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The by-election battle for Jo Cox’s old seat shouldn’t be as challenging for LAB as Hartlepool – pol
The by-election battle for Jo Cox’s old seat shouldn’t be as challenging for LAB as Hartlepool – politicalbetting.com
The Batley and Spen parliamentary constituency is the former seat of the Labour MP Jo Cox – who on 16 June 2016, died after being shot and stabbed multiple times in the street where she had been due to hold a surgery. In the ensuing by-election the main parties stood aside and Tracy Brabin retained the seat for LAB with an 86% vote share.
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50% Tory
40% Lib Dem
10% other would be my estimate
The letter is signed by five out of six executive committee members - all of whom were personally appointed by Preston.
If the Mayor refuses to go, they will call an EGM of the council and have the numbers to no confidence him.
Good News for Dr Paul Williams! He's always been a dedicated and committed local champion for Boro...
On a separate point, this is, in the words of Stuart Maconie, deep Yorkshire terroir. There are few places in England, outside Cornwall, where you can tell where you are from the place names as much as you can here. Heckmondwike. Liversedge. Cleckheaton. Wonderful place names. Even the broader name of the heavy woollen district is a beautiful and poetic description.
The assumption is that post-Brexit, labour will be hard to find. That combined with the massive inceptive to invest in equipment at the moment....
Disgraceful, opportunistic @MichelBarnier interview this AM
All of the principles he defended & spoke for during the Brexit negs chucked out of the window to serve his political ambitions. Not too dissimilar to @BorisJohnson then?
No wonder there's so much cynicism about the European Union
https://twitter.com/Mij_Europe/status/1392054825693683713?s=20
Bob, Wendy, Scoop, Muck and Dizzy and Roly too.
It wasn't like that when I was a kid. The sites my Dad worked on were a hive of folk.
Serves him right though, there would be anarchy if we allowed doxxing of complainants of alleged sexual crimes.
And will they stand again, and if not are their votes transferable, and if so to whom?
Typical Brexit voters voted Conservative.
The Lib Dems have taken precisely one seat off the Tories at a by-election outside London in the last TWENTY years.
There remains this lingering belief in the Lib Dems' by-election prowess but it's not one really borne out by the facts since 2010 (and in fact, since some time before then). Being "not the other two" isn't enough, now the Lib Dems have more baggage, there are more 'others' to choose from, and they are no longer as equidistant as they once were in being able to attract tactical votes.
https://www.alekslukic.co.uk/hwdi.htm
This a bunch of people who think Farage is a woke liberal.
They go where Farage doesn’t go, things like gypsies and some of their members talk of forced repatriations.
I think if they stand they hold enough of their vote. They aren’t like Brexit party voters in Hartlepool.
I believe they call the Brexit deal a surrender/appeasement.
https://order-order.com/2021/05/11/breaking-starmers-top-mp-bag-carrier-quits-over-rayner-rumour-accusations/
The day the party goes the Full Montie is the day I probably join the Lib Dems.
But you never know with voters.
Some people say the Lib Dems are starting to be forgiven for the coalition years. There was no sign of it in 2019, but I guess we'll find out soon if it's true in the home counties or not.
But West Yorkshire backed Brexit but they still elected a Labour Super Mayor last week.
https://twitter.com/Caroline_Roux/status/1392003190439227394
"We must suspend #immigration for 3 or 5 years and discuss #Schengen with our European partners."
@MichelBarnier
If they stand again in the by election and take some of the Leave vote then as the Tories + Brexit Party share in Batley in Spen in 2019 was still less than the Labour Party share (unlike in Hartlepool) then Labour could scrape home
China is targeting Muslim women in a push to suppress births in Xinjiang
What would be the remedy? This was region wide votes, so votes across dozens of constituencies. And the end result is Conservatives and Labour losing seats to the Greens if you were to re-apportion votes.
Someone at the Electoral Comission needs to have a talking too and their bollocks "We didn't see how it would cause confusion" defence should be treated with the contempt it deserves.
But there is nothing that can be done now to change the outcome of the election.
https://www.alekslukic.co.uk/hwdi.htm
"We pride ourselves on not shying away from sensitive issues that other local politicians prefer not to discuss."
"Promotion of a unifying shared British identity."
Sufficient provision for the essential needs of the populace, otherwise preserving individual liberty."
No Labour votes here. Plenty for the "Eng Nat" Cons.
This is aimed at one demographic
But since Romsey (2000), the Tory defences have been:
Bromley & Chislehurst
Henley
Haltemprice & Howden (special circumstances; LDs did not compete)
Corby
Newark
Clacton
Rochester & Strood
Witney
Richmond Park
Sleaford & Hykeham
Brecon & Radnor
Most of those were small-town seats. If we're talking about 'small-town seats in the South of England where there was already a strongish LD vote and it leaned towards Remain', then yes, there've not been all that many but then that's quite a niche sector.
Maybe the LDs do stand a chance in C&A but if so, that's because it's the exception not the rule.
For decades the state has sterilised people if they've already got one or two children and they've gotten away with that. So what's to stop them from using that now to sterilise unwanted minorities?
Here the notion of forced-sterilisation is repugnant and evil. There it should be but its been accepted for decades, so switching to sterilising "them" while liberating the rules for "us" is accepted by the public.
Horrible situation. Why we should never tolerate the state having such powers, once it does its easier to turn them against those the state dislikes.
The Woolens have a local organisation and will presumably try to defend their votes. Obviously, the Conservatives start by finding an old Focus leaflet and cutting out the "Two Horse Race" artwork. But what else do they do? Reach out to the far right, or condemn it? It's not impossible, but it's not so trivially easy.
I just can't see any possible way the change could happen though.
https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article231040461/Greta-Thunberg-Kritik-wegen-Tweet-zu-Israel-und-Palaestinensern.html
https://twitter.com/AnnieWellsMSP/status/1392066482323009538?s=19
Are you against the British identity?
Are you against individual liberty?
Are you against discussing sensitive issues?
All meaningless phrases. Where's the beef?
2 vital factors.
HWI intend to stand. How much of the vote do they keep from those who view the Tories as dangerous, woke lefties?
Secondly. Turnout. Specifically can Labour GOTV in response?
Could go either way. As said, candidates will be important, possibly crucial. Surely Labour won't cock that up again?
I've put a few things out here from the council results in Batley & Spen. It is a place where council seats are contested by all parties each year, and council results do sorry in broadly the same range as GE results.
So, again, by my count the 6 wards that make up B&S went as follows:
LAB 11410 - 39.4%
CON 11450 - 39.5%
GRN 1939 - 6.7%
LD 3548 - 12.3%
OTHERS 622 - 2.1%
This was a 5% swing Labour to Conservative compared to the 2019 locals, with the PNS national indicator being about a 4% swing in the same period.
GE17 to GE19 was a 5% swing Lab to Con, again pretty close to national levels, but with a sizeable Brexity vote that could re-map Conservative this time out.
At ward levels it is a good mix, again indicating that in general swings in this seat will tend to the national average - what b you'd expect in a mixed marginal.
Again swings at ward leve (LE19 to 21)l are as follows:
Liversedge: Con hold, 3% Con to Lab
Birstall & Birkenshaw: Con hold, no swing
Batley East: Lab hold, 3.5% Lab to Con
Batley West: Lab hold: 5% Lab to Con
Cleckheaton: LD hold, 8.5% Lab to Con
(17% LD to Con)
Heckmondwike: Lab hold: 12% Lab to Con
So, a range of swings there. Nearer the M62, the towns are smaller and more green belt and motorway access plus greenery drives a degree of affluence. Batley and Heckmondwike have a sizeable Muslim community, from 15 to around 30% of the population in Batley East, Labour's safest ward, but on the other hand there is a Red Wall element, particularly strong in Heckmondwike, which has voted for a range of Brexiteers and, to be frank, outright racists over the years.
So the key swing voter groups to me will be will be:
- LD and Liberal minded voters in Cleckheaton and Liversedge and how they swing
- How many red wall voters swing Tory in Heckmondwike and Batley West, and whether an independent candidate makes any inroads this time (I'm guessing not).
One potential curve ball - if any local restrictions at all are needed after June 21st to control outbreaks, this is as likely a place as any.
Show me the Second Punic War in a polling format.
This is why having a strong team helps, George Osborne CH helped him turn it around with that IHT policy.
Labour have their work cut out here imo. I'd need to see 4/1 to consider backing them.
https://twitter.com/BenJT87/status/1392057421862998020
Do you think Labour should be against provision of essential needs?
Should Labour be against British identity? SNP fair enough, but Labour?
Should Labour be against individual liberty. I get they are, but should they?
B&S looks very, very close to this distant Welsh observer.
One difference is that in 'Pool, the former Labour MP resigned in disgrace amidst a welter of sex allegations.
In B&S, the former Labour MP resigned because she was popular enough to win the W Yorks Mayoralty.
Still, by the time of B&S, SKS will have lost 3 by-elections. There must be a roughly evens chance that B&S makes four.
Local knowledge needed. Can our Yorkshire posters emulate the cracking performance of our North-East posters who got 'Pool bang-on?
Class has nothing to do with:
-your accent
-where you live
-where you grew up
-what your parents do
-where you went to school
These things remain important in supporting certain individuals to change their class position, but they don’t come into the definition of class.
https://twitter.com/graceblakeley/status/1392045008560312320
"more school places for children and restoration of parental choice over preferred schools; a clean Brexit, restoring democracy and independence; taking back control of our borders, money and laws; a managed and controlled immigration system focusing on the specialist skills we need as a country.
Other topics he will push are to end mass, unskilled migration as well as a review and reduction in foreign aid; a crackdown on crime and anti-social behaviour, particularly violent crime, drug-dealing and grooming gangs; an end to politically correct policing; and more support for our armed forces, including veterans, and increased investment in defence."
I guess the question is the extent to which the people who were attracted to that as a protest, still feel the need to protest against Johnson's Tories.
https://twitter.com/TheBigDataStats/status/1388975303691628547?s=20
Labour's Batley And Spen Candidate 'Must Be Working Class', Keir Starmer Told
Ian Lavery, Jon Trickett and Laura Smith draw battle lines as fallout from Hartlepool defeat continue
The joint statement from Lavery’s No Holding Back group, said Starmer must select someone with a working class background, and ideally a key worker, and “not repeat the errors that brought us such a humiliating defeat” in Hartlepool.
While unable to categorically define what was meant by “working class”, the group said it welcomed a debate with the Labour leadership on the issue.
One definition being looked at by the group was “people who have to work in order to provide sufficiently for themselves and their families”.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/batley-spen-working-class-labour_uk_6098f8c3e4b05fb33f4ef5ca
All the solemn foreign affairs experts angrily dismissing Thatcher's wanting to intervene - the "proper" response was more negotiation and accepting "The Facts On The Ground"
Who said the Chinese didn't learn from foreigners? They are creating The Facts On the Ground. They did it before in Tibet - now the native Tibetans are a minority in their own land.
Good on the Greeks, they've got a great number! Knocking it out of the park there. 👍
Show me the fall of Saguntum, the Alpine march, the Trebia, the Arnus Marshes, the Trasimene, the Cannae, the decade of marauding undefeated in enemy territory that makes you think of the Second Punic war.
But a call centre manager is?
Its funny but Free Tibet used to be as popular a slogan as Free Palestine. Then everyone seemed to stop giving a damn about Tibet and the Chinese have uncompromisingly crushed Tibet - China really is a modern Evil Empire and very Orwellian. They'll ruthlessly do the same in Xinjiang and nobody is going to do anything about it.
They won't stop with Xinjiang, just as they didn't stop with Tibet.
I was wrong last time about Hartlepool - the rules have changed. Not that the red wall is now a lot less Labour-friendly than before - we knew that. But that we no longer automatically see swings against the governing party. My prognosis was that those opposed to a mid-term government would always be more motivated to turn out than those who defend it - and that differential turn out would have probably seen Labour over the line. But as it happened it wasn't even close - we saw the sorts of turnout which imply that red wall voters are still motivated by punishing the Labour Party.
So what's likely here? I still think the value is in Labour. In Hartlepool Con+BXP in 2019 would have beaten Labour; here Lab still wins that contest. We'd need to assume a HW-Con swing for the Cons to win it without a Lab-Con swing - a big stride, as who knows what they'll do - they probably won't vote Labour, but that's as much as we can say.
We don't yet know what will happen with the candidate - will the candidate be as poor a choice for the local area as Paul Williams? Who will the Con candidate be? And presumably holding the by-election away from the local elections also benefits Labour (on my rule that opposition voters are more motivated).
My assumption is that most BXP voters will transfer to Con, but only a relatively small proportion of the HWs. On the basis of this churn the Con vote is roughly level with Lab or perhaps slightly ahead - but differential turnout will help the opposition party. Therefore Labour are value at any odds better than Evens. As Ladbrokes are offering 9/4, Labour are value, and I have placed my £5 on that outcome.
If Con win, but only win by a sliver, I can claim a moral victory, if not a financial one. If Con win relatively comfortably (2000 votes plus) then I am comfortably wrong, again.
AKA: "Are you thinking what we're thinking"? Sounds familiar.
If we use the above definition - which is actually rather old - nearly everyone is working class.
Tracy Brabin's majority shrank from 9000 to 3000 between 2017 and 2019 and the labour vote dropped from 29,000 to 22,000 in the same period.
Perhaps Brabin saw the writing on the wall.
A little part of me died today when I read that a 'Conservative' government will introduce a state aid bill, not a bill to reduce/ban state aid but a bill to make it easier to dole out state aid.
We've got a couple of decades of new British Leylands ahead of us.
Mrs Thatcher must be turning in her grave today.
https://www.politico.eu/coronavirus-in-europe/
UKIP is dead so hardcore UKIP is meaningless, just as those words in bold you highlighted are meaningless. You've not said what they mean to you that Labour should be against instead of being meaningless guff.
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1392087926922743808?s=19
Tories 43.6%
LDs 22.9%
Greens 17%
Labour 10.5%
https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1392093241844060165?s=20