2 May 2024 : LAB 44% / CON 26% / LDM 10% / REF 10%

[Deleted]

LAB take Blackpool South by 7,600 votes on a 32% turnout.

CON beat RFM by 117 votes.

[expatr]

25.5% swing in Blackpool south by my calculation

let's see what Prof Curtice says

[peterbell]

Going to bed now on a very happy note. Night, night to those who are still around.

[Deleted]

BBC reporting that the Batty Massive has won Redditch.

[steve]

"Blackpool South required a 5.5% swing for Labour to win it, so it was an easier target than most of the gains the party has made from the Conservatives in recent months. Its victory therefore is not surprising.

This was, nonetheless, the third largest drop in Conservative support in a by-election since the war. At 26%, the swing from Tories to Labour is the third largest in a by-election since the war: although it was slightly smaller than the 28.5% in Wellingborough earlier this year.

This is all therefore very much in line with other recent by-elections, which registered very high losses of support for the Conservatives.

At 17%, Reform's performance is easily the best performance in a parliamentary by-election yet for them, though it does not match some of the performances UKIP achieved in the 2010-15 parliament."

John Curtice


The turnout was a genuinely pathetic 32% , however even at the general election the residents of Blackpool didn't show a great deal of interest in voting with over 40% of the electorate not bothering at all.


Great result for Labour though.

[expatr]

May 3, 2024 3:35:11 GMT @isa said:

May 3, 2024 3:19:30 GMT expatr said:

Miss J Hunter Dunne, Miss J Hunter Dunne

Clearly decided that Starmer's the one.

I'm afraid your reference somewhat threw me, but having checked it out, what a beautiful little poem.

Very Betjeman!

[Deleted]

May 3, 2024 4:23:26 GMT expatr said:

May 3, 2024 3:35:11 GMT @isa said:

I'm afraid your reference somewhat threw me, but having checked it out, what a beautiful little poem.

Very Betjeman!

What an achingly descriptive fellow he was.

[steve]

@isa

The Redditch result was genuinely catastrophic for the Tories in terms of swing it may prove their worst result of a very bad night.

[steve]

On a day when the Sunakered regime is losing seats to the greens another stunningly incompetent announcement.


"Sunak to allow oil and gas exploration at sites intended for offshore wind"

[neilj]

Full result for Blackpool South By-Election

🌹 LAB: 58.9% (+20.6)
🌳 CON: 17.5% (-32.1)
➡️ RFM: 16.9% (+10.7)
🔶 LDM: 2.1% (-1.0)
🌍 GRN: 2.0% (+0.3)
🙋 IND: 0.9% (New)
👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 ADF: 0.8% (New)
🎩 MRLP: 0.7% (New)



YouGov MRP had this as:
Lab 50
Con 21
Ref 19
LD 6%
Green 6%


Britain forecast was
Lab 50%
Con 30%


I think Labour will be happy

[steve]

Baby Hannah celebrates her stunning victory in Blackpool.

She wasn't available for comment.


www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-68942651

[Deleted]

Sir John Curtice unequivocally opining on the BBC that CON's reversals this evening are squarely due to Boris Johnson's Covid parties and then lying about it and Liz Truss's market-crashing madness.

LAB would do well to ram this home at any opportunity every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

[Deleted]

May 3, 2024 4:40:54 GMT steve said:

@isa

The Redditch result was genuinely catastrophic for the Tories in terms of swing it may prove their worst result of a very bad night.

Here's hoping, although the WM and Tees mayoralties would be nice, too.

[neilj]

'Tory commentator Tim Montgomerie who tells the BBC he believes the prime minister's time is up and the swing against Conservatives in recent by-elections has been "sustained".

"Personally I think the results are so bad," Montgomerie says. "I just don't think he is connected with the voters.

"I think he should go."

I think they all should go, time for a General Election rather than yet another tory Prime Minister foisted on us

[steve]

Is this the first indication that Labour's position on the war in the Levant has political consequences.

Labour lose Oldham to no overall control
Confirmation is in that Labour has lost control of Oldham council.

Fourteen of the 20 wards have now declared, and five Labour seats have now been lost to independents.

[Danny]

May 3, 2024 2:09:16 GMT @isa said:

BBC and Sky reporting LAB have gained Rushmoor, Hants, which includes Aldershot, the home of the British Army, direct from CON.

That's big.

They expect to keep the army vote when they tried to take away the posh houses from officers and are incapable of mainting them for anyone? When the army must undertsand the scale of cuts it has suffered, plus the hollowing out of its capability? Plus the inability to recruit, suggests basic pay just isnt enough?

[Danny]

May 3, 2024 1:53:49 GMT peterbell said:

BBC showing that in areas with large Muslim population the Lab vote has fallen by 19%. These have been gained by Green and Ind.

It is becoming obvious that Lab (Starmer) have made bad decisions and bad statements re the Gaza situation. Unqualified support for the Israeli government goes against the view of the majority of the UK population and this is obviously exagerated wrt to the Muslim population.

Hmm. So far these results seem to mirror those last year, before Israel started an undeclared war against what ought to be the palestinian state in Gaza. Labour also underperformed there with seats going to third parties.

I heard a curious comment yesterday, attacking Cameron because as a lord he is not reporting official business to the commons. Apparently there was a special motion to allow him to report to MPs, but the government voted it down. Which strikes me as their rather preferring he doesnt. He might say Brexit was a mistake.

Comes to something that Turkey leads the way in sanctions against israel for its invasion of the Gaza strip.

Someone from Oldham labour arguing that looking at the seats they lost, they werent doing worse in muslim areas than others. Also arguing that Oldham councillors had done all they could to protest against failure to support gazans. It seems likely that a failure to support Gaza isnt affecting only muslim labour voters. same problem Biden clearly has, with two of his keys to victory, one on foreign policy and one on civil unrest, being affected.

[Deleted]

Anyhoo, as a grey Somerset day dawns, it's time for kip. 'Night all.

[neilj]

As I type the tories have so far lost more than half their seats, 121 lost to 116 kept
It will be difficult to spin this as anything other than disastrous, even if they manage to keep the West Mids and Tees Valley mayoralty

[steve]

The home team having a pretty good night up 17 councillors so far.

[steve]

Professor Sir John Curtice


So far, the results have proven to be disappointing for the Conservatives.

The most dramatic result is the Blackpool South by-election: a 26% swing from Conservative to Labour, making it the third biggest swing from Conservative to Labour in post-war by-election history.

It's also the fifth by-election in this parliament in which the swing from Conservative to Labour has been over 20%.

The Conservative performance was seemingly not helped by the fact that, at 16.9%, Reform produced their best performance yet in a by-election.

That said, they were still well short of what UKIP regularly achieved in the 2010-15 parliament.

We now have detailed figures for over 300 local council keywards, and declarations of the outcomes in over 30 councils. We are witnessing a swing from Conservative to Labour since 2021 on average of 10% so far and a more modest swing of 1% since last year.

These figures are being translated into a high rate of Conservative losses.

[Danny]

May 3, 2024 4:23:26 GMT expatr said:

May 3, 2024 3:35:11 GMT @isa said:

I'm afraid your reference somewhat threw me, but having checked it out, what a beautiful little poem.

Very Betjeman!

He was a campaigner for a quality built environment who campaigned against knocking down noteable buildings and replacing them with tower blocks. Or destroying the traditional terraces which nowadays are very sought after. Back then the nimbyist campaign against building on the countrside wasnt really a thing, so it might have been interesting to know where he would have stood today.

[neilj]

steve
Cheers

Curtice summed it up on Radio 4 by saying results so far indicate
"one of the worst if not the worst Conservative performance in local government elections in the last 40 years".

[steve]

Starmer is no Blair but he's blessed to be facing the worst regime in living memory.


Rob Ford

Tony Blair achieved four 20 point plus swings from Cons when he was opposition leader - Starmer has now achieved five - including four of the top 5 largest ever, all achieved in the last year

[Danny]

May 3, 2024 4:50:26 GMT neilj said:

Full result for Blackpool South By-Election

🌹 LAB: 58.9% (+20.6)
🌳 CON: 17.5% (-32.1)
➡️ RFM: 16.9% (+10.7)
🔶 LDM: 2.1% (-1.0)
🌍 GRN: 2.0% (+0.3)
🙋 IND: 0.9% (New)
👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 ADF: 0.8% (New)
🎩 MRLP: 0.7% (New)


YouGov MRP had this as:
Lab 50
Con 21
Ref 19
LD 6%
Green 6%

Britain forecast was
Lab 50%
Con 30%

I think Labour will be happy

So MRP did better than britain forecasts, but still under estimated the swing to labour. And that despite labour failing to pick up half the conservative lost councillors in local elections. Dodgy to use a by-election to predict a national outcome, but on this basis the labour westminster vote might be firmer even than general polling suggests.

[Danny]

May 3, 2024 5:06:31 GMT @isa said:

Sir John Curtice unequivocally opining on the BBC that CON's reversals this evening are squarely due to Boris Johnson's Covid parties and then lying about it and Liz Truss's market-crashing madness.

LAB would do well to ram this home at any opportunity every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

They shouldnt because it was not true, Curtice is wrong. Conservative support has fallen steadily since we left the EU, you can draw a straight line through the cumulative poll data since then. Yes, Johnson's parties and Truss' budget saw big drops in con support, and sunak appointment saw decent rise too. But overall its a steady trend which means these events might have influenced people temporarily but overall made no special difference. Except of course contributing to this steady disenchantment with con event by event. It may simply be sheer quantity of negative news, not quality which has mattered.

Meanwhile labour is seeing its parliamentary vote share fall too, and a con spokesperson just attacked them for having no ideas themselves how to do better. Its written all over the local results that voters think exactly this, half the con losses have gone to other than labour, wheras at the general voters largely will not have this choice. Although it does imply libs will over perform because they will get support where in contention.

The two big issues of recent times are lockdown and brexit. The nation now believes leaving the EU was a mistake and we should rejoin, by implication this is the fault of the government who pushed it through and which lied to those voters. There are various views on lockdown from mine that it did no good whatever, to others who believe it was nowhere near strict enough. Either way they think con messed up. But the problem for labour is it also failed to properly oppose Brexit, and supported lockdown. So on both the big issues, the conservative who accused labour of having no views of its own is entirely correct.

The problem for the libs was not so much the coalition per se, but their failure to make a real difference to tory policies, simply rubber stamping them. Libs failed to use their power to bring down the government, as an equal partner, to introduce lib policies.  Similarly Labour failed to use what power it had to oppose con on brexit or Lockdown. Mostly this wasnt in terms of power to defeat the government in votes, but it could have spoken against brexit consistently whereas it simply caved to the referendum result despite its own voters being remainers.  Polling suggested it would have done as well or better by consistently opposing Brexit, but the irony is it was always the more likely of the two big parties to have supported brexit. Now of course with opinion turning against brexit, they failed to stand for remain when they should have.

[alec]

Labour dominance not universal (Harlow, Oldham) but that's very much the pattern for local elections. There are always some crumbs left from the feast for the vanquished to console themselves on. And Labour certainly look to be feasting this morning.

I don't know about the areas counting overnight/this morning, but a general pattern we've seen over several recent local elections is for Conservative fortunes to look a bit better than anticipated overnight, bringing out the 'not too bad' headlines, only for things to move more Labour's way as counting the following day catches up. Obviously this depends in part on which areas count first and what type of council is up for election, so I've no idea whether we could see this dynamic unfold again today. I have a sneaking suspicion Labour may be pleasantly surprised in the WM and Teeside mayoralty races, but time will tell, but whatever transpires, it's been a bad start for Sunak.

[neilj]

Lots of talk about Labour losing control of Oldham
This tweet is useful

So Labour down 3.3% compared to 2023 ( also a good year for Labour)
Asian population of Oldham is 22%
Prior to the election Labour had 32 out of 60 seats, they now have 27, losing 5

Very likely it'll still still mean Labour MPs in the General Election later in the year

[neilj]

In Harlow the tories lost 5 seats and Labour gained 5, the tories now have a wafer thin majority of one
If that counts as the 'Biggest comeback since Lazarus' the tories really are in trouble

[Danny]

A news story about how a traditional swimming race in the Thames has been cancelled this year because of concern over pollution and therfore risk to swimmers health. I'm not wholly convinced the river is more polluted now than it may have been in past years, but certainly there had been a lot more publicity and so the organisers dont think they can risk holding it. But Im not clear there is any reason to think the situation will be better next year, or ever unless there is a formal change in regulator policy to actually enforce rules on water quality upon water companies.

Or put that another way, to fix it will require the new government spending money, either from the taxpayer (even if via soaring water bills) or by imposing taxation on the companies themselves and clawing back the money they have extracted in the past, possibly in the form of bankruptcy and subsequent nationalisation.