party B (gaining vote share) is calculated as: (percentage from A + percentage to B)/2 So here it is (37.6+19.5)/2 which gives the 28.5% swing
Swing is calculated by adding the absolute value of the change in vote for each party and dividing by 2. Lab +19.5 Con -37.6 19.5 + 37.6 = 57.1 57.1/2 = 28.55 Its rounded down so it they may have used more accurate numbers for the initial change in vote figures.
1994 Dudley West is a good comparison. Not exactly the same since the base turnout (from 1992) was higher and there were no third party factors, but the dynamics of the votes were very similar. Labour vote didn't change all that much, but the Tory vote went off a cliff. Switchers from Con to Lab enough to compensate for the lower turnout (it's unrealistic to assume all Labour voters voted, that's simply not what happens in by-elections), but everything in the wrong direction for the Tory vote.
I'm not sure what he sees his road to recovery being. Short of some black swan event, his party seems doomed. I'm not sure what he's hoping to achieve with his time left either. It's a dead government clinging to the vestiges of power that it lacks the ability and will to actually employ it toward any moral cause. We need a Genny Leccy now.
Sadly for us, his only option is to cling on until the very end in the hope of a black swan emerging. The real question is whether the PCP let him stay in post. What reason can Sunak give his party to retain him as leader? They're at the stage where they have nothing to lose by giving someone else a go.
Most of the people I know are tired and frustrated with all the changes at the top which they see as undemocratic. We vote for parties not people in the UK so they can do it but I can't see that another change at the top would go down well with the public. Also who is going to want to take that role knowing they are likely to be on the end of a huge electoral defeat? I think the time to have ejected him was 6 months ago and now they'll let him stay on to take the loss.
The bar is set so low with Sunak's leadership that any disruption caused by replacing him could easily be more than counterbalanced by a new leader bounce. It's hard to imagine anyone doing a worse job than him. The conversation about having a 4th leader in a single parliament isn't that different from the one about the 3rd and they rode that out by ignoring it. Didn't the Aussies have a similar game of musical chairs at the top a little while back? > who is going to want to take that role knowing they are likely to be on the end of a huge electoral defeat? Anyone with a strong desire to get PM on their CV. For most of the senior Tories, this will be their last ever opportunity and doing it in this manner is better than never doing it at all. Plus there are those who'd never have the chance normally and would jump at the chance. We all thought they couldn't go lower than Truss, but we're in a timeline where Mark Francois PM is a genuine possibility.
Worse is definitely possible. Truss was doing much worse in terms of polling.
Who else even is there? They've already scraped the very bottom of the barrel for Tory leadership, and each successive one is ousting or alienating the few remaining vaguely serious and competent Tories. The only 'big move' would be to bring Boris back, but even the PCP diehards must realise that he comes with _so_ much more baggage and attack material now than in 2019.
I just can't see why a serious Tory leader would want to take over *now*. There's no Boris Johnson-esque charisma magnet with broad support who could sweep in, like 2019. Chances are anyone coming in now gets a fractured party and no time to sort it before the election. Better play is to wait for the GE, hope you survive the wipeout, and take over when Sunak inevitably resigns. That way, you're not sullied with the election loss, and you have a smaller party that'll be easier to manage and shape to your purpose.
There isn't really anyone left in the PCP who could realistically be the leader in normal times. Possibly Mordaunt, though she's been rejected by her party twice. But that doesn't mean nobody would take the job - it would just be a perennial no hoper. Why would you want to be a LotO who has close to zero chance of becoming PM? Nobody wants to be this generation's William Hague. If you become PM, that's locked in forever. Even Liz Truss is held in high regard in certain quarters and you wouldn't have to try hard to be better than her.
They would rather avoid potentially having Liz Truss-level polling and lose nearly all their seats. Under Sunak they might yet only lose by about 10-12% in an actual election, and thus keep a good 220-240 MPs.
It depends on how an individual MP's constituency polling looks. 220-240 is optimistic on recent polling, and all it takes to get a new PM is a combination of MPs who are on course to lose their seats and the ideologues who didn't want Sunak in the first place that reaches over 50% of the current (360?) PCP count.
The 220-240 is better than current polling, I got the number by comparing to pre-1997 polling. Until literally the day before the 1997 election, polling was a lot better than the actual result - it was averaging well over a 20% lead (not unlike current polling). Given that it eventually reduced to 13%, if the same thing happened in 2024 it would be something like an 11% Labour lead (which electoral calculus says would give a Labour 365-224 Conservative result). Anyway if that actually happened most Tory MPs would survive.
At the moment his hope is damage control. If by November the Economy is growing, inflation is below 2%, interest rates have been cut 2 or 3 times, and the Tories have handed out some tax cuts, their base is going to be much happier. It's very likely that all those things happen, and while the Tories will still get hammered in those conditions it probably won't be as brutal as if they had a GE now. So they might as well wait till November. Although the added danger is that a cold GE day will deter the older voters from coming out, and they rely heavily on them.
However, it also runs the risk of having record levels of small boat crossings through the summer.
Like when you jump off a building, the further you fall, the higher you bounce back up! He’s got this!
What if by not ending it, we can see a party dropping by 100% of their points?
>Sunak should just end this shit already See if the weekend papers have the balls to call this week's economic news the Rishession, associating his name with the recession would surely be the nail in the coffin
Even if they don't the opposition 100% will
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Christ, that'd be a genius move. Something Labour would find very difficult to oppose too given their base's support for PR. Of course they'd never consider it. It'd be good for the country at the end of the day, which appears to be antithetical to Conservative values.
I think we're officially in the 'just sick of this shit' phase of government.
Nah, he's still got more stuff he needs to loot for his wife and his cronies yet.
The results on wiki show labour receiving about the same votes as in 2019 but 20k less people voted. So Conservative voters didn't turn up.
Seems unlikely that all ge labour voters would turn up for a by-election. There must be a decent portion of switchers in there.
This isnt how by-elections work. There is zero chance that *every* Labour voter from the general election voted and most of the Tories stayed at home. It’s much more likely that turnout dropped proportionally for each party. Assuming anything else is just the losers trying to cope with the result.
If Labour have such a well oiled election machine that all their GE voters turn out in a by-election, that should worry the Tories more than just taking the results at face value.
I mean they're so fucked. Like even if you assume Reform breaks ONLY for the tories in a GE (Which it wouldn't), they still lose this seat. number 226 on Labour's target list. It's going to be a bloodbath. Now the question just is do they want a bloodbath in warm or cold weather? I mean if I was them I'd rather hopelessly canvass in beer garden weather, but I'm not an empty husk of a politician.
They’d also like to keep their job and salary for as long as possible and hope some miracle happens that shifts the polls
Yes, the magic money tree will suddenly start producing soon in the build up the next election. Tax cuts, interest rate cuts, increased public spending etc, all money we've been told hasn't been available when we needed it will suddenly appear when the Tories (and to be fair, Labour would do it as well) need it to.
They probably will but they don't have a good hand either way, cut taxes then they are under fire for spending money we don't have in a recession as public services fail. If they don't cut taxes then they are responsible for the highest tax burden in decades with people short on money in a cost of living crisis.
I think it's more hoping for Labour to do something insanely stupid, or us finding out that Keir Starmer is Fred West in a rubber mask or something.
Ahh, The Magic Money Tree. Reminds me of this classic from a few years back: https://youtu.be/nHHDWmXUCck?si=2qbiZF5FRek02Czz
> They’d also like to keep their job and salary for as long as possible Probably the only benefit to knowing you're going to get absolutely slaughtered in the next election, is that they will now spend their time in power doing things that exclusively put money in their own pockets and set themselves up for big £££ jobs in the private sector AND advance policy that will hobble the next government and make life as hard as possible for them so they can campaign on that, knowing their voters will fall for that shit.
They need to learn that Boris was the one keeping them up in the polls
It wasn’t Boris per se. It was a combination of people believing Boris (get Brexit done, 40 new hospitals) and hating Corbyn. Neither of those things exist anymore
I couldn't stand Johnson but it's fair to say his charisma did have an affect on the situation as well. People love voting for someone who looks like they're off a 3rd reality TV show
Please don’t, I don’t want them to think they need him back
I do because it'd be funny and it won't work. The spell is broken with Boris and the general public hate him like an ex who can't understand what they saw in him in the first place.
While some might swap back tories at a GE, personally i dont know what the tories could possible do in the next 6 months that would make me consider voting for them over reform. Because regardless of what they promise between now and then weve got a decade of promises failed. They actually have to tangible do something while in government. Which is unlikely to happen because the main blocker on anything they want to do is their own party blocking it.
If these seats are anything to go by they won’t even be canvassing. In which case they will probably pick cold weather to stick it to their opponents, that’s indicative of the sort of spiteful, lazy people that make up the Tory party
If you listen very closely you can actually hear a d-ream song beginning to play
> If you listen very closely you can actually hear a d-ream song beginning to play "Take Me Away" by Rishi Sunak 😂😂
he can do a cover of Lenny Kravitz' "Fly Away"
BAH GOD! THAT'S D-REAMS MUSIC!
D:ream
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Jesus, that level of swinging is normally reserved for private clubs.
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They apparently lost 10 votes, so had to go back through to make sure they were accounted for.. Seems reasonable regardless of result, as everyone should have a say.
Even in non-close races, recounts can be important in determining who gets their deposit back
The Lib Dems were pretty close to the deposit line.
Petulance is what I'm betting.
100%, the Conservative candidates response to this result was that they will be standing again in the general election. We've got a toys out of the pram situation going on.
Fucking excellent considering she's as popular as an asbestos condom.
Absolutely.
Today it's 346 days until the absolute latest date for the next GE, and coincidentally the Tories still have 346 MPs in this Parliament who haven't been Prime Minister yet. Considering everyone's agreed that Rishi is toast, maybe it's now time for a grand "PM for a day" strategy where each morning we pull another Tory name out of a hat. Would keep the King on his toes as well and make for interesting conversations like "where were you during the 24 hours of Selaine Saxby (North Devon)'s reign of terror?".
I would generally be up for this, but that would mean we have to have one day of JRM as PM and that is one day too many.
We'll make sure that's a Sunday.
This massive swing to Labour, plus the Kingswood result, seasoned with a little “UK in recession” is the perfect recipe for another drive from the Tory right for a leadership contest. It will be interesting to see who the Today Programme has got on for their 8:10 interview. I hope it’s someone out of their depth a la Laura Trott who is unable to spin this as anything other than a disaster for the Conservative Party and for Rishi in particular
Do you really think there'll be another leadership struggle? It'd be a bit like fighting for who gets to be in the cockpit as the plane crashes at this stage, imo the smarter move would be see this out under Sunak, then regroup after and go from there, there's no way the Tories aren't getting absolutely hammered next election and I don't think anyone else would want to be the person who led them to electoral disaster
For brand recognition with voters I think the Tories should go all-in and put an actual lettuce in the top job for these last few months.
You’re right, it would be an act of self harm for the Tories to embark on yet another leadership circus. The grown ups in the room will council against it but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. That party is so out of balance and disconnected from the expectations of people outside of Tory political life that nothing would surprise me. There are plenty of MPs openly talking of ousting Sunak, the question is whether they will be quietly mollified before they gain too much party support.
The *smart* Tories mostly either jumped or got pushed well before Sunak got the job in the first place.
Not just the right. There's nothing Sunak can say in his own defence to his previous base in the party.
24.6% still thought the Conservatives were doing a good enough job to deserve their vote. Absolute shambles.
Nah, that’s the ‘my family has been voting blue for generations’ gang. There’s an annoyingly large crop of them voting for every party in every constituency, as people want to vote but don’t want to have to use their brains
There's also any number of people for whom Labour ate my dog/The Tories nailed my hand to a table/The Greens used my children in unholy rituals. So, while they're not exactly voting for a party, they really don't like one of the others. This may be because of something back several governments ago.
Ooh yeah I've got one. Gordon Brown doubled my tax rate (when the 10% band was scrapped - https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/apr/30/economy.gordonbrown)
I regularly knock doors and spoke to a fella in his mid 80s who told me he hasn’t voted labour since “Wilson screwed him out of his pension”
>There's also any number of people for whom Labour ate my dog/The Tories nailed my hand to a table/The Greens used my children in unholy rituals. Ah, the classic "I REMEMBER THE 70S" morons.
I'm way more sympathetic to that shit now than I used to be because after the last fifteen years I genuinely struggle to imagine a possible future where I'd be willing to vote Conservative.
I'm not, and I will freely admit that. Look at anything from policy to political satire from the last 50 years and you'll see that the Labour party has changed. Meanwhile, you watch the 1987 Spitting Image Election Special the every single god damn criticism of the Tories still applies. It'd be hilarious if it weren't so depressing.
It's like football for some people, It would be like trying to get a diehard rangers fan to support Celtic. Never gonna happen.
Look at it another way, given the low turn out, 91% of the constituency decided not to vote Conservative yesterday.
From what I've seen at work people don't think they've done a good enough job. They just really hate labour and won't bother voting for a smaller party
I find it interesting that with Starmer's reforms to the party, the media has all of a sudden become much less interested in internal Labour shenanigans which leaves a good chunk of the public thinking the party is identical to how it was under Corbyn.
Only authoritarian regimes have negligible votes for losing parties. Elections are a helpful reminder that not everybody agrees.
About a quatre of people being not far right enough to vote for Reform but not centrist enough to vote for Labour makes sense. These people are largely ideologically lost, being only ever able to vote Tory despite their incompetence.
A 40% drop in their vote not good enough for you? Take the win man.
Really enjoying that Helen Harrison intends to stand again in the general election. She clearly thinks she’s entitled to this seat in parliament. It’s attitudes like hers that are helping drag down the Tory party. She must know the optics of standing for this seat as the partner of the former, disgraced, MP are terrible. But she just doesn’t care.
It says a lot about the state of the party that they are willing to let her stand. They obviously think it doesn’t matter that Bone was removed, and are oblivious to the appearance of it.
A lot of the party have worked with her for years. She was big in the Brexit campaign. They are 100% on board with her being entitled to a seat due to her previous work.
Other comments have already covered the glorious collapse of the Tory vote. But what happened here with the Lib Democrats? I thought they would gain a little bit, but their vote decreased. Not a good sign for them.
Maybe tactical voting to Labour
Maybe so. If so, thats perhaps a signal there's a huge appetite to vote tactically.
There's nothing unusual here. Over the past couple of years the LD vote has been suppressed in by-elections where Labour win, but also the Labour vote is suppressed in by-elections that the LDs won too. It's just tactical voting for the most likely non-Tory winner.
I hope you're right and this indicates a big appetite for tactical voting.
The kind of voters who turn out in by-elections are probably more into tactical voting than the ones who only do in GEs.
While it’s certainly not positive, I wouldn’t read too much into it. They were a non entity in both seats anyway and good chance there was a lot of tactical voting to smash the Conservatives out, they will be focused on the 80 or so seats where they are the strongest opposition.
Is it not as simple as: 1. In a situation where many people are driven most by “Tories out!” you’ll have more people voting tactically. Labour had a bigger vote share than the Lib Dem’s here before as well as more national momentum so make much more sense for tactical voters. 2. There’s a chance Ed Davey’s reputation is still smeared by the Post Office scandal. Though this assumes a small number of people actually know he’s the Lib Dem leader.
That was my first thought actually, and in Kingswood same story. Its slightly worrying for the LDs who historically feast on hyper local contests like this...post office related maybe? Or just that they've lost their touch?
I think the LDs have largely dropped off the radar in recent years. If you're actively interested in politics you might be able to name one or two leading figures in the party but the average member of the public wouldn't be able to name their leader without Googling, let alone outline any of their policies.
>I think the LDs have largely dropped off the radar in recent years. Except, of course in their massive by-election wins over the past couple of years (North Shropshire etc)
They may well have collected decent results in by -elections – that's always been their thing – but by 'radar' in this context (TBF maybe I should have been clearer) I mean 'The public consciousness.' No-one really talks about them any more (except here). They have lost much of their media visibility due to the emergence of upstarts like UKIP and (latterly) Reform.
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Yes, I think that’s a fair assessment. Starmer has seen how the voters responded to Corbyn’s radical rhetoric and has repositioned Labour as a sort of lo-cal Conservative party. With Reform hoovering up votes from the wingnut right, Rishi is a polar bear on a shrinking iceberg.
Oh for sure and really until Nick Clegg, I suspect lots of people couldn't name an LD figure that wasn't the leader - I guess I'm 'worried' (for want of a better word) that they suddenly think they are a 'national' party (especially after 2015) rather than a party that is 'local' and does some good local campaigning. That or it could be a lot of tactical voting and a good chunk of the slightly brexity-er LD supporters ahve just gone over to Reform!
Christ so you people not even look at geography? The Lib Dems only run by elections in areas where they're certain they can be a clear choice. There's no point doing a hard campaign when they can get the same result (con loss) without spending a penny.
Speaking as a party member - we didn't campaign here at all really. We seem to be pursuing a policy of focusing on what we can win. There's a lot of work going into target seats in anticipation of the GE at the moment - we were never going to compete in Wellingborough and as a party with limited resources it makes sense to focus on actual winnable seats.
Interesting, that does make a lot of sense.
They didn't run a campaign in either seat, because they wanted to precipitate tactical voting to labour.
Wasn't this one meant to be close? because that result is just oof.
Yeah was gonna say there was a tweet posted yesterday that said it was neck and neck. Obviously nonsense!
One of the necks was a giraffe
And the other a retracted turtle
Desperately trying to get the vote out on Twitter, forgetting that their voters don't use Twitter.
There was a “new methodology” poll earlier in the week that gave it to the Conservatives. It feels like that “new methodology” might be bollocks.
Bollockology
Big oof
Man, this election is going to go above and beyond catharsis. There will be parties.
I think I may lean out of the window and play the music from the end of Return of the Jedi on my boombox.
With any luck, there'll be one party less.
I think im gonna have to book the days around the election off work.
Tories lost 37% of the vote and they're blaming the 13% of the vote that reform got on the reason they lost? Hahahaha fucking deluded
A 28.5% swing... blooming Nora... The Tories are absolutely FUCKED 😂
This was a classic Tory safe seat. Must be a lot of shifty tories in Westminster this morning!
Living in the area, it is not quite as simple as that, there is a lot of working class industry still around here, shoemaking in particular (Dr Martens for instance are just down the road from me, as are DB Shoes). However, while it has been solid Tory since 2005, I would call it more of an aspirational middle class seat with a tendency to swing with the general political opinion of the country rather than a safe Tory seat.
Rishi later this morning “It is important to remember that midterm by-elections are always difficult for an incumbent government. Stuck to the plan. Square one. THIS. IS. FINE” In reality: yikes.
'Stick to the plan' is really starting to annoy me. WHAT IS THE PLAN? At this point I don't think we've heard the *aspiration* let alone the practical route for achieving it.
The plan is to keep saying they're sticking to the plan.
As Theresa May would tell you, the plan is the plan.
I dont think thats what rishi wanted to have bappen.
This is the one thing we didn't want to happen!
Huge encouragement there for Reform. A little *too much* encouragement, some of us might say. I think that although it's unlikely, it's just about possible that we could see the Conservatives pushed into 3rd place in quite a few constituencies come the long-waited GE.
I'd wait for the locals before making any solid judgements on reforms capabilities. By-elections can have resources concentrated from across the country where's in locals things are spread far thinner and more like a GE. Reform are still doing crap compared to how UKIP were doing so I'm of the view it's very much wait and see.
Should be pretty disappointing for Reform really.To copy my own comment, it's not a bad percentage, but considering this is a by-election (where you'd expect them to do better than an actual election), they were focusing on it, the Tory candidate was awful and the Tory campaign pretty much gave up, it's surely a disappointment. For comparison UKIP got 19.6% here in 2015.
The more reform can split the Tory vote the better
Still think Reform will stand down when the GE is announced, the last thing the ultra right want is Labour in power
The right clearly don't want the conservatives in power either.
The ultra right won't get what they want if this bunch of Tories win the next election - there's no equivalent of a super hard Brexit on the table to convince them to thumb the scales this time. But a strong showing from Reform and a decimated Tory party in opposition leaves the blues in a prime position for a takeover from the former. Then they'd have a genuine opportunity to enter government in a couple of cycles instead of being a sideshow with more perceived than actual influence.
Calling Reform the "ultra right" is delulu
Sunak says: *He says any vote that doesn’t go to his Conservative Party in a general election could put Labour in power.* Well, duh!
Based on this result, Reform definitely aren't going to replace the Conservatives. It's not a bad percentage, but considering this is a by-election (where you'd expect them to do better than an actual election), they were focusing on it, the Tory candidate was awful and the Tory campaign pretty much gave up, it's surely a disappointment. For comparison UKIP got 19.6% here in 2015.
Reform vote holding up is super interesting. Wonder if there might be a tipping point at play here. If the Tories are doing so apocalyptically badly, reform voters have no incentive to vote tactically (not that they would all vote Tory anyway). But the opposite could also be true. If the Tories close the gap even a little, then maybe we will also see more tactical voting.
May be a local effect too- normally loyal Tory voters choosing not to vote for Bone 2.0. ITV aired a vox pop when the purdah was lifted at 10 p.m. last night and more than one voter said *I'm a Tory but I signed to recall him/ I'm a Tory but I can't vote for his partner* The things Bone 1.0 did were just very very bad.
Don't worry everyone, James Daly is doing the rounds calling this one a "narrow victory" ☠️
this in a week when the labour party have shat the bed over antisemitism. the tories are finished.
In the provinces quite a few people neither know or care about the media frenzy over someone taking a few extra days to be sacked.
Most people realise the antisemitism stories are blown out of proportion and barely factor into any consideration as to who they would prefer to be running the country
Labour would have trashed them anyway, but it's good to see Reform taking even more Tory votes away. Good job!
Considering the polls expected this to be a close one, that's dramatic. Not even CON+REF (37.6%) could beat Labour.
Rishi The Rat is actually bigging up the Tory result. Desperate.
The tories are toast. Burnt toast. There will be at least 15 years into the wilderness for them after the election.
Wow, listening to Peter Bone really boned them
I think one of the most interesting things is that the Reform vote has finally begun to manifest into reality instead of just being a polling phenomenon, bad news for the Tories.
The conservative party may as not run and save the tax payer.
The numbers are interesting from a pure vote analytical perspective. 2019 ||2019|2024| |:-|:-|:-| |Labour|13737|13844| |Conservative|32277|7408| |Turnout|51913|30220| Labour only managed to increase their votes by 107 Conservatives lost 24,869 votes. Some of those votes went to Reform (3919). The overall majority of the vote loss came down to 21,713 fewer people turning out to vote. I suspect the general would be a lot closer but a Labour hold.
That isn't how elections work. With 21,000 less votes overall, the fact that Labour increased their vote shows a remarkable swing. It's why looking just at raw numbers tells us very little in by-elections.
This would be interesting if it wasn’t completely inconclusive. Are you suggesting that every single prior Labour voter turned out? There’s no way of telling whether every prior Labour voter turned out and most of the Tories stayed at home, or a huge proportion of Tory voters switched to Labour but drop in turnout was evenly distributed across all parties. As it is, this information tells you nothing unless we poll voters on what they voted in 2019.
Very interesting. But we don’t know how many labour voters from 2019 didn’t vote/changed vote/moved away/died. Probably not many but felt I should say!
Bearing in mind that we are comparing a by-election result to a GE result. Normally by-election turnouts are way down so the fact that Labour got the same number of votes indicates a significant increase in people turning out to vote for them (relatively).
A major party increasing their raw vote numbers in a by-election is huge news. Before last year it had only happened three times since 1997 (once for Labour, twice for Conservatives). Labour have now done it three times in a year.
Is this a poor result for Reform? They were throwing everything at this seat, with a relatively well known candidate, and by-elections should naturally favour them, but their vote share is barely above their national share according to YouGov. Okay, there are reasons to believe that YouGov are inflating the Reform figure due to their methodology, but I still think they should have outperformed it if they are really as much of a threat as some Tories seem to believe.
Agreed. UKIP got nearly 20% here in 2015.
still crazy 25% of people voted Con lol