The By-elections Thread - 2019-2024 edition

[ZenGiraffe]

Wes Streeting is many things, but he isn't a transphobe. Certainly hasn't given them the support he bloody ought to though. (which is testament to what's really the biggest fucking problem with him)

Labour MP Wes Streeting on trans debate: ‘Men have penises, women have vaginas’

Shadow health secretary’s comments follow Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner rejecting framing of question

www.independent.co.uk

Wes Streeting apologises to Labour MP who felt ostracised due to gender views

MP said she felt ostracised and accused male colleagues of shouting her down for opposing transgender reforms

amp.theguardian.com

Labour's Wes Streeting backs separate hospital wards for trans patients

Labour's shadow health secretary Wes Streeting has back housing trans hospital patients in separate wards.

www.thepinknews.com

"Integrity of single sex spaces" is a vile phrase

 

[AGinAg (37)]

Now Peter Bone, that's a real piece of shit.

 

[Penelope]

"Labour’s swing in both seats was large enough that if repeated at a general election, the party would easily secure a majority.
On a swing of 16.4%, as seen in Kingswood, South Gloucestershire, Labour would have a majority of about 60 seats. If the result in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, was repeated nationally, it would be apocalyptic for the Conservatives. On one calculation it would give them just four seats in a general election."

 

[Sheena]

"Labour’s swing in both seats was large enough that if repeated at a general election, the party would easily secure a majority.
On a swing of 16.4%, as seen in Kingswood, South Gloucestershire, Labour would have a majority of about 60 seats. If the result in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, was repeated nationally, it would be apocalyptic for the Conservatives. On one calculation it would give them just four seats in a general election."

I love the optimism but sadly, that won’t ever be repeated on a general election stage with more of a turnout.

 

[AGinAg (37)]

I anticipate a low turnout, with many Tories staying at home. That's part of the reason Blair got in.

 

[octophone]

The scale of the Wellingborough defeat was partly down to the sheer hubris of putting Bone's partner up - a deeply arrogant move and one that doubtless turned Tory voters off. After all, the 'real' election isn't far away and they'll have a 'proper' candidate for that.

It's still a couple of absolutely heaving defeats. Come on, you Tory cunts, GE in May, stop dragging it out, you heartless, worthless, bigoted, tedious, venal, grasping bastards.

 

[octophone]

Reform doing double figures is either the worst good news or the best bad news, I can't decide. Splitting the Tory vote to that extent is the Tories' absolute nightmare and whilst Farage did a dodgy deal with Johnson, there is no way that a similar deal would be in the offing for a GE, if only because they all sat and watched Farage get shafted (but also the optics to their thoroughly hideous support of doing a deal with a man of South Asian descent).

 

[octophone]

Labour MP Wes Streeting on trans debate: ‘Men have penises, women have vaginas’

Shadow health secretary’s comments follow Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner rejecting framing of question

www.independent.co.uk

Wes Streeting apologises to Labour MP who felt ostracised due to gender views

MP said she felt ostracised and accused male colleagues of shouting her down for opposing transgender reforms

amp.theguardian.com

Labour's Wes Streeting backs separate hospital wards for trans patients

Labour's shadow health secretary Wes Streeting has back housing trans hospital patients in separate wards.

www.thepinknews.com

"Integrity of single sex spaces" is a vile phrase

Streeting is THE Red Tory, the man who pledged his allegiance on an assessment of his career prospects. He's a vile, vile man and deep in the pockets of disaster capitalists. We can only hope he gets caught balls-deep in a goat before the GE.

 

[Kratz]

Reform doing double figures is either the worst good news or the best bad news, I can't decide. Splitting the Tory vote to that extent is the Tories' absolute nightmare and whilst Farage did a dodgy deal with Johnson, there is no way that a similar deal would be in the offing for a GE, if only because they all sat and watched Farage get shafted (but also the optics to their thoroughly hideous support of doing a deal with a man of South Asian descent).

It’s good news - for the first time in a long time the votes on the right are splitting between several parties beyond where voters are driven by a single issue (namely, Brexit). That’s likely very bad news for the Tories. Labour is going to come through the middle in some surprising areas if that Reform share holds up.

 

[octophone]

It’s good news - for the first time in a long time the votes on the right are splitting between several parties beyond where voters are driven by a single issue (namely, Brexit). That’s likely very bad news for the Tories. Labour is going to come through the middle in some surprising areas if that Reform share holds up.

Oh, I know but their rise is deeply worrying. The Tories have shifted further and further to the right to try and take up that space and I genuinely fear for the country with some of the awful, awful crap they come out with. That's why it's good and bad at the same time.

 

[big ron]

Oh, I know but their rise is deeply worrying. The Tories have shifted further and further to the right to try and take up that space and I genuinely fear for the country with some of the awful, awful crap they come out with. That's why it's good and bad at the same time.

I had similar concerns but as they're not doing as well as UKIP did, I think they're only going to split right wing tory votes where as your centrist Da's are going to Labour.

 

[big ron]

I'm happy about this and confident that Labour are going to win in a GE but I'm fairly decided at the minute I wont be voting for them.

 

[AGinAg (37)]

If Reform stick around doing OK numbers then the Tories are going to be fucked for a while. That being said this is a party that will do anything to claim power and throwing literally anyone or anything under the bus to achieve it is seen as fair game.

The Tories now have two options post election. One is to return to winnable spot from the centre. Astonishingly I expect they'll follow the other path and go super right (with Kemi or some other rotted cunt) because that's what the loudest minority are suggesting is the way to win. It won't win them an election, but it might tame Reform. However this pans out will be a delicious vision of Tory self fury and further blue on blue violence.

Hilariously Farage, Tice and Co don't seem to give a shit that their existence is helping Labour into power. Even the far right are sick of the Tories.

The true horror is that Rees Mogg just won't fuck off.

 

[lolly]

The Kingswood result is bad news for Rees-Mogg. A significant chunk of it is moving into his seat at the GE.

 

[AGinAg (37)]

The Kingswood result is bad news for Rees-Mogg. A significant chunk of it is moving into his seat at the GE.

He might lose his seat, but he won't go away.

 

[VoR]

The funniest possible outcome would be Mogg losing his seat (likely) and GB News finally going under straight after. But sadly I suspect it's being bankrolled well enough to survive despite regularly pulling viewers in the low 4 figures.

 

[AGinAg (37)]

Interesting note, that Labour only gained 107 votes! I am aware this is based on a much lower turn out.

 

[octophone]

Interesting note, that Labour only gained 107 votes! I am aware this is based on a much lower turn out.

Oh, it is absolutely about the collapse of the Tory vote. Percentages don't tell the story of how disengaged so many Labour voters are.

 

[VoR]

Oh, it is absolutely about the collapse of the Tory vote. Percentages don't tell the story of how disengaged so many Labour voters are.

Surely it's the Tory voters who are disengaged if the Labour vote held up?

 

[lolly]

Electoral calculus has a 69% chance of Rees-Mogg's seat going to Labour seemingly without taking the boundary changes into account.

The parts the new seat (North East Somerset and Hanham) taking are relatively affluent suburbs of East Bristol. The parts he's losing are largely dormitory towns and villages in East Somerset, near the border with Wiltshire. I'd imagine it would be a net loss.

 

[Madison]

Interesting note, that Labour only gained 107 votes! I am aware this is based on a much lower turn out.

It’s ridiculous of PoliticsUK, whoever they are, to prioritise comparing absolute numbers between a general election and a by-election.

Won’t someone rid us of this political aggregator twitter accounts.

 

[octophone]

Surely it's the Tory voters who are disengaged if the Labour vote held up?

I know what you mean but there's no shift towards Labour - if the percentage swing was telling a story, they'd have added a lot more than that. Labour have no wind behind them, there's no enthusiasm for their vision. That the Tories could lose over 24000 votes and Labour could old persuade 107 of them to put their X next to their candidate should be a major worry.

 

[ZenGiraffe]

It’s ridiculous of PoliticsUK, whoever they are, to prioritise comparing absolute numbers between a general election and a by-election.

Won’t someone rid us of this political aggregator twitter accounts.

You can't really complain when you always hear MPs having a majority of x. We often chop and change between swings, vote shares, and absolute numbers.

 

[Penelope]

I know what you mean but there's no shift towards Labour - if the percentage swing was telling a story, they'd have added a lot more than that. Labour have no wind behind them, there's no enthusiasm for their vision. That the Tories could lose over 24000 votes and Labour could old persuade 107 of them to put their X next to their candidate should be a major worry.

The shift in the share was absolutely cataclysmic - a 20pt increase in share of the vote is really fucking big by any standard as these things go. It is really rare for a major party to get more votes in a by-election than they did at the general election. Enthusiasm isn't the right word because that isn't how the vast majority of British voters approach politics, but a genuinely big shift is happening for people in the kind of place like Wellingborough to be turning out in a much bigger proportion for Labour at a by-election where turnouts are always down massively.

 

[Penelope]

I mean to put it another way, it's on par with the kinds of increases in the share Labour were getting under Blair at by-elections in the lead up to 1997 (and double the vote share increase Corbyn got in 2017), which are pretty much the ur-examples of times people have been enthusiastic for something in British politics. The thing about first past the post is being seen as better than the alternative is really all that actually counts! Which isn't really necessarily a comfortable basis if you only just win on it, but if you're winning by quite some way - it can be a lot sturdier than people think.

 

[Indie]

Oh, I know but their rise is deeply worrying. The Tories have shifted further and further to the right to try and take up that space and I genuinely fear for the country with some of the awful, awful crap they come out with. That's why it's good and bad at the same time.

This.

But not only this.

Reform have got to double figures without barely being mentioned by the media.

As soon as they get the occasional seat on question time, a seat on the table at election debates, a fair wind of change behind them because "people are only voting Labour because they hate the conservatives and not because they like Labour" and all of a sudden we're looking down the barrel of a hateful new populism like the rest of Europe.

I recognise all the reasons why that is unlikely to happen. It is just nagging away at me.

 

[Penelope]

The Suella/Rwanda stuff has absolutely made Reform a real party with real support in a way that wasn't there before. If there's any consolation though, they are literally taking votes almost wholesale off the Tories this time (everyone who cared about Brexit on that side of things as a priority went for Boris in 2019).

And really, we're kind of seeing now the limits of the Tories going off to chase that part of the vote. They'll go even further right out of power, but they probably won't be able to get back in without doing a lot to reassure people the NHS wouldn't fall apart again if they got back in first (and going even further right socially is a bit of a dead end considering how much of that vote is likely to be dying off over the next decade. They can't just spend their whole time just insulting people with basically liberal views socially - that's pretty much most people under 50 at this point!)

 

[lolly]

I like to think that moopy is a big part of age not seeing me drift to the right. However, I'm also aware that among people around my age, not everyone is the same, and that others lurched that way. They won't vote Tory now because of the last 14 years, but I'm very wary of an assumption of their vote dying out. There's a generation waiting to replace the departing one, and if those people vote Labour this time, when things aren't miraculously tangibly better at the election after next, I worry which way they will go.

 

[ZenGiraffe]

when things aren't miraculously tangibly better at the election after next, I worry which way they will go.

We just need to pray it isn't LIB DEM

 

[VoR]

I've seen a few reports circulating recently indicating that young men are actually notably bucking the trend in terms of lurching to the right, rather than the left.

 

[GNL]

I've seen a few reports circulating recently indicating that young men are actually notably bucking the trend in terms of lurching to the right, rather than the left.

Oh there's LOADS of young men who have grown up on video game twitch-streamers, edgelord YouTubers, and men's rights activists just waiting to destroy society in NEW AND EXCITING WAYS.

 

[Penelope]

I like to think that moopy is a big part of age not seeing me drift to the right. However, I'm also aware that among people around my age, not everyone is the same, and that others lurched that way. They won't vote Tory now because of the last 14 years, but I'm very wary of an assumption of their vote dying out. There's a generation waiting to replace the departing one, and if those people vote Labour this time, when things aren't miraculously tangibly better at the election after next, I worry which way they will go.

People do usually move to the right economically as they age, but I'm not so sure it's true socially. I think there's definitely a bit of a generatIonal/cohort gulf on social attitudes at least.

 

[AGinAg (37)]

I've only just discovered serial homophobe Peter Bone was sexually inappropriate with a MAN.

A well trodden path.

 

[ZenGiraffe]

What if the messiest by-election got a little messier?

 

[Penelope]

Honestly, what a SHITSHOW ALL ROUND. WORST BY-ELECTION EVER

 

[octophone]

Question - if a GE was called in the next 9 days, would this by-election still go ahead? I assume not.

 

[octophone]

Honestly, what a SHITSHOW ALL ROUND. WORST BY-ELECTION EVER

My dislike of George Galloway knows few boundaries. An arrogant self-publicist who would set fire to your house and then campaign for both you and the entire fire service to lose their jobs because of the fire.

 

[ZenGiraffe]

Question - if a GE was called in the next 9 days, would this by-election still go ahead? I assume not.

I don't think so. Galloway stood in a seat before that's by-election was cancelled due to a snap general

 

[Penelope]

Question - if a GE was called in the next 9 days, would this by-election still go ahead? I assume not.

Yeah but it AIN'T HAPPENING (it'd prob be done to coincide with the local elections on May 2nd at the very earliest)

 

[ILL ADVISED]