I’m not much into local UK politics but I must say the author can write. It’s wonderful to know England still has these small, rural towns where people live a life I thought had died out a couple of generations ago. Long may it continue.
I used to live around there and the idea that these folk will risk letting a property- and business-hating Labour party into power in any election that counts is for the birds.
It’s assumed by the political and journo and chattering classes that they are the puppet masters controlling the minds of us plebs, but I contend, it’s the other way round. I mean by that, the politicos they are just projections of ground-roots ground-swells of hopes, wishes, desires, dissatisfactions, anxieties and so on. We are, in effect, creating them, they are projections of us (in aggregate, but with endless numbers of localised variations). The leaders are buffeted mercilessly by the wants and likes and dislikes of the mass of people, us, who created them. The puppet masters are us, not them. It’s almost like inventing gods simply so we can give them a good kicking once in a while. And if a few (or many) people also get kicked around as a side-effect, well, shit happens. Or as the Indians say, Shiv happens.
D Ward
2 years ago
If you are going to go with a protest vote, for heaven’s sake don’t make it the Non-Lib Non-Dems. Take it from me. We are represented by one and it’s a disaster.
Jon Redman
2 years ago
It’s all very interesting, no doubt, but the fact is – as I keep banging on – that since 1945 there has been only one GE in which a government with a working majority was defeated and replaced by the opposition which won its own working majority. That one occasion was in 1970, when Wilson lost a majority of 66 to Heath, who won one of 30. But the 1970 electorate was not the same as that of 1966 because the voting age had just been lowered.
Every change of governing party since 1945 has been heralded by the government first losing its working majority before the contest. Attlee lost a snap election in 1951 that he went into with a majority of only 5. The Conservatives lost in 1964, but Wilson in winning gained a majority of just one seat. When ousted in 1974 the Conservatives were a minority administration, as was Callaghan in 1979, as was Major in 1997. Brown inherited a Blair majority for 2010 and hence the Conservatives didn’t defeat him outright but merely won the most seats.
There’s no reason to think this pattern will change. Boris’ majority would be 100 on fair boundaries so he’s not going to lose, not even to an incoming 2010-style minority. If that were on the cards Labour would be polling 47%, there would be years of solid Labour leads in leader approval, Labour would have a coherent plan for government and a credible non-anti-Semitic shadow cabinet, and the government would be losing all these by-elections rather than holding on or even winning them, as we’ve been seeing.
Boris’ popularity is taking a blip but none of the above is happening. The next election will be a Conservative victory. The interesting question is when and whether the Tories conclude that it will be smaller under Boris than under someone else; that and no sooner is the point at which he gets ousted.
I agree. Because for Labour to win the most seats let alone a majority, they would have needed to be a street ahead by a year ago, which they were not. They should be 15+% up all the time by now and they are not. Absolutely everything is screaming the Conservatives will win a bigger majority next time than 2019, why is this not patent to everyone? If it is still Johnson at the helm, is a different matter. There are already indications that he is fed up, not with governing, but with that lack of earnings that entails. But he won’t want to go until he ‘secures his legacy’ – that’s always what Tory PMs are most bothered about. It goes with the self-myths the Tory party creates for itself.
Yes, the key question here is what Conservative MPs make of it all. Those whose seats depend on a good win won’t be satisfied with a Conservative majority of 35, because that would mean at least 20 of them losing their seat (in reality more because there are net losses comprising gross losses offset by a few gains). That’s where the letters demanding a leadership election come from.
They’ll be looking at who’s best placed to deliver the same, or a bigger, majority in 2024. It need not be Boris, but Boris may be fortunate in that right now there are several plausible alternatives to him, rather than just one or none. Starmer is still in post partly because Labour always lets its leader fail in a GE before booting him, regardless of how rubbish he obviously is, but mainly because there is no obviously better successor – in fact, everyone else is far worse.
I suppose one bright light in the current darkness is that starting from scratch, we are now two years into this Conservative government, and accumulating track records for the contenders for senior appointments, a kind of survival of the fittest.
I feel most sorry for Patel, because as is well known, the Home office is the hardest to survive.
I doubt Labour can win – at least not with a full majority – because the demographics of the party now make that nigh-on impossible for them unless they radically rebrand to appeal to the normal non-London middle England, a task of which Kier Starmer look completely incapable. But equally this kind of numerology about parties needing to be x% above y years before the election is just meaningless pattern spotting. It is true that low-points in popularity tend to occur within the lifespan of a government just by sheer probability given the majority of the time they are not in campaign season. And yes it is true some governments are stuck in a death spiral and lose the election because they never recover and stay in low ratings – that of course foretells landslides like 1979 or 1997.
But it is just as dangerous to suddenly have one of those random blips of low popularity happen by chance just before or during an election – ask Ted Heath and the 1974 election after the miner’s strike which led to a Labour government despite the fact Labour had not been consistently popular during Heath’s time, or indeed before, really since the moment Wilson devauled the pound in 1967.
The overall rule I set out still applies regardless.
In 1959 the Tories won a 98-seat majority. In 1964 Wilson was unable to overturn this decisively and won only a 2-seat majority. This wasn’t an adequate working majority so in 1966 he called a snap election and improved it to a decent 66 seats. In 1970, he became (and remains) the only PM since 1945 to lose from a majority to an Opposition that gained its own (28-seat) majority – but as noted, the electorate of 1970 wasn’t the same.
In Feb 1974 Heath lost that majority, but to a hung parliament; again, Labour couldn’t defeat outright an incumbent majority government. In October 1974 Wilson improved again, to a majority of just 2. This wasn’t a working majority either, it became a minority, and Labour was thus able to be defeated at the next GE.
By 1997 Major’s 20-seat majority had gone and his was a minority propped up by the UUP. Unlike 1992, when they faced a majority of 100, this time Labour was able to win.
Brown’s poll ratings before 2010 were cataclysmically bad, but his 60-seat majority ensured Cameron could not defeat outright an incumbent majority government.
There is simply no way the Tories lose to a rival majority in 2024, any more than the government did in 1966, 1974, or 2010, and probably they don’t lose at all. If such an upset were going to happen, it would be evident in polls, council elections, and Labour by-election victories already. It’s not.
Boris’ 2019 result was thus a two-term victory: he won 2019 and 2024. The question now is who is best placed to deliver another two-term victory, i.e who in 2024 can win big enough to secure 2028/9 as well – which may no longer be Boris.
“There is simply no way the Tories lose to a rival majority in 2024, any more than the government did in 1966, 1974, or 2010, and probably they don’t lose at all. If such an upset were going to happen, it would be evident in polls, council elections, and Labour by-election victories already. It’s not.” Agreed, but I think this has more to do with the anaemic state of the Labour party in 1966 and today (or indeed the Conservative party in 1974 or 2010) than any psephological iron law of politics.
The two things may be opposite sides of the same coin. You win a majority because the other guy is rubbish. It takes a while for the punters to be persuaded the other guy has improved. So he doesn’t win outright until the punters perceive that’s he’s solid and you’re rubbish.
Net, the effect is that you don’t recover from epic defeats like 1959, 1983, 1997 or 2019 in one term. You’re going to need two more elections before it turns round.
The Labour majority in 1966 was 98, not 2, one of the largest ever, and one of the few times a party won more than 50% of all votes cast. In 1964 it had been 4, not 2, and gave Wilson a working majority.
Which rather collapses the whole theory.
But more relevantly to present circumstances, the fact that the previous government had a large majority does not mean that it is bound to win the next time. Look at elections until 1945 (when Attlee won a huge majority overturning a massive National Conservative one (from 1935)). Voter behaviour can be very fickle and change rapidly; and there is the factor of the influence of third parties, such as LibDems, Scots and Welsh Nats, and Northern Ireland. Any collapse of the Scots Nats from now would almost certainly vastly increase the Labour vote in Scotland.
If the Tories continue to behave in an incompetent way and sleaze allegations are proven further, they will loose to Labour in 2024, or before. There is an issue of the failure to sort out constituency boundaries which is costing around 20 seats to the Conservatives (because Conservative constituencies are larger); it is very strange that Boris does not use his majority to deal with this.
But if Starmer goes on retaking the middle ground and if he can make some headway in Scotland he has a very good chance of winning; the unknown is whether disaffected Tories will flee to the LibDems. They might, if Starmer looks moderate
It was 1964, not 1966, when Labour won its 2-seat majority; they needed 316 and they won 317. 2 seats are not a working majority. One death or bout of illness and you no longer command the house.
You’re correct re 1966 being bigger but it was 96, not 98, and they won 48% of the votes, not a majority. It took Labour two elections after the Conservative 1959 victory for them to achieve a majority of their own.
The point still stands – unless the demos changes, as it did between 1966 and 1970 with the reduction in the voting age, you don’t overturn a majority the size Boris has in one election cycle. That Starmer will fail to do so is evident is his leader ratings, the mediocrity of his team, his failure to win by-elections and the absence of any sign of recovery in mayoral or council elections.
Whether 2 seats or 4, it’s still not enough to govern, which is why there was another election within 2 years. Attlee’s majority was reduced from 140-odd in 1945 to 5 by 1950 and because he couldn’t govern with a majority of 5 he called an election in 1951, to try to get a bigger majority, which instead he lost.
I hope you’re right. I just want tories in power for the next 10 years so we can fully embed Brexit and start getting its strategic benefits in train. Everything else is just fluff – but disenchanted tories are in a rage about the fluff and have that air of complacent hubris that usually foretells disaster in other walks of life. And the electorate seems rather flighty.
Last edited 2 years ago by Ian Stewart
Philip L
2 years ago
Laurence Fox is here too with his candidate Martin Daubney, a former journalist. They spend a lot of time in the Fox Inn, tweeting about living in a one-party state, and how Covid is just like a cold.
We mock the downplaying of severity and yet: Professor Tim Spector told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the “majority of symptoms” of the Omicron variant are like a common cold, including headaches, a sore throat, runny nose, fatigue and sneezing. He said: “In London, where Covid is increasing rapidly, it’s far more likely to be Covid than it is to be a cold.”
Panic buy Kleenex?
Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-59664383
Cheryl Jones
2 years ago
First guy stopped voting Tory in 2015 so is irrelevant. Weird because everyone I speak to doesn’t really care about Christmas parties because ‘we all broke the rules at some points if we’re honest’ and see this furore as a distraction and political opportunism. To be honest with all the shenanigans and media hyperbole and just being fed up of Covid the public might just decide to give the govt a bloody nose. Another weird thing is though, that Labour and the LibDems assume that if the Tories are unpopular that they will be popular. I personally think a lot of people are pissed off that the Tories aren’t conservative *enough* and Reclaim, Reform and others might do the damage by splitting the vote.
Boris must feel sore that he’s pilloried for a ‘party’ he didn’t even attend and of which he may not have been aware at the time. To me, it looks as though the office simply enjoyed some time at their employer’s expense, as indeed have I and colleagues in several companies over more Christmases than I wish to count.
John Riordan
2 years ago
“He believes that Westminster “isn’t a democracy, it’s theatre” and he would know.”
What, because of saying Bollocks to Brexit and campaigning to overturn the 2016 referendum even though it has been confirmed in every general election since?
Every stand alone by-election is ‘Referendum’ on the current prime minister and government. Sprinkle on a few comments from some colourful characters and stick in some info on the candidates.
Honestly the stuff writes itself.
Now predict the winner and their majority and I’ll start paying attention. The last two paragraphs don’t quite achieve that state of certainty.
Last edited 2 years ago by AC Harper
Jonathan Story
2 years ago
For readers from North Shropshire: the repeated sting jobs on Johnson are nothing more than that. There is a 12-month olf film of Ms Stratton, giggling: what has this to do with Johnson? Zilch. Don’t believe a word of it. Johnson opted to lead Brexit: the reason for that is that we MUST be self-governed. Johnsion delivered. He is NOT a liar.
He has a flair for dramatic obfuscation though. But yeah I don’t fall for this constant screaming of liar liar liar – methinks they doth protest too much.
But it’s very useful material for uninterrupted propaganda by those who wish to destroy him, or at least influence today’s by-election, including the state-owned broadcaster.
Al M
2 years ago
“I find Boris Been-Bunged – also known as Faux Bojo — for the Rejoin EU Party in Oswestry by a yellow Mini that says B0ll0cks to Brexit (“vote tactically, we will be back”)” They just can’t leave it alone, can they?
No. I’ve happened upon fora which plot and dream, and are quite direct about it, so the EU’s strategy of ensuring negotiations continue for years to come has potential, and I doubt we’ll have the benefit of that second referendum.
Zorro Tomorrow
2 years ago
If the Tory squeezes in that’s still a warning. If the LibDems squeeze in N.Shropshire are annoyed. Labour? They are livid and will put up with 18 months of nothing until it’s time to chuck them out. Tice or Fox? Now that would be time to sit up and take notice. I still think Sir David Arness’s seat will be the wake up call.
I think it also helped that the Liberal Democrats voted not to endorse the additional Covid restrictions recently placed on the populace by the Conservative hierarchy.
Richard Slack
2 years ago
There is nothing like a by-election is there. What is not to like? Well actually the residents in the constituency usually don’t like it. When a by-election is caused by the death of the sitting member then there is a degree of sympathy and an acceptance for the need to another contest but if the member resigns in disgrace or in a huff then the electorate does not easily storm back to the ballot boxes (the only exceptions I would make is when a member resigns and re-contests the seat on a point of principle.)
By-elections used to take place in a mood of distinguished ennui but now, of course they are big box-office for the media. The result will usually be that all sorts or rather unusual and sometimes unpleasant people will throw their hats (usually decorated top hats) into the ring and attempt (and usually fail ) to engage the electorate with a mixture of agit prop and street theatre.
Shropshire North didn’t let us down and there was a clear majority for stay at home which is not reflected in any of the usual post election post-mortems (such as “is the the end for Boris”, “is this the sign of a Lib Dem revival” “has Starmer overcome the Corbyn legacy”). And why should it, if party politics is seen in such old-fashioned formulaic terms.
I am just about old enough to remember the Orpington By-election in the early 1960s which was supposed to herald the start of a new Liberal revival, by 1970 they were down to only a handful of votes and their leader almost lost his seat. The Liberal By-election wins in the early 70s left little behind by 1979. Those that won seats for the SDP in the early 1980s soon lost them having held up the promise of serious mould-breaking. When in 2010 the Lib Dems finally achieved the Holy Grail of the “balance of power” they sacrificed their position to support the Conservatives in a flurry of privatisation and austerity in return for a half-arsed referendum on Proportional Representation which the Tories allowed happen while opposing it.
My reading of history suggests there have only been 2 by-elections which actually effected anything, Fulham East in 1933 which convinced the National (i e Conservative) Government that re-armament would not be popular and Maldon in 1942 where the wartime truce was by-passed when the Journalist Tom Driburg ran as an independent on a policy of a more vigorous conduct of the war and a firm plan for reconstruction afterwards. He probably achieved this as the pressure to commission the Beveridge report was too much for Churchill to resist. He also added a great deal of gaity and wit to British politics
The same thing happened in Chesham and Amersham which was occasioned by the death of Dame Cheryl Gillan. This analysis seems to be a case of whistling past the graveyard to me. The Tories have been taking their core constituency for a ride in the aim of gaining seats in red wall Labour areas by spending like a sailor on shore leave – mainly with the money of the hardworking and dynamic people of the shires – and trying to destroy the value of their hard earnt properties and people aren’t happy.
Looking at the numbers last time and assuming a 30% turnout and that reform and UKIP will siphon off a couple thousand votes, I think this could be recount territory this time. I don’t know who will win, except Boris certainly doesn’t.
Christopher Gelber
2 years ago
Very nicely written. All anecdotes and extrapolations, but I got a feel for the place, and that shows ability.
Last edited 2 years ago by Christopher Gelber
Ferrusian Gambit
2 years ago
Or maybe it was a referendum on the whole ‘Red Tory’ strategy. With Brexit done keeping to coalition together was going to be impossible despite what some talking heads here (delusionally) wanted to believe.
The Thatcherites will soon be back in the box-seat and there will be plenty of salty tears from Red Tory types.
Last edited 2 years ago by Ferrusian Gambit
Nicky Samengo-Turner
2 years ago
The Tory party should be renamed the ” ToileTory Party”, given that is is run by and for polyester clad, pointy shod ” reound veowel seounds” from the Sevenoaks tribe, whose knowledge and understanding ” eoutside” of their own petit bourgeois tribe is zero.
I’m not much into local UK politics but I must say the author can write. It’s wonderful to know England still has these small, rural towns where people live a life I thought had died out a couple of generations ago. Long may it continue.
I used to live around there and the idea that these folk will risk letting a property- and business-hating Labour party into power in any election that counts is for the birds.
It’s assumed by the political and journo and chattering classes that they are the puppet masters controlling the minds of us plebs, but I contend, it’s the other way round.
I mean by that, the politicos they are just projections of ground-roots ground-swells of hopes, wishes, desires, dissatisfactions, anxieties and so on. We are, in effect, creating them, they are projections of us (in aggregate, but with endless numbers of localised variations). The leaders are buffeted mercilessly by the wants and likes and dislikes of the mass of people, us, who created them. The puppet masters are us, not them. It’s almost like inventing gods simply so we can give them a good kicking once in a while. And if a few (or many) people also get kicked around as a side-effect, well, shit happens. Or as the Indians say, Shiv happens.
If you are going to go with a protest vote, for heaven’s sake don’t make it the Non-Lib Non-Dems. Take it from me. We are represented by one and it’s a disaster.
It’s all very interesting, no doubt, but the fact is – as I keep banging on – that since 1945 there has been only one GE in which a government with a working majority was defeated and replaced by the opposition which won its own working majority. That one occasion was in 1970, when Wilson lost a majority of 66 to Heath, who won one of 30. But the 1970 electorate was not the same as that of 1966 because the voting age had just been lowered.
Every change of governing party since 1945 has been heralded by the government first losing its working majority before the contest. Attlee lost a snap election in 1951 that he went into with a majority of only 5. The Conservatives lost in 1964, but Wilson in winning gained a majority of just one seat. When ousted in 1974 the Conservatives were a minority administration, as was Callaghan in 1979, as was Major in 1997. Brown inherited a Blair majority for 2010 and hence the Conservatives didn’t defeat him outright but merely won the most seats.
There’s no reason to think this pattern will change. Boris’ majority would be 100 on fair boundaries so he’s not going to lose, not even to an incoming 2010-style minority. If that were on the cards Labour would be polling 47%, there would be years of solid Labour leads in leader approval, Labour would have a coherent plan for government and a credible non-anti-Semitic shadow cabinet, and the government would be losing all these by-elections rather than holding on or even winning them, as we’ve been seeing.
Boris’ popularity is taking a blip but none of the above is happening. The next election will be a Conservative victory. The interesting question is when and whether the Tories conclude that it will be smaller under Boris than under someone else; that and no sooner is the point at which he gets ousted.
I agree. Because for Labour to win the most seats let alone a majority, they would have needed to be a street ahead by a year ago, which they were not. They should be 15+% up all the time by now and they are not. Absolutely everything is screaming the Conservatives will win a bigger majority next time than 2019, why is this not patent to everyone? If it is still Johnson at the helm, is a different matter. There are already indications that he is fed up, not with governing, but with that lack of earnings that entails. But he won’t want to go until he ‘secures his legacy’ – that’s always what Tory PMs are most bothered about. It goes with the self-myths the Tory party creates for itself.
Yes, the key question here is what Conservative MPs make of it all. Those whose seats depend on a good win won’t be satisfied with a Conservative majority of 35, because that would mean at least 20 of them losing their seat (in reality more because there are net losses comprising gross losses offset by a few gains). That’s where the letters demanding a leadership election come from.
They’ll be looking at who’s best placed to deliver the same, or a bigger, majority in 2024. It need not be Boris, but Boris may be fortunate in that right now there are several plausible alternatives to him, rather than just one or none. Starmer is still in post partly because Labour always lets its leader fail in a GE before booting him, regardless of how rubbish he obviously is, but mainly because there is no obviously better successor – in fact, everyone else is far worse.
I suppose one bright light in the current darkness is that starting from scratch, we are now two years into this Conservative government, and accumulating track records for the contenders for senior appointments, a kind of survival of the fittest.
I feel most sorry for Patel, because as is well known, the Home office is the hardest to survive.
I doubt Labour can win – at least not with a full majority – because the demographics of the party now make that nigh-on impossible for them unless they radically rebrand to appeal to the normal non-London middle England, a task of which Kier Starmer look completely incapable. But equally this kind of numerology about parties needing to be x% above y years before the election is just meaningless pattern spotting. It is true that low-points in popularity tend to occur within the lifespan of a government just by sheer probability given the majority of the time they are not in campaign season. And yes it is true some governments are stuck in a death spiral and lose the election because they never recover and stay in low ratings – that of course foretells landslides like 1979 or 1997.
But it is just as dangerous to suddenly have one of those random blips of low popularity happen by chance just before or during an election – ask Ted Heath and the 1974 election after the miner’s strike which led to a Labour government despite the fact Labour had not been consistently popular during Heath’s time, or indeed before, really since the moment Wilson devauled the pound in 1967.
The overall rule I set out still applies regardless.
In 1959 the Tories won a 98-seat majority. In 1964 Wilson was unable to overturn this decisively and won only a 2-seat majority. This wasn’t an adequate working majority so in 1966 he called a snap election and improved it to a decent 66 seats. In 1970, he became (and remains) the only PM since 1945 to lose from a majority to an Opposition that gained its own (28-seat) majority – but as noted, the electorate of 1970 wasn’t the same.
In Feb 1974 Heath lost that majority, but to a hung parliament; again, Labour couldn’t defeat outright an incumbent majority government. In October 1974 Wilson improved again, to a majority of just 2. This wasn’t a working majority either, it became a minority, and Labour was thus able to be defeated at the next GE.
By 1997 Major’s 20-seat majority had gone and his was a minority propped up by the UUP. Unlike 1992, when they faced a majority of 100, this time Labour was able to win.
Brown’s poll ratings before 2010 were cataclysmically bad, but his 60-seat majority ensured Cameron could not defeat outright an incumbent majority government.
There is simply no way the Tories lose to a rival majority in 2024, any more than the government did in 1966, 1974, or 2010, and probably they don’t lose at all. If such an upset were going to happen, it would be evident in polls, council elections, and Labour by-election victories already. It’s not.
Boris’ 2019 result was thus a two-term victory: he won 2019 and 2024. The question now is who is best placed to deliver another two-term victory, i.e who in 2024 can win big enough to secure 2028/9 as well – which may no longer be Boris.
“There is simply no way the Tories lose to a rival majority in 2024, any more than the government did in 1966, 1974, or 2010, and probably they don’t lose at all. If such an upset were going to happen, it would be evident in polls, council elections, and Labour by-election victories already. It’s not.”
Agreed, but I think this has more to do with the anaemic state of the Labour party in 1966 and today (or indeed the Conservative party in 1974 or 2010) than any psephological iron law of politics.
The two things may be opposite sides of the same coin. You win a majority because the other guy is rubbish. It takes a while for the punters to be persuaded the other guy has improved. So he doesn’t win outright until the punters perceive that’s he’s solid and you’re rubbish.
Net, the effect is that you don’t recover from epic defeats like 1959, 1983, 1997 or 2019 in one term. You’re going to need two more elections before it turns round.
The Labour majority in 1966 was 98, not 2, one of the largest ever, and one of the few times a party won more than 50% of all votes cast. In 1964 it had been 4, not 2, and gave Wilson a working majority.
Which rather collapses the whole theory.
But more relevantly to present circumstances, the fact that the previous government had a large majority does not mean that it is bound to win the next time. Look at elections until 1945 (when Attlee won a huge majority overturning a massive National Conservative one (from 1935)). Voter behaviour can be very fickle and change rapidly; and there is the factor of the influence of third parties, such as LibDems, Scots and Welsh Nats, and Northern Ireland. Any collapse of the Scots Nats from now would almost certainly vastly increase the Labour vote in Scotland.
If the Tories continue to behave in an incompetent way and sleaze allegations are proven further, they will loose to Labour in 2024, or before. There is an issue of the failure to sort out constituency boundaries which is costing around 20 seats to the Conservatives (because Conservative constituencies are larger); it is very strange that Boris does not use his majority to deal with this.
But if Starmer goes on retaking the middle ground and if he can make some headway in Scotland he has a very good chance of winning; the unknown is whether disaffected Tories will flee to the LibDems. They might, if Starmer looks moderate
It was 1964, not 1966, when Labour won its 2-seat majority; they needed 316 and they won 317. 2 seats are not a working majority. One death or bout of illness and you no longer command the house.
You’re correct re 1966 being bigger but it was 96, not 98, and they won 48% of the votes, not a majority. It took Labour two elections after the Conservative 1959 victory for them to achieve a majority of their own.
The point still stands – unless the demos changes, as it did between 1966 and 1970 with the reduction in the voting age, you don’t overturn a majority the size Boris has in one election cycle. That Starmer will fail to do so is evident is his leader ratings, the mediocrity of his team, his failure to win by-elections and the absence of any sign of recovery in mayoral or council elections.
1964 Labour won 317, Conservatives 304, Liberals 9. That’s a majority of 4. A new Speaker was then elected from Labour. Working majority 2
1966 Labour 364, Conservatives 253, Liberals 12. That’s 99, but the existing Speaker stayed on, majority 98
So we are both right!
Whether 2 seats or 4, it’s still not enough to govern, which is why there was another election within 2 years. Attlee’s majority was reduced from 140-odd in 1945 to 5 by 1950 and because he couldn’t govern with a majority of 5 he called an election in 1951, to try to get a bigger majority, which instead he lost.
I hope you’re right. I just want tories in power for the next 10 years so we can fully embed Brexit and start getting its strategic benefits in train. Everything else is just fluff – but disenchanted tories are in a rage about the fluff and have that air of complacent hubris that usually foretells disaster in other walks of life. And the electorate seems rather flighty.
We mock the downplaying of severity and yet:
Professor Tim Spector told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the “majority of symptoms” of the Omicron variant are like a common cold, including headaches, a sore throat, runny nose, fatigue and sneezing.
He said: “In London, where Covid is increasing rapidly, it’s far more likely to be Covid than it is to be a cold.”
Panic buy Kleenex?
Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-59664383
First guy stopped voting Tory in 2015 so is irrelevant. Weird because everyone I speak to doesn’t really care about Christmas parties because ‘we all broke the rules at some points if we’re honest’ and see this furore as a distraction and political opportunism. To be honest with all the shenanigans and media hyperbole and just being fed up of Covid the public might just decide to give the govt a bloody nose. Another weird thing is though, that Labour and the LibDems assume that if the Tories are unpopular that they will be popular. I personally think a lot of people are pissed off that the Tories aren’t conservative *enough* and Reclaim, Reform and others might do the damage by splitting the vote.
Boris must feel sore that he’s pilloried for a ‘party’ he didn’t even attend and of which he may not have been aware at the time. To me, it looks as though the office simply enjoyed some time at their employer’s expense, as indeed have I and colleagues in several companies over more Christmases than I wish to count.
“He believes that Westminster “isn’t a democracy, it’s theatre” and he would know.”
What, because of saying Bollocks to Brexit and campaigning to overturn the 2016 referendum even though it has been confirmed in every general election since?
These clowns are useful splitters of the left vote.
An article that saves me going to the Guardian website and finding out (at zero cost) what they think.
Well, you certainly wouldn’t pay for The Graun.
Every stand alone by-election is ‘Referendum’ on the current prime minister and government. Sprinkle on a few comments from some colourful characters and stick in some info on the candidates.
Honestly the stuff writes itself.
Now predict the winner and their majority and I’ll start paying attention. The last two paragraphs don’t quite achieve that state of certainty.
For readers from North Shropshire: the repeated sting jobs on Johnson are nothing more than that. There is a 12-month olf film of Ms Stratton, giggling: what has this to do with Johnson? Zilch. Don’t believe a word of it. Johnson opted to lead Brexit: the reason for that is that we MUST be self-governed. Johnsion delivered. He is NOT a liar.
He has a flair for dramatic obfuscation though. But yeah I don’t fall for this constant screaming of liar liar liar – methinks they doth protest too much.
But it’s very useful material for uninterrupted propaganda by those who wish to destroy him, or at least influence today’s by-election, including the state-owned broadcaster.
“I find Boris Been-Bunged – also known as Faux Bojo — for the Rejoin EU Party in Oswestry by a yellow Mini that says B0ll0cks to Brexit (“vote tactically, we will be back”)”
They just can’t leave it alone, can they?
No. I’ve happened upon fora which plot and dream, and are quite direct about it, so the EU’s strategy of ensuring negotiations continue for years to come has potential, and I doubt we’ll have the benefit of that second referendum.
If the Tory squeezes in that’s still a warning. If the LibDems squeeze in N.Shropshire are annoyed. Labour? They are livid and will put up with 18 months of nothing until it’s time to chuck them out. Tice or Fox? Now that would be time to sit up and take notice. I still think Sir David Arness’s seat will be the wake up call.
Sir David’s seat isn’t being contested though.
Poor turn out?
This England eh. Tears flowed.
Very well put together article. Great read
I think it also helped that the Liberal Democrats voted not to endorse the additional Covid restrictions recently placed on the populace by the Conservative hierarchy.
There is nothing like a by-election is there. What is not to like? Well actually the residents in the constituency usually don’t like it. When a by-election is caused by the death of the sitting member then there is a degree of sympathy and an acceptance for the need to another contest but if the member resigns in disgrace or in a huff then the electorate does not easily storm back to the ballot boxes (the only exceptions I would make is when a member resigns and re-contests the seat on a point of principle.)
By-elections used to take place in a mood of distinguished ennui but now, of course they are big box-office for the media. The result will usually be that all sorts or rather unusual and sometimes unpleasant people will throw their hats (usually decorated top hats) into the ring and attempt (and usually fail ) to engage the electorate with a mixture of agit prop and street theatre.
Shropshire North didn’t let us down and there was a clear majority for stay at home which is not reflected in any of the usual post election post-mortems (such as “is the the end for Boris”, “is this the sign of a Lib Dem revival” “has Starmer overcome the Corbyn legacy”). And why should it, if party politics is seen in such old-fashioned formulaic terms.
I am just about old enough to remember the Orpington By-election in the early 1960s which was supposed to herald the start of a new Liberal revival, by 1970 they were down to only a handful of votes and their leader almost lost his seat. The Liberal By-election wins in the early 70s left little behind by 1979. Those that won seats for the SDP in the early 1980s soon lost them having held up the promise of serious mould-breaking. When in 2010 the Lib Dems finally achieved the Holy Grail of the “balance of power” they sacrificed their position to support the Conservatives in a flurry of privatisation and austerity in return for a half-arsed referendum on Proportional Representation which the Tories allowed happen while opposing it.
My reading of history suggests there have only been 2 by-elections which actually effected anything, Fulham East in 1933 which convinced the National (i e Conservative) Government that re-armament would not be popular and Maldon in 1942 where the wartime truce was by-passed when the Journalist Tom Driburg ran as an independent on a policy of a more vigorous conduct of the war and a firm plan for reconstruction afterwards. He probably achieved this as the pressure to commission the Beveridge report was too much for Churchill to resist. He also added a great deal of gaity and wit to British politics
The same thing happened in Chesham and Amersham which was occasioned by the death of Dame Cheryl Gillan. This analysis seems to be a case of whistling past the graveyard to me. The Tories have been taking their core constituency for a ride in the aim of gaining seats in red wall Labour areas by spending like a sailor on shore leave – mainly with the money of the hardworking and dynamic people of the shires – and trying to destroy the value of their hard earnt properties and people aren’t happy.
We need a new Whig party
The SDP?
Looking at the numbers last time and assuming a 30% turnout and that reform and UKIP will siphon off a couple thousand votes, I think this could be recount territory this time. I don’t know who will win, except Boris certainly doesn’t.
Very nicely written. All anecdotes and extrapolations, but I got a feel for the place, and that shows ability.
Or maybe it was a referendum on the whole ‘Red Tory’ strategy. With Brexit done keeping to coalition together was going to be impossible despite what some talking heads here (delusionally) wanted to believe.
The Thatcherites will soon be back in the box-seat and there will be plenty of salty tears from Red Tory types.
The Tory party should be renamed the ” ToileTory Party”, given that is is run by and for polyester clad, pointy shod ” reound veowel seounds” from the Sevenoaks tribe, whose knowledge and understanding ” eoutside” of their own petit bourgeois tribe is zero.