As the Guardian notes this morning:
The Conservatives are braced for painful byelection results in a vote on Thursday that could become a damning verdict on Rishi Sunak's ability to win a broad enough coalition of voters at the next election to retain his party's majority.
The party could lose all three of the constituencies that are up for grabs – which each have significantly different demographics that the Tories would need to win – with the prospect of hanging on to just one being touted by senior ministers as a victory.
Three by-elections of this sort on a day is, of course, unusual. The seats are not naturally those the opposition parties would expect to win, and there is some uncertainty as to the outcomes. So, a poll. What outcome would you prefer today?
What outcome would you prefer from today's by-elections?
- Two Labour and one Lib Dem victories (71%, 381 Votes)
- Three Labour victories (12%, 62 Votes)
- A win for each of Labour, the LibDems and the Tories (9%, 51 Votes)
- The Tories to retain two seats with the LibDems getting the third (4%, 20 Votes)
- Three Tory wins (4%, 19 Votes)
- The Tories to retain two seats with Labour getting the third (1%, 4 Votes)
Total Voters: 537
Loading ...My instinct is that I would like the Tories to lose all three seats so that the message is clearly delivered that this government is over. But just as much, I would prefer that Labour did not win all three seats. Any suggestion that they have the next electionn in the bag would be bad news. You, however, may disagree, and anyway I think that unlikely: I suspect the Tories will keep Uxbridge. But I could, of course, be wrong.
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I think it’s highly unlikely the Conservatives will retain Uxbridge. The Labour candidate is a local who grew up in the constituency and has been actively involved in local politics for some time. From what I can see he has been working hard to raise his profile for sometime inanticipation of a by election. After the very absent and non-local Boris Johnson, he should appeal to people who want a more active MP who understands local issues.
Given their previous majorities, the Conservatives could win all three seats, but I think that is very unlikely. Most likely perhaps two Labour and one LibDem but with a fair chance that the Conservatives could keep one.
I wonder what a Labour party led by Keir Starmer would have done after the 1945 general election. Was there no money left? (As stupid a pronouncement as saying we have run out of inches or ounces.) Could we have afforded to create the NHS? Or would we have focused on growth first instead?
The best option must be that the Tories lose all three seats, and that Labour does badly.
What a really bizarre situation! Here you have three parties each monetarily illiterate and pro-austerity yet Conservative, Labour and LibDem are asking voters to decide which is the least evil. One of these parties even refuses to declare what it stands for on the most important issues which of course is a surefire recipe for giving corrupt grifters blank cheques. Indeed one journalist knumbskull today sings the praises of people voting for a party who won’t tell voters what they stand for, more austerity, less austerity, the same!!!
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/20/starmers-caution-infuriates-some-in-labour-but-theres-method-in-his-mildness
Here by the way is another MMT website that readers of Richard’s blog might be interested in:-
https://realprogressives.org/
Here’s an article by which originally featured as a podcast on the Real Progressives website which you may not entirely agree with but helps explain the driving force behind austerity ideology:-
https://michael-hudson.com/2023/07/can-the-us-re-industrialize/
Kettle calls Starmer’s outright support for crippling austerity “mildness”? Good grief. He’s as bad as Toynbee. (Well, we all knew that.)
It’s staggeringly naive, or callous to be more candid
@ Inga Marie Horwood. Absolutely right about Martin Kettle’s choice of words. He’s pretending when he doesn’t know that Starmer’s austerity will be mild and this despite ample evidence the Tory austerity so far has been crippling for the UK (see Covid Inquiry). Here’s another example of Kettle needing to get out more and visit some food banks, etc.:-
“The plain truth is that his government may have to suck up some hard economic times before it can deliver what it wants.”
It’s obviously not the “government” or the politicians who form it who’ll be “sucking up hard economic times” is it those on low incomes who will !!!
Where is the Guardian’s human decency allowing Kettle and Toynbee to write such immature articles?
Youir pen ultimate para is so true
I hgave just recorded soemthing pretty simialr for BBC Radio Ulster for their use tomorrow
I voted for 2 Tory plus 1 LibDem.
Labour need a wake up call to change direction.
But I despise the Tories and hope they are wiped out in the GE.
If we could have an option for “Number of Spoilt Ballots”/”None of the Above” also winning a seat or two (theoretically of course) – that would also send a message to all of the big players that they are now on their final warning…
Gosh. There are 14 candidates standing in Johnson’s old constituency alone. Some of very unpleasant hue, though there is a Green. It’ll be interesting to see who pulls votes in that menagerie, given the paucity of choice in the main-liners.
@ Miss N. What warning would that be when the majority of politicians and voters believe austerity is necessary because as a nation we’re dependent on foreigners to buy government debt, the Truss Debacle argument? It’s one thing to say the government should up to a certain limit protect savers from the ravages of inflation quite another thing to say the government can’t do the right thing by the many because it’s scared of how foreigners will react!
“Any suggestion that they have the next election in the bag would be bad news.”
Agree.
Right now it seems to me that only the Greens have a set of attitudes and policies that can start to repair the damage of the last decade. So a good result would either be a huge increase in Green vote or an extremely low turn out signifying that the public do not want to vote for options on offer.
I picked two Tory and one Lib Dem. By far the least worst outcome for the next election is Labour getting as few seats as possible while still being able to form the government, and the only way that can happen is if the Tories do a lot better. That’s how dangerous I see Starmer as being, that he has got me hoping for an improvement in the fortunes of the party of trafficking people to Rwanda and filling our rivers with sewage.
This does give the Tories a dilemma though. If they get wiped out then Starmer will block any moves for PR and so the Tories will be able to get back in soon enough. However, assuming the Tories can’t win from here, if they do really well then they will deny Labour a majority and increase the chances of the smaller parties forcing Labour to back PR, which would prevent any Tory majorities for a long time (outside of some extraordinary and unforeseen change in our country). In other words, the better the Tories do, the less chance they have of winning a future majority, so it’s actually in their best interests to do badly at the next election. Maybe they should have stuck with Truss after all.
People continue to mention spoiling their ballot papers as an option for getting their views of the government across.
I worked in polling stations as a presiding officer and on the election count, for many years.
The only interest of the local council at elections is getting the votes in and then counting them. Staff are under a great deal of pressure to get this done quickly and accurately. Spoiled ballot papers are put to one side and counted, but only to ensure that the total of ballot papers given out, is the same as those received back in.
It is not a consultation exercise on people’s views on the government: nobody studies the spoiled papers,
or cares one iota what anybody has written on them. They are just considered to be produced by idiots who have wasted their time and achieved absolutely nothing.
I urge people to vote for a party that may get rid of this current corrupt bunch, not either “strategically” refusing to vote or to composing “clever” essays on ballot papers, which will achieve nothing, and which will never actually be read by anyone.
Thanks
I admit I have never thought spoling a ballot paper a good idea.
Having attended several counts, I agree. Spoiling ballot papers is pathetic and completely pointless.
I don’t agree that spoiling ballot papers is pathetic and completely pointless. If there is no candidate on the ballot paper for whom you can vote you only have 2 options – don’t turn out, adding to the idea that people don’t care or spoil the paper, demonstrating that you do care but not for any of the available candidates.
I agree that any kind of explanation is pointless as no-one who matters will read it.
Thank you for this observation.
The argument for a notifiable and countable “None of the Above”
on the ballot paper grows.
Abstentions should count.
To be honest, I’m indifferent to it all from what I’ve seen since 2010.
It looks like ‘Here’s the new Boss – same as the old Boss’ to me as Roger Daltrey put it.
There seems to be a political aversion to rebuilding in this country – this is the revanchism that we need, turning back Thatcherism, instead the Tories and even Labour seem to be addicted to a Pol Pot predilection for some sort of ‘year zero’ situation, going back to period similar to BEFORE 1946.
I mean don’t get me wrong – my father in law sadly has dementia and is about to go into care as he has become to much of a handful to live at home – if there were better things on the horizon – that would be a different matter. But I see nothing coming out to help address this issue at all or many of the others.
Labour are firmly of the view that taxes pay for stuff, and to do that, the economy has to be making the money to do it and nothing else.
So that is MMT out of the window, and a whole load of the factual mechanics about making money (REALLY making money, not moving existing money about) goes out of the window too despite what we saw in 2008.
I’m not going take part in a charade like that – where a bunch of people are telling me that the sky is green when we all know it is blue. No way. Fuck it. I’m not having it – and I’m especially not having faux choices like this foisted on me. I’m better than that and so are many of you.
It’s getting to the point where soon the only truth to be had will be at the end of gun or something sharp. Not at the polling booth – that’s for sure. This is madness I tell you.
In an ideal world we need something completely new and fresh to look forward to. Unfortunately we are stuck with the two main parties, the policies of which do not differ anywhere near enough to make any difference to the hell and disaster that is continued austerity.
Two piles of shit with only one very slightly better and less smelly than the other.
In all honesty, without the likelihood of the Greens taking at least one of these seats (and it would be a remarkable upset if they did) then I am truly torn. As much as I dislike and do not share the politics of the Lib Dems, their taking as many of these seats might yet act as something of a warning shot to the bombastic arrogance of the rightward careening Labour Party. The Tories are seemingly beyond reason at the moment and appear capable of little more than spiteful vituperation which might add a little extra fuel to their fire should they win in any of these constituencies, but would not really be of much importance other than as an embaressing impediment to the Starmer project.
To put it more plainly, there is no realistic ‘good’ outcome, just degrees of less awful. I’ve got my fence post and will perch atop this to observe the inevitable waves of mendacity.
‘It is not a consultation exercise on people’s views on the government: nobody studies the spoiled papers,
or cares one iota what anybody has written on them. They are just considered to be produced by idiots who have wasted their time and achieved absolutely nothing.
I urge people to vote for a party that may get rid of this current corrupt bunch’s idiots’
And all that voting does is reinforce belief in a system that clearly doesn’t work. The action of voting in itself validates the system. If people don’t care, they don’t vote. Those who take the time to travel to a polling station and spoil their ballots are not idiots, they are making a statement.
IMO opinion the overall best outcome of these by elections is a 10% turnout.
I disagree that not going to vote leading to a low turnout is good. The problem with not counted potential voters is that both sides can claim them – look at Brexit. Even though the stronger argument IMO was that those who didn’t vote were most likely happy with the status quo, both Leavers and Remainers counted them as being tacitly on their side.
IMO if instead of a 10% turnout, we had 100% turnout but 90% were spoilt ballots, that would be impossible to ignore, and unambiguously a massive vote of no confidence in the whole lot of them.
Of course we would probably need to make voting mandatory, like Australia, to approach a high level of turnout.
True, a high turnout with a majority of spoilt ballots would be more meaningful than just a low turnout, I’m changing my mind on that one. Thanks
Don’t agree with this point though:
‘The problem with not counted potential voters is that both sides can claim them – look at Brexit. Even though the stronger argument IMO was that those who didn’t vote were most likely happy with the status quo, both Leavers and Remainers counted them as being tacitly on their side’
Logically you cannot make any claims about non-voters, except that they didn’t vote. You can speculate sure, but to make any claims would be guesswork.
I think we need the Tories to be soundly thumped because at least it shows that the electorate no longer supports such an egregious bunch and might mean that we don’t have to worry about the likes of reese-mogg braverman and cates and for that matter Sunak.
However I would not rejoice. It’s no reflection on Labour that they can defeat this bunch and I worry about the next decade.
Lord Buckethead to win in Uxbridge anyone?
Look what H’Angus did in the first Hartlepool Mayoral election
I will be more interested in what percentage do not vote. Logically if is above 50% the vote should be rerun.
I would have wished you could have put my preferred option Richard, which is three wins for the Greens, nothing for anybody else. Notwithstanding your recent criticism of their understanding of money, they are for me by far the best choice for a future government, since their essential message of don’t wreck the environment has proved 100% correct.
And unlike labour, they actually have real progressive policies regarding nationalisation of the utilities, wealth redistribution etc. In a nutshell, their hearts are in the right place.
But given the options available, I took the 2 labour, one LD. I too don’t want labour to get all three for the reasons you mention, but however depressing I find Starmer’s labour, I want the wretched conservative party to have as few seats as possible. Given that they are (takes deep breath) vicious, arrogant, brazenly dishonest, incompetent, stupid, greedy, hypocritical and corrupt they don’t deserve a single seat in Parliament.
Sorry…I worked on likely scenarios
I read in an article by Caroline Lucas that she thinks Starver does not want to win, particularly as he does not know what to do about climate change.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/19/climate-peril-keir-starmer-cautious-crisis-vision
You need to talk to her about borrowing, Richard.
It’s difficult to see how voting will change anything for the better as we are now reduced to voting in some way in order to send a message to one party or another or for the least bad option. Corbyn offered real change which was perceived as a serious threat to the power and wealth of the establishment. That is why they did for him. Any other party or leader which poses a similar threat knows what to expect.
The establishment need Labour as the back up (“Con-lite”) both to give the appearance of democracy and when (as now) the Cons go off the rails, to hold the fort and at least not make any irreversible changes while the Cons rebuild and recover.
The LibDems are no different from Labour in its current form.
The Greens are too small to matter but would be slapped down hard if they looked like becoming a threat. (In fact they showed, perhaps unwittingly, that they understand the country’s politics very well when they sided with the LibDems against Corbyn in 2019. It might look as if they gained nothing from that temporary liaison but their action sent a signal to the establishment that they would not be a threat.)
The LibDems are no different from Labour in its current form.
Too true. Whilst we rightly castigate Labour for abandoning any last hint of social democracy (let alone Democratic Socialism) it is easy to forget the Lib Dems were the party of Beveridge and Keynes, and before them Asquith and T H Green.
The last decent Lib Dem was Charlie Kennedy and he was done in by a combination of his own demons and the Orange Book crew with the latter no doubt contributing to the former
Correct
Liberals were radicals
Could they be again?
@ Stewart
Agreed. The REAL tragedy of politics since 2010 is that Charles Kennedy was a drunk.
Had he been sufficiently in charge of his future not to have been effectively defenestrated by the Lib-Dems to be replaced by that airhead, Nick Clegg, but to have remained Lib-Dem Leader, it’s a racing certainty, IMO, that there would have been no Coalition in 2010.
Instead, there would have been a Confidence and Supply agreement with Cameron, under which Kennedy would have grasped Cameron by the political short and curlies, and squeezed so hard Cameron would have fainted politically, and granted a PROPER Referendum on REAL PR, not the nonsensical non-PR AV Referendum we got, which was so bad, I nearly voted no, despite being a near lifelong supporter of PR.
Kennedy would have understood that he didn’t need the baubles of office (that beguiled airhead Clegg) immediately, because having real PR was capable of leading the Lib-Dems into power in a Coalition under their own steam.
How different the 2015 GE could have been, if conducted under either the Scottish Parliament’s Additional Member System, or under the Irish Republic’s Single Transferable Vote.
Anyone who says PR leads to weak Government needs to consider Scotland, the Irish Republic and New Zealand, or Germany, and then try and say PR produces weak governance.
Have you heard of the Green Britain Foundation, set up by Dale Vince? He says they will have a manifesto ready before the election, although he has decided not to become a politician.
Sounds like they could be ripe for economic teaching/learning, particularly as they also organise The Ministry of Eco Education.
There is remarkably little about it on the web…..
The objective is surely that the next government (almost certainly Labour) will stop tacking to the right.
Surely it is a stonking Labour that will achieve that. A marginal Labour win will only reinforce the move right – only a resounding victory will allow the march right to be halted.
Blair stayed to the right after a stinking win
To Andrew Dickie:
I could not disagree more Sir.
The real tragedy is that Gordon Brown took a mardy pill and walked away from joining with the Lib-Dems in 2010.
It was an abrogation of responsibility and a capitulation to Labour’s inability to deal with pluralism – a weakness that has addled them ever since.
The question of any party is, who do you rule for – the people or yourselves?
Labour – new or otherwise – has failed that question.
And thanks a lot by the way. Nice job.