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?
Up to them where they want to register (unless it’s changed since I were a lad)
They can choose either!
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’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!
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?
I didn’t say Labour was perfect, I said they made things better. And they did. For example, they didn’t spend enough on building new housing, it’s true, but they did massively improve the remaining council housing stock. You can’t expect them to fix everything and it’s quite safe to blame the Tories for the continued failure: they paused or scrapped a lot of new council building belatedly started by Labour, for example.
Labour’s current pledge to reform planning rules to allow more housebuilding (and actually more building generally, including onshore wind) will go some way to fixing that problem. If those reforms are effective, they’ll lead to greater economic growth and Labour will then be able to spend and invest more in other areas. That’s the plan.
None of that will happen if they don’t get elected. That’s the bit you’re calling ‘pandering’ and I’m calling ‘media management’. Allowing yourself to get distracted by the marketing, which I’m afraid is what you’re doing, instead of the substance, is a mistake.