Voters In Tamworth Before By Election

[Eric Cartman]

Spot on really. I suppose to add to the mix is the nature of the by-elections, which are often called after a death and the nature of the previous incumbents also don't help.

Labour are absolutely on course for victory. Not by the swings here..both these seats will likely go back the other way, but Starmer is doing very well.

It's interesting how he nullifies opposition. There isn't really much criticism coming from the opposition now - he's not talking about Brexit, the more divisive cultural issues etc and he is not offering any notable change of course on the economy etc.

On the left, you will always get people who think the Labour leader isn't left-wing enough, but he is largely ignoring them. I think his biggest risk is if Corbyn created any formal or informal opposition, which I think is unlikely, but I guess that would take 10% off his vote. That said, he would probably gain half of that back in people glad to see them formally out of the party too.

He's riding the wave and benefitting from it. But that's not a criticism of him at all. It's absolutely sensible. If the tide is taking you in anyway, why waste your energy rowing?

It's not over and I do think polls will narrow somewhat but I think people just want a change of govt really, and naturally so.

Mid Beds will likely swing back but the nature of the Tamworth seat might mean labour keep that.

Labour have stolen the Tory policy of being vague and telling people broadly what they want to hear. It's working and anyone moaning at Starmer for not 'doing more' is missing the point, detail is dangerous in politics.

I could see, for want of a better word, a 'corbynite' party form after the next election if labour have such a big majority that they have no leverage from within. I feel like one of the big reasons the Tories haven't seen a split is that leaders were required to pander to the more extreme blocks to keep their majority in the house (even more visible with Sunak now than ever before).

[Dave Blue]

Spot on really. I suppose to add to the mix is the nature of the by-elections, which are often called after a death and the nature of the previous incumbents also don't help.

Labour are absolutely on course for victory. Not by the swings here..both these seats will likely go back the other way, but Starmer is doing very well.

It's interesting how he nullifies opposition. There isn't really much criticism coming from the opposition now - he's not talking about Brexit, the more divisive cultural issues etc and he is not offering any notable change of course on the economy etc.

On the left, you will always get people who think the Labour leader isn't left-wing enough, but he is largely ignoring them. I think his biggest risk is if Corbyn created any formal or informal opposition, which I think is unlikely, but I guess that would take 10% off his vote. That said, he would probably gain half of that back in people glad to see them formally out of the party too.

He's riding the wave and benefitting from it. But that's not a criticism of him at all. It's absolutely sensible. If the tide is taking you in anyway, why waste your energy rowing?

It's not over and I do think polls will narrow somewhat but I think people just want a change of govt really, and naturally so.

Have you been hacked?

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

Have you been hacked?

No he's just on the ropes like his beloved tory party so he's been on the bottle

He will be back with more founts of knowledge from the internet once he's sobered up

[life on mars]

Labour or Lite Blue Labour need less voter apathy, Scotland and no hiccups from here on in to have a majority, my guess the silent Lite Blue Lib's have done a deal so coaltion on the way .

Let's hope Labour dont feck up on :

Europe soft alliance.
Woman's vaginas.
Immigration tactics.
Israel/ Palestinian choices.

Interestingly:

20% swing gives Labour 190 majority with Tories at 30 seats .
If Reform votes had gone Tory they would have held on I think to both seats ?

Turnouts appalling including Rutherglen. Scotland??

Voter apathy in all these by elections is clear to see.

Do by-election always transfer onto GE .

Boris was only 10 points behind , if he was still there would it be different ?..

When that voter looks at that ballot form inna year or so and has to tick for Tory or Tory lite , what happens..

War is coming (see Maggie victory)

Ask Kinnock about expecting too just walk into government moment .

Blair was and still is the most successful Labour Lite government, Thatcher next, then Boris ask yourself why??

How did John Major deliver afyer Thatcher win and go on to break a voter win record 14 million I think ??

The country is a Conservative one and shifts its shades of blue back hand forth and avoids far left views .


I read somewhere British Conservatives is the most successful political party in worlds history ???

So it'd not complicated why we see the Governments we do .

No I've never voted Tory but a fan of Boris Libertarian approach to politics. Followed by Blair.

[Eric Cartman]

Labour or Lite Blue Labour need less voter apathy, Scotland and no hiccups from here on in to have a majority, my guess the silent Lite Blue Lib's have done a deal so coaltion on the way .

Let's hope Labour dont feck up on :

Europe soft alliance.
Woman's vaginas.
Immigration tactics.
Israel/ Palestinian choices.

Interestingly:

20% swing gives Labour 190 majority with Tories at 30 seats .
If Reform votes had gone Tory they would have held on I think to both seats ?

Turnouts appalling including Rutherglen. Scotland??

Voter apathy in all these by elections is clear to see.

Do by-election always transfer onto GE .

Boris was only 10 points behind , if he was still there would it be different ?..

When that voter looks at that ballot form inna year or so and has to tick for Tory or Tory lite , what happens..

War is coming (see Maggie victory)

Ask Kinnock about expecting too just walk into government moment .

Blair was and still is the most successful Labour Lite government, Thatcher next, then Boris ask yourself why??

How did John Major deliver afyer Thatcher win and go on to break a voter win record 14 million I think ??

The country is a Conservative one and shifts its shades of blue back hand forth and avoids far left views .


I read somewhere British Conservatives is the most successful political party in worlds history ???

So it'd not complicated why we see the Governments we do .

No I've never voted Tory but a fan of Boris Libertarian approach to politics. Followed by Blair.

Be particularly interesting to hear your take on Boris' libertarian qualifications given that people were being fined for eating a sandwich in a park for half of the time was PM.

[A Quiet Monkfish]

811. The increase in the Labour vote yesterday in Tamworth from the 2019 general election.

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

811. The increase in the Labour vote yesterday in Tamworth from the 2019 general election.

That's insane

Mind you the place is full of right wing little englanders

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

That's insane

Mind you the place is full of right wing little englanders

Wasn't the turnout only 35 percent this time ?

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

811. The increase in the Labour vote yesterday in Tamworth from the 2019 general election.

Needed a 20 percent swing to labour from tory

23.9 percent swing was recorded

Your figure seems odd

[A Quiet Monkfish]

Needed a 20 percent swing to labour from tory

23.9 percent swing was recorded

Your figure seems odd

Yesterday 11,719 voted for Labour candidate.
Gen. Election 10,908 voted for Labour candidate.

Of course it's nothing other than a terrible result for the Tories, but that's not the full picture..

[Eric Cartman]

Yesterday 11,719 voted for Labour candidate.
Gen. Election 10,908 voted for Labour candidate.

Of course it's nothing other than a terrible result for the Tories, but that's not the full picture..

Feels like cope when you could say that at almost every by-election, I would imagine increasing your total number of votes at a by-election is a pretty good result regardless.

I might be wrong but I think they are both record breakers or near to in terms of swing. Tamworth is apparently the Tories 55th safest seat.

I think a better justification is that it is hard to have two worse departing MPs so you can understand the disillusion felt by voters in those parts. Pincher was a very high profile scandal and made not only himself but the government look like complete shit. Dorries has a negative IQ and seems to have got into politics to help herself and nobody else.

[Gofer Blue]

Yesterday 11,719 voted for Labour candidate.
Gen. Election 10,908 voted for Labour candidate.

Of course it's nothing other than a terrible result for the Tories, but that's not the full picture..

Interesting data. A similar situation occurred in the recent Scottish by-election where there was a much trumpeted win for Labour over the SNP.. Turnout was down from 66% in the last GE to 40%. The actual number of votes for the Labour candidate was almost the same as in the last GE but the SNP voters obviously stayed away in their thousands.

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

Interesting data. A similar situation occurred in the recent Scottish by-election where there was a much trumpeted win for Labour over the SNP.. Turnout was down from 66% in the last GE to 40%. The actual number of votes for the Labour candidate was almost the same as in the last GE but the SNP voters obviously stayed away in their thousands.

Either way in the two English and 1 Scottish by election the tories got beaten in all 3

Which is great as far as I am concerned

[Gofer Blue]

Either way in the two English and 1 Scottish by election the tories got beaten in all 3

Which is great as far as I am concerned

Never having looked at any individual election results in detail before (apart from our own constituency), I decided to have a look at the results of the recent Tamworth and Mid-Beds by-election results and compared them against the 2019 GE results, to see what effect the low turnout may have had on the number of votes cast for the two main parties.


Tamworth: number of electorate = 71,572

2019 GE: Lab 10,908 votes; Con 30,542 votes. Turnout 64% (equivalent to approx 46K voters).

2023 by-election: Lab 11,719 votes; Con 10,403 votes. Turnout 36% (equivalent to approx 26K voters).

So 20K less people voted in 2023 compared to 2019. Lab vote more or less the same but Con vote down approx 20K .

Conclusion: Con voters stayed at home?



Mid-Beds: number of electorate = 87,795

2019 GE: Lab 14,028 votes; Con 38,692 votes. Turnout 74% (equivalent to approx 65K voters).

2023 by-election: Lab 13,872 votes; Con 12,680 votes. Turnout 44% (equivalent to approx 39K voters).

So 26K less people voted in 2023 compared to 2019. Lab vote more or less the same but Con vote down approx 26K .

Conclusion: Con voters stayed at home?


If anyone has the time/inclination to check my figures, that would be good as I can hardly believe them myself, in the sense of the apparently good correlation between the reduction in turnout and the drop in Tory votes.

I'm surprised the Tories haven't seized on these results to reinforce their message that by-election results don't really mean very much?

[JamesWales]

Wasnt there a referendum on PR or keeping first past the post ? - And PR didnt win the vote if I recall
When I was younger I always thought PR was a better system. These days though I think if we went PR then we would have coalition govt after coalition govt and nothing would ever get done.
It almost as bad as going red to blue, blue to red every 10 years or so.

Maybe what we should have is one cluster f uck of a shambles aka the Drakeford Party - and put them in power for 26 years....

Christ mate, you want people to honour referendum results now? What kind of far-right neo-nazi are you?!

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

That Labour didn't increase the size of their vote may mean there simply aren't many more Labour voters in the constituency

What worries me is that when there is the chance to give the Tories a real kicking a lot of Labour voters couldn't be arsed

Well feck em then

[Dave Blue]

That Labour didn't increase the size of their vote may mean there simply aren't many more Labour voters in the constituency

What worries me is that when there is the chance to give the Tories a real kicking a lot of Labour voters couldn't be arsed

Well feck em then

As you say, there might not be any more. The Tories just didn’t bother as they obviously have some shame and self respect even for Tories.

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

As you say, there might not be any more. The Tories just didn’t bother as they obviously have some shame and self respect even for Tories.

That's not possible

[the other bob wilson]

Labour's so called landslide in 1997 was more down to a fall in the Conservative vote than a rise in the Labour one and the Labour wins in 2001 and 2005 were with a pretty small proportion of the vote - I think we live in a time where people are more motivated to vote against a particular party than for one (that definitely applies to me).

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

Far too simplistic imo

The issue with this type of analysis is that we already have significant evidence that seats can swing massively in a general election. Political alegience isn't an immutable characteristic like skin colour so can't be analysed as such. After a loss like 2019, there is a lot of scope for a national swing from conservative to labour under the two main narratives of Corbyn and Brexit. This analysis also doesn't allow for labour losing voters who felt allied to Corbyn in 2017 and 2019. You also haven't allowed for smaller parties, for instance reform, Britain first and ukip took nearly 10% of the vote in Tamworth, where did that likely come from?

The likely reality is:

Yes some of the 2019 conservative vote stayed at home
Yes some of the conservative vote switched to labour
Yes there was some tactical centre left voting
Yes labour will have turned off some voters

The Tories will be confident they can at very least make a good stab at winning these seats back at a GE, the issue for them is that these are probably seats they need to hold to break 200 seats let alone a majority.

This is what I meant by crap opposition

If Starmer had anything about him there would be a genuine movement towards Labour rather than voting to get the tories out

Plenty of people are voting Labour to get the tories out , me included

But it's the rest that need to be convinced

And that's why I think it will either be a hung parliament with Labour doing a deal with smaller parties or a minority Labour administration

I would be happy with anything that doesn't include the conservatives

[Rjk]

This is what I meant by crap opposition

If Starmer had anything about him there would be a genuine movement towards Labour rather than voting to get the tories out

Plenty of people are voting Labour to get the tories out , me included

But it's the rest that need to be convinced

And that's why I think it will either be a hung parliament with Labour doing a deal with smaller parties or a minority Labour administration

I would be happy with anything that doesn't include the conservatives

I'm puzzled by what you actually want from politics.

you hate the Tories, you don't like the lib Dems, you didn't like Corbyn, and you don't like Starmer - what is it you actually want?

[Eric Cartman]

This is what I meant by crap opposition

If Starmer had anything about him there would be a genuine movement towards Labour rather than voting to get the tories out

Plenty of people are voting Labour to get the tories out , me included

But it's the rest that need to be convinced

And that's why I think it will either be a hung parliament with Labour doing a deal with smaller parties or a minority Labour administration

I would be happy with anything that doesn't include the conservatives

Labour don't need to take the risk. If they start announcing things they will need to explain how they will pay for them. Instead they can just sit tight and win a comfortable majority, this is why all of the leadership's energy appears to go into keeping people away from doing/saying anything controversial.

If you truly believe that is going to happen then you may as well make some money from it. I have been convinced labour would get a majority for about 18 months now (although at times it did feel like blind optimism), the odds are now a lot closer to what I have felt the chances have been for a long time. You can lay a labour majority and make a tidy sum.

[Eric Cartman]

I'm puzzled by what you actually want from politics.

you hate the Tories, you don't like the lib Dems, you didn't like Corbyn, and you don't like Starmer - what is it you actually want?

Corbyn's policy's with Ted Bundy's charisma.

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

I'm puzzled by what you actually want from politics.

you hate the Tories, you don't like the lib Dems, you didn't like Corbyn, and you don't like Starmer - what is it you actually want?

Proportional representation

That way the left and centre ground and minority parties can keep the tories out almost permanently

My dislike of the tories over rules everything

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

Labour don't need to take the risk. If they start announcing things they will need to explain how they will pay for them. Instead they can just sit tight and win a comfortable majority, this is why all of the leadership's energy appears to go into keeping people away from doing/saying anything controversial.

If you truly believe that is going to happen then you may as well make some money from it. I have been convinced labour would get a majority for about 18 months now (although at times it did feel like blind optimism), the odds are now a lot closer to what I have felt the chances have been for a long time. You can lay a labour majority and make a tidy sum.

I am glad Labour are not saying too much as they will put their foot in it

But Starmer and Ed Davey are absolutely hopeless

I think if Labour had a Blair without the suit and Liberal Democrats a sort of clegg in presentation they would Bury the tories