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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The Leave seat with a miniscule LAB majority that didn’t fall
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The Leave seat with a miniscule LAB majority that didn’t fall
Even though it was a fortnight ago I’ve still not found an answer to what appeared to be an inexplicable outcome in my seat of Bedford. This is a constituency that at GE2010, GE2015, GE2017 and the referendum voted most of all 650 seats in line with the country as a whole. Longstanding PB regular, Andy JS, highlighted the seat’s status before GE2019 and certainly on hearing the exit poll many, including me, assumed that the Tories with their energetic young candidate had won it back.
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It has also happened before in our history. I remember reading that in the early 18th century the City and Westminster, where huge electorates meant that public opinion had much more of a role than in the many pocket boroughs.
In both constituencies the percentage of British born constituents is very much lower than the national average of 88%.
When I was at Biddenham Upper School in the late 80s and early 90s, only 40% of the pupils had English as their first language. There was also a Club Polski on the High Street and a big Polish diaspora from waaaaaaayyy before Poland joined the EU.
Gosh! Whoever could have predicted this? It might even have been mentioned once or twice on political websites.
However, the poor would have suffered first and worst, because they have least cushioning against inflation.
@Cyclefree has posted a link to a paywalled Times article whose title suggests Brexit might have downsides for the newly-blue seats that run on exports to Europe if Boris cannot reach a deal. If correct, well, Boris can shake the magic money tree and create offsetting jobs in time for the next election.
I know there's a while to go, but he's leading in the polls... by 7 points in Selzer's poll in November.
"Now, where shall we site the new national medical waste facility?"
It's going to be interesting to see how Labour react to money being diverted to their former heartlands and the expense of the their new inner city ones. Do they support it as a necessary measure to fix inequality or they stand up for their new middle class voters?
I suspect the Labour vote in Bedford is a composed of the ethnic minority vote and younger commuter types. For seats like this, the 2019 GE was very much a case of "as you were".
One known unknown is the man-flu @rcs1000 tells us has laid waste to California. None of the candidates can afford to be off their game in the run up to the next debate on 14th January.
Key here is the phrase " permanent scars".
In Luton North, Kelvin Hopkins standing down maybe showed how his personal vote affected the turnout, down from 71% in 2017 to 62.5% in 2019. His supporters look to have sat on their bums. Labour's majority dropped 5,000 even as the Tory vote fell slightly. If Kelvin had stood again, the result may have looked quite similar to Bedford.
"permanent damage"might have been a better choice.
This is a betting site: the odds of Corbyn getting a majority were negligible.
Politics here is basically polarised with one lot undoing the other lot's work, with the LDs being accused of wishy-washyness and squeezed by the two extremes.
The seat I live in, Lincoln, I would argue to be a more interesting one at the moment. It's been won by whichever party gets the most seats at 11 of the last 12 general elections (since the 2nd 1974 election) with 2017 being the only exception to that.
Is it correct that Putney was the only seat to go from Con to Lab in 2019?
Betting PostF1: if you backed my Hamilton to beat Schumacher's win record (he needs 92 and is currently on 84) bet at 9 then there's a nice hedge up on Ladbrokes.
There's 2.2, without boost, for Hamilton to get under 9.5 wins in 2020. This means there's a golden window of 8 wins whereby both bets can come off. He got 11 in 2019.
Up to you, of course, but it's a way to be green either way if you go for it, with a small chance of both outcomes coming off. And the total wins bet is without a time limit so if he gets 7 this year then the other bet can happen later.
For what it's worth, I think he'll probably get into double figures again, but might take the hedge just to guarantee profit.
Edited extra bit: the earlier bet was at odds of 9, not 9.5. Just corrected.
Interesting that the pb LibDems in Bedford all seem to have voted Labour.
One of the consequences of this is that it makes it less likely Labour will ever adopt proportional representation.
Why should they? In marginal seats, Labour get what they want, election after election, from the Libdems for nothing in return. Labour would be dumb to change all that.
I’m trying to remember why I didn’t do the same, I think it might have been when I started to have ‘problems’ with Ladbrokes.
Some kind of Union of European nations you say?
(Yes, they’re vermin, which the countryside dwellers have been pointing out for more than two decades now. Badgers the same.)
(2019 suggests the LibDems aren't so much a party, more of a loose agglomeration of anti-Tories.)
Must've forgotten about a bet or two.
By far the main beneficiary of tactical voting is the Labour Party -- so why would they ever want to change? If you get something for nothing, you want to keep the good things coming.
It would be interesting to estimate how many seats Labour hold from antiTory tactical voting, and how many the LibDems hold. I suspect the latter number is zero.
I could easily believe that Bedford was held by Labour on the LibDem tactical vote.
Though I do think Bedford is trending safe Labour long-term, as Bedford become more like Luton.
I fail to see how in 2017 Bedford voted "most in line with the country" when Labour gained the seat. It perhaps swung most in line but that's not the same thing.
Not the Holy Roman Empire 3.0
I knew what you meant, but...
Either way, Hamilton's wins were in the seventies and the price was clearly wrong.
There is some sort of terrible mental befuddlement to the LibDems. The only possible reason for their existence is that they believe in something different to the Tories and the Labour party, something distinctive.
But if your main motivation is just anti-Toryness, then the mere existence of the LibDems thwarts your main motivation, which is to ensure the Tories lose.
Although I did not vote in 2019, I regularly vote for a small party and I never accept mere tactical arguments as a reason for me to change.
That is because I believe in something definite, whereas most LibDems seem to me to believe in nothing, other than a vague anti-Toryness.
In which case, the Labour party are right. These people should STFU and join Labour.
Maugham needs to be investigated for animal cruelty.
Then Nortje will scythe through the tail.
Welwyn Hatfield was also 53% Leave and 47% Remain, close to the English average Leave margin of victory of 53.38% Leave and 46.62% Remain in the EU referendum.
Bedford though was only 51.8% Leave and 48.2% Remain ie more Remain than the English average.
http://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/targets/labour
I dont even have an issue with people who experience these things to take effort to eliminate a pest (although in reference to an rcs100 post, I do question the need to do so in fancy dress) and I cannot say for certain I would not take out an animal as it were if it were injured (though I could hardly complain if I was then punished if it is not legal) but people lose all perspective on foxes, they foam at the mouth practically - I've seen more nuancd views toward vermin in a Redwall book.
Apart from nationalisation of the railways, the Tory 2019 manifesto is quite similar to the Labour 2017 manifesto which was a Venezuelan communist disaster according to the Tories at the time.
Corbyn, like Farage, has achieved a lot in setting the political agenda without achieving power.
It would be hard for them to give the Tories credit for a Labour economic manifesto (though Farage has done that for the Tory Brexit manifesto).
If I were Labour leader, I would congratulate the Tories for their economic manifesto, point out it was borrowed from the Labour 2017 manifesto, and promise to hold them to account on delivering it.
I would say to the electorate "If you want Labour policies delivered, vote Labour. As you can see, you can't trust the Tories to deliver Labour policies".
If the Tories DO deliver their Labour manifesto, then all is good and we have a rebadged Labour party. Labour don't need a new leader. They have Johnson.
go on a fundraising spreelecture about animal welfare (even though they don’t care at all about it).What an utter fool. He should have remembered the first rule of law - ‘don’t say anything!’
(Friend of mine used to carry a baseball and mitt in his car, so that if the police asked what the bat was for, he could say he was coming back from baseball practice
It is of course unusual for Labour to decide they will refuse to reward not only those who don’t vote for them, but those who do as well. But entirely typical of their earlier core vote strategies under Miliband and Brown.
bribing electors to vote for them again‘infrastructure.’ But it’s on nothing like the scale Labour proposed. Nor do their taxation or spending priorities match up.To your average northern working class bloke, he was good ol' Boris, getting Brexit sorted, offering goodies and making them smile.