There is little point in providing any extensive commentary on what was happening in yesterday's elections as yet. There are far too many polls still to be counted as yet.
That said, some things stand out.
The Tories have lost almost half of all the seats that they were defending.
The swing against them in the Blackpool South by-election was the third biggest since WW2.
Labour has generally done well.
The Greens have done very well.
LibDems are unlikely to take much comfort from results, so far.
Reform has failed so far, including in places like Lincolnshire, where they might have had hopes. That is very good news.
But is the Labour vote that solid? Look at South Tyneside and it is apparent that it is not when other factors come into play, as they have there.
That said, it looks as of the opinion polls are broadly accurate, excepting on support for the Greens and Reform, where results conflict with supposed opinion.
But, let's wait and see.
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Blackpool South – the parliamentary seat that Labour has regained yesterday, suggests large voter apathy.
In 2019, Labour came second with 12,557 votes. Yesterday they won the seat with just 10,825 votes. So not even all those enthusiastic enough to vote Labour in 2019 could be bothered to vote Labour this time round.
Obviously the Conservative vote completely collapsed from 16,247 to 3,218.
In fairness, they were electing an MP who can only serve for a few months, at most
I think that the two most likely courses for the Tories now are either to act quickly in order to try and solidify their base or, to just keep grinding out the same old pretend policies in the hope that something will turn up before they are forced to go to the polls.
A quick action to try and stabilize their base might be something like a supersized Right-to-buy scheme. As a scam that they have used before it should be possible to rapidly implement.
It would be very popular with our Tory media, the Tories could be portrayed as actually doing something about a real problem and it is a classic Tory scam where public money is used to inflate private profit.
If they grind on their last long-shot is a Trump victory.
Some sort of trade deal perhaps.
Something that can be sold to the British people as a great triumph and a benefit of Brexit, but which in reality sells Britain down the river to the advantage of America and the personal financial advantage of Donald Trump.
I doubt they can delay for a December campaign…
And a right to but could not be put in place now. There is not enough legislative time.
I’ve a sinking feeling that we won’t be able to vote the Tories out of Westminster before October, if that . . .
‘A quick action to try and stabilize their base might be something like a supersized Right-to-buy scheme.’
Right to buy what – there’s nothing left to buy. But even if there were something to buy (which there isn’t), there’d not be enough time to pull this through.
‘If they grind on their last long-shot is a Trump victory. Some sort of trade deal perhaps.’
Even if Trump won (which he most likely won’t), he’d be taking office only in March.
Even if we go for the last possible election dates – mid to late January 2025 HoC will be dissolved in early December and stop functioning in November. There’s also summer recess between now and November.
“he’d be taking office only in March”
20 January 2025 not March 2025.
Early days indeed, with only about a third of results in. But, as you note, perhaps the Labour vote not as solid as expected. Their gains so far are exactly the same as the LibDems and Greens combined. Add to that the Independent gains and it’s not that impressive. But it remains to be seen.
Essentially, I’m only interested in the extent of two things, both of which are positive. One, how many seats will the appalling tories lose? The more, the better.
Two, how many seats will the greens win. Again, the more, the better.
From the Guardian:
‘On BBC News Nick Eardley has just presented some figures from the BBC’s analysis of council results so far suggesting the Labour vote is down 16 points in areas with a Muslim population. He said that, compared to the results in 2021 (when most of the seats being contested yesterday were last fought), Labour support is down 16 percentage points and Green support is up 19 percentage points.
He also said that, across the country overall, the Labour vote is up 5 percentage points and the Tories are down 14 percentage points compared to 2021.’
I wasn’t that much involved this morning, but this seems to the expected result for the Tories, but a surprisingly bad one for the Labour. I expect we won’t hear much about local election from Starmer, but that he’ll keep banging on about the by-election result in Blackpool.
That is fascinating, if true
This is not a vote for Labour, in other words….
Here in Sheffield (No Overall Control remains: 14 Greens, having lost one and gained one) the Greens are the only party with a consistent stance on Palestine, Israel, Gaza; and that has had an effect amongst some groups of voters. But results have often been about local issues, despite Labour muddying the waters and talking about Tory austerity etc to try to mobilise stay at home regular Labour or swing voters.
It remains to be seen how big ‘the Gaza issue’ is, whenever the GE happens.
Richard Atkins,
Is not almost anything better than a Tory sitting in a seat with a vote attached?
You are right. Labour will no doubt hail this as a victorious night, as it is, but they will ignore the fact that many voted for them tactically, and because they were not the Tory.
I’ve noticed that quite a few Independents have won. Right now, as I write this, they are +49 to Lab’s +62
The highlight of the night so far for me though has to be Boris Johnson being turned away, at least initially, for not having the correct ID. Wonderful.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68947834
Houchen wins, a triumph for financial wrongdoing. Gaza has already lost Oldham overall control for Labour, probably will affect a few Northern seats and WM Mayor.
Andy Beckett’s latest opinion piece for the Guardian on voter ID:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/03/voter-id-tory-election-conservative-labour
Excellent commentary as always.
He is very good
If I may (Tory hypocrisy & hoping everybody forgets hisotry):
“The then shadow home secretary, Chris Grayling, put it in 2009, shortly before his party returned to power: “ID cards … are both an affront to British liberty and will have no place in a Conservative Britain. They are also a huge waste of money.”
UK I.D cards were abolished in 1952 due to a test case ( Willcock v Muckle (1951,49 LGR 584) under a ……….tory gov. As statewatch notes: “It is unlikely that the identity card system would have been abandoned had it not been for the test case”. I.D. cards do not & never have worked. You will have to take this assertion at face value – based on the reality – I have lived in a system that uses I.D. cards. Pervasive & a system of control – or so the “authorities” believe.
I’m surprised that Houchen has retained the Tees Valley mayoralty. From what I’ve read in Private Eye, the levels of cronyism (if not outright corruption) related to the Freeport have been staggering, even by Tory standards. More and more stuff emerging month by month. I can only presume that this isn’t being reported very much by the media in the area so the electorate don’t realise that it is all a bit dodgy. Or perhaps they just think the investment in the area makes it worth turning a blind eye?
The link I attach asks questions about the findings of the official review which found “no evidence of corruption”. An investigation specifically designed not to find anything much amiss. I suspect that some decades down the line, we’ll discover what really occurred, by which time the scandal will merit a few articles in the media before being quickly forgotten.
The Tories have, you will recall, suppressed all demands for official investigations into his mayoralty. Now you know why.
Bad for the Tories, good for Labour, but very good for independents and Greens who between them have gained more seats than Labour.
Hopefully Labour will take note of that. Hopefully.
I note that the LINO bigwigs are putting a very positive spin on things. Forgive me if this is very slightly off-topic – but perhaps not so much, given Johnson being told to come back to vote with proper I.D.
In a previous blog I mentioned that the Tories won the 1992 election through fraud. I found the article (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/may/09/election2001.comment1 ) The Tories indulged in “Granny Farming”. Major won the 1992 election with 1241 votes across 11 constituencies. 4 constituencies (Bolton North East, Stirling, Tynemouth & St Ives) reported vote tampering. In St Ives 70 voters complianed that the Tories (canvassers) had used their votes without consent.
Why is this important? The election allowed the tories to keep on with project “Wreck the UK” as well as allowing Labour to turn into LINO, under Blair. At the level of the media, no elections are fair (ref the monstering of Corbyn and Milliband) but it is clear that the Tories have a congential capacity to cheat, have done so in the past, continue to do so now (the ID nonsense and boundary changes) & will do so in the future, unless they are eliminated at the ballot box as a political force.
Jenrick’s Republican style attempt to manipulate elections has had some results.
Labour must reverse it, or better still, give us a new voting act with automatic registration, PR and curbs on money.
In this afternoon’s Guardian
As the BBC’s Vicki Young has pointed out, Leicestershire provides a better example of a place where centre-left parties lost out under first past the post (FPTP) because they did not form a pact. The Conservatives won the election for police and crime commissioner with a majority over Labour of less than 1,000. But the Greens and the Liberal Democrats both got very big voters there too.
The government recently changed the voting system for mayors and PCCs from the supplementary vote to FPTP. Under the supplementary vote, people get two choices, and if their first preference candidate does not make the final two, their second choice is taking into account. Under this system, Labour would almost certainly have won the Leicestershire PCC job.
The stupidity of labour in refusing to change FPTP to PR when they were last in power is still being felt as the above shows. The tories should never be able to dominate UK politics in the way they do on a minority of the vote.
But still, labour don’t want to know about electoral reform. On Any Questions today, I heard the tory MP warning rightists to avoid voting Reform as it would let labour in, and the labour MP doing the same re voting green. Pathetic. I am sick to death of the wretched tory/labour Westminster duopoly.
Agreed
‘The BBC has just published its projected national share figures. This is the estimate of what the results would have been if everyone in Britain had voted in local elections, instead of just the people voting yesterday.
Labour: 34%, Conservatives: 25%, Lib Dems: 17%, Others: 24%.’
These are local elections and it’s very difficult to make national projections, but – this really is a surprisingly poor result for Labour. To me it very much feels like a late-Blair stage result. Low turnout, no enthusiasm, Lib Dems, Greens and independents gaining a lot.
Meanwhile the Post Office Inquiry has been taking testimony from Martin Smith, PO criminal solicitor (yesterday) and Jarnail Singh, PO criminal lawyer (today). The key matter was “disclosure”. Smith described Singh as Head of Criminal Law, but Singh took a humbler line on his status: of “Post Box”. That pretty well sums up the testimony. Mr Singh, throughout constantly insisted he was not a decision maker, or in some cases had even received or read relevant emails which were addressed to him, or read them, or remembered or knew anything about them; in one case, it is alleged somewhat puzzlingly when receipt on his computer could be confirmed, and the report had been printed out within nine minutes of receipt; according to papers provided. Given that virtually everyone involved was a lawyer, it was remarkably difficult to understand much of what was said, with any clarity at all; or what anyone observing was supposed to make of the testimony. A thick, viscous fog slowly descended over the very meaning of words. I suggest anyone of robust constitution view for yourselves; but do not expect much in the way of disclosure, save the evisceration of meaning from the written word.
I have only been able to view this testimony in part, but sufficient to say it is all a profoundly gloomy insight into the nature of British corporate management procedure, below the level of the ‘mission statement’ and beneath the gloss of in-house corporate PR, or annual report.
Obfuscation is the order of the day. I am being polite.
Tonight the Tories have lost 407 seats of which the Lib Dems and Labour got 241 between them. 157 seats were split berween Independents, Greens and Residents’ Associations. That does not sound like a storming majority for Labour if it translates to the general election.
Agreed
Residents’ Associations????
Tories in disguise…
Thanks! I have never seen the term used before in this context.
English to English Translation:
Residents’ Associations (UK) = Home Owner’s Association (USA)
There IS a “Home Owner’s Association Industrial Complex” in the USA.
What was the point of these elections when you get a jackanape like Jonathan Freedland pretending he’s a wise man and writing the following in response to them and the difficulties Starmer will have if elected prime-minister?
“The Tories are so unpopular because so much is broken and there is not enough money to fix it.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/03/keir-starmer-prime-minister-britain-local-elections
As Mike Parr tells us zombies everywhere you look!
If as Jonathan Freedland writes there is not enough money to fix what is broken then what exactly is the point of democracy, going out to vote for a particular party? Why not just go back to absolute monarchy! If you prefer democracy then isn’t the first question you need to ask of the leader of a political party is do they believe there is money to fix what is broken. However, they answer they have to put forward a credible explanation how money is created in order to spend. Is this why British democracy is broken because these two questions aren’t being asked? Looks like it!
Very true….
Given our awful FPTP voting system, local elections can give a much clearer idea of what people really think. Whilst many (like myself) vote for the best candidate regardless of political party, many feel free to vote Green, because at local level their vote counts. Having lived under both strong Labour and strong Conservative councils, their councillors seem to be whipped and unable to express individual opinions, whereas both the Greens and Lib Dems seem more able to listen and act in the local interest.
It is very disappointing that despite making huge gains across the country and being the lead if not majority party in several councils, do little media attention has been given to the Greens. However it is a numbers game, and in areas like Bristol Central it is hard to see how they can fail to convert this voter base u to a national win. I think with a young dynamic MP like Carla Denyer, there will inevitably be more media coverage.