Liberal Democrats 7,162 votes (28% +18% on last time) winning 7 seats (+4 seats on last time) Labour 6,305 votes (24% -5% on last time) winning 5 seats (+1 seat on last time) Conservatives 6,255 votes (24% -5% on last time) winning 2 seats (-7 seats on last time) United Kingdom Independence Party 2,468 votes (9% -6% on last time) winning 1 seat (-1 seat on last time) Other Parties 2,337 votes (9% +3% on last time) winning 2 seats (+3 seats on last time) Green Party 959 votes (4% -2% on last time) winning 1 seat (+1 seat on last time) Independents 493 votes (2% -4% on last time) winning 0 seats (-1 seat on last time) Liberal Democrat lead of 857 (4%) on a swing from Lab to Lib Dem of 11.5% (No swing from Con to Lab)
Comments
:-)
***** BETTING POST *****
Francois Fillon looks like dead meat politically on the back of this latest news story from The Daily Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/24/marine-le-pen-refuses-quizzed-french-investigators-fake-jobs/
Time perhaps to pile onto Emmanuel Macron, where those nice folk at Marathon have stand-out odds of 3.0, compared with the likes of PP who offer only 2.375 ..... these odds can't last.
As ever DYOR.
So does this mean?;
- Locals are meaningless
- The LDs are a trusted force of the mundane
- Everyone wants Blair back, even Broon
- Something else
What it clearly doesn't mean is that the LDs are on some sort of triumphant rampage - we saw that last night. Could you cast any light on the interpretation?
The copeland by election shows tories being underestimated again.
The Atlantic article I linked to at the tail end of the last thread talks about this in the USA.
Is anyone expecting an 18% increase in the LibDem vote share in the May local elections ?
2. Lib Dems love winning and are good at targetting favourable wards, bringing in activists and turning their vote out
3. Lib Dem successes in tiny local by-elections offer no useful indicator of what will happen in Parliamentary elections, which is what Tory supporters are really interested in
4. Current VI poling numbers point to Conservative landslide, LDs may make ten gains if they do really well
https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/835242015906484224
I'm sure I'm not the only pber who stands ready nobly to lay those bets on Betfair.
https://twitter.com/TSEofPB/status/835243383950045188
Now which to believe ...
https://twitter.com/SamCoatesTimes/status/835192306428960768
You tried the dweeby one now we offer you the nerdy one.
You tried the Dartmouth Park one now we offer you the Greenwich Village one.
You tried the crap one now we offer you the useless one.
You tried the privileged one now we offer you the posh one.
*Actually first he has to want to return. Then he has to be selected as a candidate for a seat.
Nope. Can't see a flaw in that plan. Anyone know if Bootle could come free?
50 years ago Labour were in government with a landslide majority.
And on 09/03/67 they were able to hold Nuneaton in a by-election:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuneaton_by-election,_1967
He has to want to get back in.
He has to find a seat.
He has to get selected for the seat.
He has to win the seat.
He has to gain the confidence of his fellow MPs.
He has to get sufficient nominations to be on the leadership ballot.
He has to get elected as Labour leader.
Mind you Farage is trading at similar levels to be next PM.
She's given me the best laugh of 2017.
*or real one. North Korea has launched missiles, and demonstrated its ownership of nerve gas. China has just banned imports of NK Coal, its principle source of forex. real war is quite possible.
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/02/19/asia/china-coal-north-korea-ban/index.html
If Brexit isn't completed satisfactorily UKIP will rise again.
The Tories are on around 39-40.
LDs and UKIP both on 10-12.
The remainder are nationalists, Greens, NI and Flying Brick Bus Pass Elvis'.
Democrats & moderate Republicans take a big step toward expanding Medicaid in Kansas. (≈150K would gain insurance.) http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article134332184.html …
Do they really expect anyone to believe these lines?
https://twitter.com/tigerfish4/status/835242802351067136
Where to begin with that tweet....
The Tories are not in the mid 40s.
We're in Thatcher V Foot territory.
I wonder where she got those numbers from.
Edit: That Lab score of 31 is from the article but is way too high based on current polling. More like 26.
Headline speaks for itself, and a picture tells 1000 words!
https://twitter.com/Telegraph/status/835124628641181697
It is to be hoped that we are not being lined up for a similar catastrophe despite @rcs1000 and his gloomy prognostications about 1930s and protectionism. But even if we are, who could play Attlee to Corbyn's Lansbury, and where would his Bevin be?
Neither of the above issues are in the media narrative or voters minds at the moment.
In a GE campaign it's absolutely certain Corbyn will be attacked mercilessly on NATO/ Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament - and it's bound to feature in TV debates etc.
Next in line will be the Monarchy - as soon as Corbyn gives a wishy washy answer that he's "not campaigning on the Monarchy" the tabloids will go for it big time and it'll then spill over into the TV news narrative.
It's anyone's guess how many more votes Lab could lose on the above issues but it could easily be substantial.
The only tiny flaw in their logic is that competing against the fifth and joint sixth largest parties for vote share is not actually going to help them much and may even distract them from the people whom they should be at least trying to compete with - the ones in first place.
Edited because I forgot that Sinn Fein have more MPs than UKIP.
Further edited because I forgot the DUP as well. Labour really are fighting with the big boys right now, aren't they? Doing slightly better than two parties failing to match the performance of a couple of groups elected on sectarian lines from a civil war 95 years ago.
The Tories did better in the marginals, implying an even bigger shellacking for Labour
Even if they were right it'd still be a piss poor result for Labour in those seats.
By-election results tend not to be great indicators of GE results
But that "Not so great indicator" tends to generally favour the governing party (Corby, Eastleigh, Christchurch, even Newbury if you analyse it closely) in those seats.
So wrong on at least 4 levels by my analysis.
Even discounting the high number of members who are far more left-wing than he is, he wasn't able to inspire the then-membership to select D Miliband as leader the first time round, and when E Miliband stepped down and more of D Miliband's contemporaries stood for leader, there was hardly an iota of vision amongst them.
I suppose it's possible that the experience of being pipped at the post / stabbed in the back by his younger brother might have radically changed him into a visionary & charismatic leader, but it seems unlikely.
He's a politician, so he might have the self-belief, but then, so did E Miliband.
He is not a leader. He has neither energy nor charisma.
He is not a visionary. He is in fact more or less vacuous in policy terms (those New Labour manifestos...)
He is not collegiate. He works badly with other people and lets them down at crucial moments (ask James Purnell).
What he is - undoubtedly - is a talented administrator. That is why his tenure at DEFRA was a rare gleam of light in the life of that troubled department. But unless he has a clear problem to solve and instructions on what the solution needs to do, he's completely lost.
He would be absolutely the wrong leader for Labour right now. Truth to tell, he would not be a suitable leader except under highly unusual circumstances where administrative talent mattered more than leadership or drive - as a deputy PM in a national government, running the Home Office, I can imagine he would be superb, a latter day Anderson. But he would not have done better than Ed, conceivably worse, and would not be the needed radical improvement on Corbyn.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldham_East_and_Saddleworth_by-election,_2011
Paul Nuttall UKIP 2,029 5.8 +1.9
Nick "The Flying Brick" Delves Monster Raving Loony 145
The fact that Thomas Inskip was put forward as a serious candidate to succeed Chamberlain at this time probably tells you all you need to know about the exhaustion of a party that by 1939 had spent 21 of the previous 24 years in government.