I am very aware that to read too much into any by-election result is a mistake. However, the Old Bexley and Sidcup result is worth commenting upon.
The Tory vote fell by 13%. Labour's rose by more than 7%, whilst the LibDem vote fell by more than 5%, in what was very obviously tactical voting.
That the Reform Party came third is to be regretted, but is also a substantial headache for the Tories.
The fact that 66% of those eligible to vote did not turn out is also notable, although it was bitterly cold.
Three thoughts follow on. First of all, this was a swing against the Tories, without a doubt. When the number of their supporters who refused to turn out is also taken into account that swing may be more significant than the apparent result suggests.
Second, the tacit agreement between Labour and the Lib Dems appeared to work, and people appeared to appreciate what was going on and voted tactically as a consequence. There may be no alliance, but on the ground people voted Anything But Conservative, even if many might have needed a nose peg to do so.
Third, It was never likely that Labour was going to win the seat. The Tory vote in this constituency is normally well over 50% of all those cast. To have expected that to be overturned was always optimistic. But, as I have seen some note, a similar swing in Uxbridge would mean that Boris Johnson would lose his seat.
I stress, let's not extrapolate too strongly, but this result coupled with the recent opinion poll in Scotland, where more than 55% of the electorate now say that they support independence, suggests to me that the Tory sleaze issue is cutting through. Add to that potential disgust at Boris Johnson's Number 10 Christmas party last year and the ongoing Covid crisis, which will only get worse, yet again, come the New Year, and the opportunity for political change does exist.
I just wish I could feel more excited by the alternatives.
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Richard can you send me an email address where I can contact you?
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Yes, but. Like the Bible, one can find anything you want to support a point of view in by-election results. My take is that regardless of a tacit ABC agreement, the re-entry of Farage, 11 years of misrule, sleaze, and the shambles of Brexit, the Tories STILL won.
This suggests to me at least that one should plan for the Tories winning the next election.
I am afraid I took a rather more gloomy view.
The “tactical voting” did have an impact but over a third of LD voters (and all Greens) failed to get the message. Furthermore, in a General Election this message would be different in each seat and might get lost without a formal pact.
But the really depressing bit is that the swing away from the Tories towards progressives was not that large…..
5 out of the 7 points gain that Labour achieved came from the Lib Dems. Green was little changed.
The Tory vote was down by 13 points but half of this was only “lent” to Reform. In a General election that would, presumably (in a tight contest), revert to the Tories.
But, as you say…. we should not read too much into the result.
The sleaze issue may be cutting through, but it needs to be faced that anyone placing any hope in Labour is going to be disappointed.
Labour’s dishonesty, specifically Starmer’s also needs facing. It is evident that Starmer won the leadership election on the basis of pledges which he had no intention of keeping.
That matters, it leaves a stench, almost as much as Hancock and his pub landlord.
It seems likely that come the next GE Labour will once again support the Conservatives in Scotland and thus save a few more Tory MPs so swings are only part of the story – had it not been for Labour’s support of the Tories Theresa May would have lost her election and we might well be in a radically different position – particularly in relation to the sheer vandalism that is brexit.
Thin gruel as you rightly say. But enough to cling to for now.
It is hard to draw any firm conclusions from a seat that has always been in Conservative hands, where Ted Heath and James Brokenshire achieved 60+ of the votes (and a 14% swing against Heath in 1997 was not enough to unseat him), and where turnout was down from 70% to less than 35%. On the night, 11,000 votes equated to a 51% majority! Sadly the Lib Dems seem to have stayed at home, but another 3,000 votes for Labour would not have tipped the balance. This is the definition of a safe seat, and a much better showing than Hartlepool at least.
As long as we have FPTP the Tories now have an inbuilt advantage. The next FPTP boundary changes are expected to give the Tories more seats in middle England areas. These are the places that Labour has problems appealing to unless they become Tory lite. The fact that despite all their failures, corruption and lies the Tories still hold on to a seat tell you everything that is wrong about FPTP. Even if Labour had won this seat, they would only have been borrowing it, keeping it warm until the next Tory leader was anointed.
I believe that Labour can only become a truly radical party with PR. Only under PR would they really see the true level of support a radical alternative really has. As long as we have FPTP Labour will always have to appeal to the soft Tory underbelly of support in middle England, most of which probably hate the idea of anything that might be seen as “socialist”. Most of that support is easily conned by the Tory press. The next FPTP boundary changes will make this even harder to overcome.
The fact that we still don’t have any kind of alternative electoral alliance shows that Labour, at least at the top of the party, still believe the 2-party system exists. Might take 2 or 3 more Tory Governments to persuade them otherwise. A Tory elected dictatorship on about 30% of the total vote, mostly England, is what we have.
Surely, one of the lessons here is that people quite rightly do not vote as they are told. The strong hint to Liberals that this seat was not a priority for them didn’t make them vote Labour, it made them stay at home. No doubt Labour voters will do similarly in Paterson’s seat.
It underlines the need for Labour to present a clear case that makes people want to vote for them. (And, to be fair, the same for the Liberals or the Greens if they want to win votes – if they rely on tribal loyalties we will get the same outcome as always).
This result tells us nothing we did not know. I recall an article many years ago by Will Hutton, which I think holds true. English politics is built on a 40, 40, 20 society. Ignore the 20, which is totally alienated from politics, as well as being the most deprived and exploited. The next 40 drift about with the wind and have no clear allegiance, especially true nowadays with Labour offering nothing obvious. Keep the other 40 happy (ish) and you stay in power. Well, 30-35 are tribal Tories , so the task for the Government is fairly easy. A tax cut plus tabloid propaganda should bring the tribal vote back up to the magic figure. In the absence of a dynamic opposition capable of campaigning; the future of ENGLISH politics is grim. Oh yes, dumping Johnson if the figures look iffy is the other available tweak sometime before the next general .
I basically agree with Richard’s headline. There is some evidence of ABC’s impact in Bexley & Sidcup and it’s a positive indicator.
I also agree strongly with MarP that the advantage bestowed on the Conservatives by FPTP is probably stronger now than it has ever been.
But there is some more good news too, in that this penny is finally dropping in Labour. Let us not forget that but for Covid having delayed the annual conference of the affiliated union Unite, then PR would now be official Labour Party policy. That is how close it came this year!
How do I justify that assertion?
It’s derived from observation of that surprise pro-PR vote, taken by the biggest union (Unite) at their annual conference, two weeks after the Labour Party Conference in September. Had the timing sequence of the two conferences been reversed, Unite’s massive block vote would have been available to line up behind the CLP’s (Party members) 80% pro-PR vote. This would have been more than enough to push the aggregate vote way above the threshold required for approval as policy (my estimate is that it would have gone from 42% to about 66%).
So I will stick my neck out and close with a prediction (thereby admittedly risking a heavily ‘egged face’, further down the line). In due course, Labour will endorse PR and will be the lead political party in bringing about its introduction.
The Labour leadership is opposed to democratic reform for fear they will not get a shot of 100% of the power for 40% of the vote, so In fear it will be along time (and another lost election or two) before they will consider change. Even if they could find something that had an element of proportionality, but favoured Labour heavily they would be hesitant at best given the experience of setting up exactly such a system in Scotland and seeing it blow up in their faces.
Agreed with CB that the ‘Majoritarians’ do indeed list this as one of their arguments in favour of retaining FPTP. Basically, we know that FPTP inflates the returns of the winner and occasionally (though rarely) benefits Labour (e.g. during the Blair years). So it’s true that the more optimistic amongst those of ‘true faith’ often seem inclined to believe that those days can come again; basically as CB states above. But given the loss of Scotland (and the 50+ Labour seats we used to rely on) plus other demographic changes, the numbers no longer stack up and it’s hard to see that they ever will.
Unfortunately, it might indeed take another election loss leading to the ignominy of yet another Tory government before the penny drops, in which case CB’s pessimism will prove well founded. However, I am calculating that an easier path will be found and that in due course, Keir Starmer will prove astute enough to find it.
Basically this comes down to a straight difference of opinion and I may be voicing a minority view here. There is one certainty though, which is that within the next 2 or 3 years we will eventually get to find out which prediction was correct.
Incidentally, I do not see that it was PR that blew up in Labour’s face in Scotland. It was the retention of FPTP in the UK parliament that did most damage. Taking the 2019 Scottish vote, and allocating seats under PR, Labour would now have 11 Scottish seats in the UK parliament not its solitary 1, and the SNP would have 27 seats, not 48.
I think we are slightly at cross-purposes; the version of AMS chosen for Holyrood was carefully pitched to suit Labour on the assumption that they would always get the lions’ share of the constituencies and the other parties would get a share of the rather smaller number of seats on the lists – as would Labour in the Highlands, North-East, Borders, Dumfries and Galloway. The SNP gained WM seats the same as Labour always did in the past – biggest share of the vote. What screwed Labour was a long time a-coming; dreadful arrogance, incompetence on a huge scale, flagrant nepotism and corruption……and was capped by Labour teaming up with the Tories for the referendum – and of course supporting the Tories in the last two GEs has not helped. Remember, in Scotland it is Labour that spits the vote and lets the Tories in. Naturally Starmer taking the same line as Johnson (and Davey) over the next referendum has not helped at all – in essence they are all saying that it does not matter how Scottish people vote. That’s not healthy for anyone and certainly not a good look for any party that claims to be in favour of democracy. As for 50+ Labour seats in Scotland…. 50 was the record before the number of Scottish MPs was reduced at the creation of Holyrood. They were not known as the ‘Feeble Fifty’ for nothing and parroting the ridiculous claims about the utterly fraudulent GERS exercise just made them look either stupid or dishonest – sadly, many of them were both. Frankly Labour in Scotland got what they deserved and short of a miracle that’s not going to change this side of independence. The fact that Labour’s only Scottish MP represents Morningside – of all places! – tells it’s own story.