Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives on Friday suffered two crushing UK parliamentary by-election defeats but averted a “3-0” drubbing by unexpectedly holding on to Boris Johnson’s old Uxbridge seat.
The grave problems facing the British prime minister were highlighted when the opposition Labour party secured its biggest-ever by-election win in the once-safe Tory seat of Selby and Ainsty in Yorkshire.
Earlier the centrist Liberal Democrats demolished a massive Tory majority to win the seat of Somerton and Frome, opening up a dangerous new front for Sunak in the Tory heartlands of England’s South West.
And this is why Starmer isn’t being ‘bolder’, for those of us who were wondering.
The rapid expansion of ULEZ to the suburbs is a bold policy. Everyone knew it would be controversial but Khan went for it anyway because it has already been shown to be highly effective (London’s air quality has improved faster than anyone thought possible since the earlier expansions of ULEZ).
The result of this unequivocally sensible policy? Of a politician taking bold but effective steps to improve public health and quality of life? Labour lose a winnable seat.
Politics isn’t fair. Starmer knows it.
Shall we also mention the swing? From a fairly good majority of 7,200 in a constituency that been very Tory even in its previous boundaries going to a majority of 495 votes after a recount that is not a resounding victory for the tories but a close escape.
I saw some people pointing out that Uxbridge has a big university and all the students have just gone home for the summer. We shouldn’t put too much emphasis on hypotheticals but it genuinely could’ve swung the by-election for Labour if it had been held during term time.
Students couldn’t possibly vote by post. They couldn’t possibly!
Don’t students vote in their home constituencies, not the ones where they study?
They can choose either!
Up to them where they want to register (unless it’s changed since I were a lad)
Good points. There is far too much concern about focus groups and “what the public want” and not enough leadership. Preventing self harm should be applauded by the silent majority, not perpetuated by the selfish few…
Or maybe all those Tory voters in uxbridge thought, maybe I want a Tory instead of low fat Tory?
No one thinks like that because it makes no sense. Even if someone already thinks Starmer is a ‘low fat Tory’, they would then have to say to themselves:
‘I’m not so sure about the Tories, so I think I’ll go 100% Tory instead of slightly Tory, that makes sense.’
We already know why they didn’t vote Labour: it was ULEZ. We don’t need to come up with these incoherent fan theories which involve people not being able to follow their own thoughts from one end of a sentence to the other.
We don’t really know exactly why, we know the Tory candidate says it was ULEZ so I’m inclined to believe it was something else tbh with you.
Starmer is a low fat Tory, he’s got no intention of reversing any of their shady policies, much less chance of improving things with a move to PR for example. I wanted him to begin with because I thought he might offer a backbone on Brexit but he;s been shite on that as well. I’ve given him a chance to see what he is, and I don’t like it, he’s shite. I’ll vote LD tbh, because I’m in a safe seat anyway and I just can’t bring myself to do it.
Not just the Tory candidate, but the Labour candidate, the Labour leader, the Labour deputy leader, every journalist, and also every pollster and focus group. That’s enough evidence for me. It certainly beats out your theory which you have, frankly, just imagined.
The current Lib Dem leader was actually a Cabinet member in a Tory-led government, so I’m not sure who you’re calling Tory lite, tbh. I’m going to vote for the party that always makes the country better whenever they get into government and I think you should, too, rather than getting distracted by media management.
Pollster and focus group? I’ve not seen any such evidence.
It seems my guess is as good as any bodies really, and I can certainly imagine there are others who are revolted by the way Labour has been going on.
Fair point about Davey, and in fairness I’ve no idea what they are even about now they are so irrelevant.
I’m going to vote for the party that always makes the country better
I’d like to believe Labour will do that, I just don’t.
I mean, to pick two from opposite sides of the aisle, Luke Tryl has said Ulez was the big issue and so has James Johnson. Your ‘guess’ is as good as anybody’s; however, your guess is not as good as actual evidence.
I’m going to take Labour’s 100% track record at making the country better over any amount of pessimism. If they implement even a single policy that they’ve promised, that will be an improvement on the current situation!
Labour’s 100% track record at making the country better over
Sorry but, I actually remember the Labour years and this is massively over simplifying.
They actually encouraged and made worse a lot of problems we are dealing with now, things like housing and starting an illegal war.
That aside, we are talking about a different labour to the one from 15+ years ago and the things Keir is saying are not very encouraging and I don’t support a party, I vote for policy so that’s why I take a dim view of what I’m hearing.
Might they be marginally better, maybe, I used to believe that but I’m sorry he’s lost me. I know you and Kier will say that the proof is in the polling, and that might be true but I think with how god-awful this last decade has been it should be even better than that.
I am sick to fuck of pandering to old boomer fucks in marginal constituencies. You probably got that tho right?
Who tf is still voting for them? Who are these people?
At least in Uxbridge, single issue voters seem to have won it for them
People who are upset with Sadiq Kahn for the Ultra Low Emission Zone in London, despite the fact that their former MP Johnson actually kicked it off…
He (Boris) is to blame for so many things.
Ficklewillfully ignorant voters can’t see past today’s headlines.I actually don’t really think it’s a terrible idea, no matter where it came from. Air quality in London is way better than it used to be, but still not good enough.
I know it’s mostly from the tube, but I always think of the black bogeys I’d get whenever I visited London as a child. My parents told me about how bad the smog was when they lived there in the 60s and 70s.
Oops! I meant Boris!
Will edit to reflect that.
The air is cleaner, and there’s less traffic. Underground was terrible when I was a kidd.
No worries, I guessed that’s what you meant.
I was referring to how ULEZ was initially announced by Boris in 2015. Boris is awful, but that doesn’t mean every idea he had was awful.
No, I think the bikes were a good idea.
The bikes were actually Ken Livingstone’s idea…
I remember my eyes watering on a warm day in London due to the pollution and the general stink of the pollution (during the summer a temperature inversion that keeps it capped in will worsen it). I recently visited London during a hot spell and it was remarkable how pleasant the air was in central London. The ULEZ and congestion charges have made London such a better place to be.
They deserve everything crappy that happens to them.
Unfortunately we cop it as well 😒
Lots of people, just not the ones who post online in the same places as you. Posh people, rural people, and old people all love them, and they probably make up a higher percentage of Tory voters than just the ill-informed and racist.
Gammons.
Who tf is still voting for them? Who are these people?
I’m suspicious at this point. No proof, but known-to-be corrupt and dishonest government rigging elections seems like an increasingly simpler Occam’s razor explanation for apparently remaining tory support.
Believe me, those voters exist.
I don’t know any, I even know some rich people who used to vote tory who don’t any more. I know a lot of people who tell me they exist but that they are just “shy”.
I’m not saying it’s true that the elections are rigged, they probably aren’t, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to question it knowing the character and form of the government.
I know some, they aren’t all rich, some of them actually work for a living believe it or not.
There seem to be a number of ideas around the ULEZ, some of which are perhaps reasonable and worth discussion (e.g. the costs of upgrading or renewing existing vehicles, challenges involved with certain commercial vehicle types) and some of which are, frankly, unhinged (e.g. conspiracy theories that the whole thing, ULEZ, 15-minute towns, LTN and so on are part of some elitist plot to limit individual freedoms).
I find the conspiracy folks and their freedom particularly odd.
It has always been the case that your freedom to swing your arm ends where my face begins; freedom is not without constraints.
So on the one hand, those who subscribe to the conspiracy theory want the freedom to pollute.
On the other hand, there is a fair amount of overlap between this conspiracy theory and the desire to limit the freedom of cyclists by removing cycle lanes and introducing licensing and taxation.
Internal consistency and clarity of thought are not particular strengths it seems.
Good to see the red wall turning red again, shows getting Brexit done bullshit was the flash.
Fantastic result for the Lib Dems! And it wasn’t even close. A new majority of 11000. This has got to give so much confidence going into next year that they can pick up lots of seats.
At the very least, it means the Tories will have some serious headaches about which seats to put resources in to. Good news for any opposition party!
And from the interviews with voters I’ve heard, there was a lot of tactical voting going on - a lot people will vote for whoever can get the Tories out.
Lib Dems turning a 19,000 Tory majority into an 11,000 Lib Dem majority in a Leave-voting rural seat
vs
Labour almost overturning the 7,000 majority in the London seat of a disgraced former PM
Do Labour just have no idea how to do by-elections? They should have won Uxbridge with their eyes closed.
Yeah you are so right, and I don’t buy the ULEZ excuse either, nobody is excited for vote for Keith, are they?
ULEZ expansion is going to be a dead-albatross around the neck of the tories, imho.
They have the largest percentage of voters who are against it, but there still aren’t enough internally for them to nail their underpants to the mast on cancellation. So when it comes time to implement, or not implement, they’re damned if they do or don’t.
If they do end up with the power to make the call, I absolutely expect them to drag their feet until a few more opponents have upgraded their vehicles/died from shortened lifespans due to emissions.
It seems like an enormous non-issue. Most cars meet the standard just fine.
Even my boss’s massive diesel Fall Guy truck meets it.
What they (and Labour) should do is make a purely cosmetic change, push back implementation by six months and scream about it. The ULEZ already won’t affect most of the people who voted against it, we just need to do literally anything that makes them realise that!
Didn’t central government demand and then cancel a Manchester low emissions zone after Andy Burnham had spent all the money on it? Surely that’s what they plan to do - nothing until the last minute after Sadiq Khan has spent all the money, then cancel it from on high.
