The banker loving, baby-eating Tory party thread (regenerated)

[darrenm]

5 minutes ago, Genie said:

Are Lib Dem officially the rejoin the EU party or have they not formally said that? I know it won’t happen, just curious.

Nope, they ditched that policy and accepted we've left

[ml1dch]

18 minutes ago, darrenm said:

Astounding figures.

Apparently some local issues. Nationally, Labour should be seriously worried because the Tories have got plenty to fall back on.

 

 

Surely the sensible take-away is that tactical voting, rather than just being something that exists in the minds of a few people on the internet can actually work.

And that both (all three?) parties should be doing everything they can to keep that "plenty to fall back on" out of the seat?

[markavfc40]

17 minutes ago, darrenm said:

Astounding figures.

Apparently some local issues. Nationally, Labour should be seriously worried because the Tories have got plenty to fall back on.

 

 

Given the Labour vote has collapsed to next to nothing could it be Labour voters have gone out and voted Lib Dem. If so we need to see more of that in the next election and voting for the party most likely to beat the Tories even if it means holding your nose. 

 

[darrenm]

21 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

Surely the sensible take-away is that tactical voting, rather than just being something that exists in the minds of a few people on the internet can actually work.

And that both (all three?) parties should be doing everything they can to keep that "plenty to fall back on" out of the seat?

 

17 minutes ago, markavfc40 said:

Given the Labour vote has collapsed to next to nothing could it be Labour voters have gone out and voted Lib Dem. If so we need to see more of that in the next election and voting for the party most likely to beat the Tories even if it means holding your nose. 

 

I keep seeing the reason given as tactical voting. Wrong thread for Labour but where's the evidence for that? Why isn't it simply that Labour have been squeezed out in a Tory/Lib Dem seat? You don't have 10,500 people out of 11,000 who voted Labour in 2017 deciding to tactically vote.

[Davkaus]

Seems like it was a vote for NIMBYism as much as anything.

[ml1dch]

8 minutes ago, darrenm said:

 

I keep seeing the reason given as tactical voting. Wrong thread for Labour but where's the evidence for that? Why isn't it simply that Labour have been squeezed out in a Tory/Lib Dem seat? You don't have 10,500 people out of 11,000 who voted Labour in 2017 deciding to tactically vote.

Well, the Lib Dem vote increased by thirty points. The Tory vote dropped by twenty. The Labour vote dropped by eleven. 

I appreciate lower turnout means it's not a direct correlation, but that majority doesn't happen without voters switching from both sides.

I guess you're then asking the question whether they have abandoned a Starmer-led Labour Party for the <checks notes> pretty Starmery Lib Dems. Or whether they thought it was better to vote for the Lib Dems to stop yet another **** being elected.

My unscientific opinion is that some disgruntled Labour supporters will probably have just not bothered voting. And some will have voted Lib Dem because they figured a Lib Dem would be better than a Tory. 

[darrenm]

8 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

Seems like it was a vote for NIMBYism as much as anything.

Yeah those were the local issues I was alluding to. I'm not aware of the extent but apparently a lot is about local planning nimbyism and anti-HS2 sentiment.

[bickster]

Disgruntled Labour tends to equate to Momentum / Corbyn type supporters. How many hardcore very left wing Labour supporters do you think live in this constituency?

Not a lot would be my unresearched opinion

[bickster]

10 minutes ago, darrenm said:

Yeah those were the local issues I was alluding to. I'm not aware of the extent but apparently a lot is about local planning nimbyism and anti-HS2 sentiment.

The anti-HS2 thing is a minor factor. HS2 isn't a new thing, it would probably account for the drop from a 23k majority to a 16k majority across recent elections in the constituency but that was already factored in to the 16k majority surely

[OutByEaster?]

1 hour ago, bickster said:

Disgruntled Labour tends to equate to Momentum / Corbyn type supporters. How many hardcore very left wing Labour supporters do you think live in this constituency?

Not a lot would be my unresearched opinion

I'd broadly agree - which is really worrying for Labour - Labour had more than 11,000 votes here last time out - they'd maybe expect to lose some traditional Labour voters but offset that with disgruntled voters from the Lib Dems and Tories seeking something that's more palatable than the current Conservative Party. They haven't done that, they haven't lost a fringe, they haven't lost the  'loony left' they've lost the left and they've lost the middle and by the looks of things those from the moderate right end of the Labour Party - they've lost everyone - and they've gained no one at all.

Hopefully the local issues are having a massive effect, but to go from 11k plus to 600 people in a 38k turnout is diabolical. That's pretty much friends and family of the candidate.- that's Lord Buckethead territory.

 

 

[HanoiVillan]

I don't know the hearts and minds of people in this constituency, but from the outside it certainly *looks* like many of the Tories' supporters punishing the party for policy reasons (such as HS2 and perhaps more importantly the changes in planning regulations) in a low-stakes, basically meaningless election. The polls from the last 2 years are evidence that there is no 'Lib Dem revival'.

I'm not surprised to see this election being used as an argument for a so-called 'progressive alliance', but I remain opposed.

Glad the Tory lost though, however meaningless it ultimately is.

[ml1dch]

41 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

I'd broadly agree - which is really worrying for Labour - Labour had more than 11,000 votes here last time out - they'd maybe expect to lose some traditional Labour voters but offset that with disgruntled voters from the Lib Dems and Tories seeking something that's more palatable than the current Conservative Party. They haven't done that, they haven't lost a fringe, they haven't lost the  'loony left' they've lost the left and they've lost the middle and by the looks of things those from the moderate right end of the Labour Party - they've lost everyone - and they've gained no one at all.

Labour have got some huge structural problems to deal with, but I really can't see how this is one of them.

There are dozens of constituencies where Labour should be praying their voters give the Lib Dem their vote and should be delighted that has happened here.

Personally I think the path to an outright Labour majority just doesn't exist anymore regardless of what they do, but it definitely doesn't exist without big Lib Dem gains taking Tory seats away from their potential majority. 

[darrenm]

1 hour ago, OutByEaster? said:

but to go from 11k plus to 600 people in a 38k turnout is diabolical

 

[LondonLax]

5 minutes ago, darrenm said:

 

That’s got to be tactical voting at work 

[darrenm]

3 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

That’s got to be tactical voting at work 

Some of it yeah, but only in an individual capacity. There was no tactical voting campaign, no organised groups or anything. If people voted tactically, they made that choice themselves - all 11,000 previously Labour voters switched to the Lib Dems, Greens (and even Tories) to get the Tories out. No-one knows how much of it was due to:

* The local housing planning dispute

* HS2

* Anger at Tories

* Labour voters having no real enthusiasm for a damp squib party

Turnout was low so I'd say it's most likely to be a perfect storm of all of the above.

[HanoiVillan]

The problem I have with the 'this is mainly about tactical voting' argument is that I have been interested in politics for about 20 years now, during which time there have been dozens of by-elections, and I don't think there has ever been one in which the alleged tactical vote ended up organising itself so efficiently. Am I supposed to believe that the voters of Chesham and Amersham are just massively better at understanding the concept than everybody else in the country?

[blandy]

2 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

I don't know the hearts and minds of people in this constituency, but from the outside it certainly *looks* like many of the Tories' supporters punishing the party for policy reasons (such as HS2 and perhaps more importantly the changes in planning regulations) in a low-stakes, basically meaningless election. The polls from the last 2 years are evidence that there is no 'Lib Dem revival'.

I'm not surprised to see this election being used as an argument for a so-called 'progressive alliance', but I remain opposed.

Glad the Tory lost though, however meaningless it ultimately is.

The LDs won the council in the recent local elections. I wonder if it's one of those where what the LDs are good at worked? local campaigning - persuading people they were the only way to get rid of the tory - particularly as it wasn't a sitting MP, but a new candidate tory? So a combo of tories hacked off with local planning, HS2, Brexit, concentration (yeah right) on the north, and Labour voters being tactical (having seen the LDs win the council) and then seen the LD local campaign?

I must admit when I saw the result I genuinely thought to myself "I didn't know there was an election" and "bloody hell...I remember the LDs!" I'd forgotten they existed.

[Panto_Villan]

Wouldn't be surprised if there is a shift against the Tories going on down South in their traditional heartlands. In politics you don't generally get to expand your electorate that much without giving up ground elsewhere.

Obviously that nowhere near explains the complete implosion of the Tory and Labour vote in that seat, and the NIMBY vote is probably a bigger factor. However I suspect we might see the Lib Dems start to make a bit of a comeback at the next election. I think one of the slightly paradoxical effects of having two rather extreme candidates in Boris and Corbyn at the last election is that it left very little room in the middle; a lot of people disliked one of them so much they felt obliged to vote for the other (even if they weren't overly fond of them either).

[bannedfromHandV]

Anyone else notice the story earlier in the week about Northampton Town FC and a £10M loan from the council.

The story (on sky sports news) was vague so I couldn’t really understand what’s happened but a group of people are being charged for Political Donation irregularities, the group are all conservative donors I think.

Then, there’s the Tory MP who’s been charged with sexual offences against a 15 year old boy. Another week on planet Tory.

[Seat68]

23 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

Anyone else notice the story earlier in the week about Northampton Town FC and a £10M loan from the council.

The story (on sky sports news) was vague so I couldn’t really understand what’s happened but a group of people are being charged for Political Donation irregularities, the group are all conservative donors I think.

Then, there’s the Tory MP who’s been charged with sexual offences against a 15 year old boy. Another week on planet Tory.

I saw the Northampton Town story on the BBC and it was also vague on there.