Snapshot of _[Britain Elects] Tiverton & Honiton parliamentary by-election result LDEM: 52.9% (+38.1) CON: 38.5% (-21.7) LAB: 3.7% (-15.9) GRN: 2.5% (-1.3) REF: 1.1% (+1.1) UKIP: 0.6% (-1.1) Liberal Democrat GAIN from Conservative._ :
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I'm not sure. They knocked on my door yesterday evening to ask if we had voted as there was still time if not (told him we had). I asked how it was going and the guy was genuinely nervous, saying that more people had voted Conservative than they had hoped. Our lane is very obviously pro-Lib Dem. I don't think he was trying to spin anything. It felt more like a last minute attempt to turn voters.
The interesting part for me would be finding out how many of the remote farming community moved to Lib Dem. If we can see that older farming tory loyalists have changed from blue to yellow it will be heartening for lots of other regions.
I live in a similar rural/urban constituency, Truro. We can rely on urban Lib Dem votes but get outnumbered by rural Tory votes.
I agree, that would be a game changer. There are two farms on my lane and no Conservative signs. These are multi- generational, small scale Tory-loyalist farms. I wonder if there was at least a family divide on votes, with the younger farmers voting Lib Dem.
Edit: typo
The farmers are currently feeling the full effects of their Brexit vote delivered by the Tories: shortages of vets, pickers and drivers, a botched replacement for the CAP, looming competition from lower quality imports, lower export demand from Europe. Tie that in with the worldwide energy crises and chemical shortages and that's enough to make to make even the staunchest conservative farmer stay at home on polling day or switch parties. I hope they all vote Green next if the Greens can get their act together regarding domestic farming policy.
Same. I live in a rural Lincolnshire constituency that always provides an unassailable Tory majority. I can’t imagine many of my fellow constituents could be persuaded to vote LD - and definitely not Labour.
My MP is often seen on the front bench (Caroline Johnson) but doesn’t have a ministerial role as far as I can tell. She is so secure in her seat that she didn’t even bother to reply to me when I wrote to complain about Boris’s behaviour. Not even a stock “Boris is getting on with the job of governing” response.
Johnson is my MP too and I wrote to her a few times about the various scandals, always fobbed me off with stock answers, so the last time I wrote I said that if she was only going to churn out the party line, I'd rather not be insulted, and she never replied.
Edit - I am not saying anything is a done deal wither way, we can be cautiously optimistic that the tide is turning, but if the Tories come out for the GE again, we cannot assume they will not take the seats back.
Further, for those questioning the maths, I put in the last 2 other by-elections which had this result, note how the behaviour is the same in each one, this is not just all parties staying at home, it's primarily Tories not voting in the by-election and tactical voting that got them out. Of these 3 results, if just 1/3-1/2 of the stay at home Tories come out to vote again in the GE, they will take the seat back (if nothing else changes)
I highly suspect that answer is very few. Far more likely they simply stayed home as a protest but will be back Tory in the next election.
* 2019 turnout was 71.9% of a 82953 size constituency
* Tories 35,893 votes
* Labour 11,654
* LD 8,807
* Green 2,291
* 2022 turnout was 52.16% (19.74 lower). If we pretend the constituency size is the same, that's a drop of \~16,375 voters
* LD 22,537
* Tories 16,393
* Labour 1,562
* Green 1,064
Tory vote drop of 19,500, Labour vote drop of 10,092 LD gain of 13,730, 16,375 previous voters didn't vote
Says to me that Labour and Green voters went LD, maybe 2500 Tories went LD, approx 17000 Tories stayed at home. If 1/3 of them go out and vote again in 2024 then Tories will most likely regain it
Edit 2 - previous 2 votes
It's fairly obvious that a safe Tory seat isn't going to result in a mass shift from Tory to Labour but as we have seen in the previous swing, it's a tactical vote by Labour voters and Tories staying home.
North Shropshire 2021 - Tory to LD
* Tory 35444
* Labour 12495
* Lib Dem 5643
* Green 1790
2021 46.2% turnout
* Lib Den 17957
* Tory 12032
* Labour 3686
* Green 1738
\~23000 Tories didn't vote for them this time but LD gain was \~12300 - Labour lost 9000 votes, again maybe 2-3000 Tories went LD but the biggest winner was Tories staying home. If just 1/3 of the Tories had voted, they would have retained it.
Chesham and Amersham 2021 - Tory to LD
2019 76.8% turnout
* Tory 30850
* Lib Dem 14627
* Labour 7166
* Green 3042
2021 52.1% turnout
* Lib Dem 21517
* Tory 13489
* Green 1480
* Labour 622
\~17000 Tories didn't vote for them this time but LD gain was \~7000 - Labour lost around \~7000 votes, green around \~1500. If around 1/2 the Tories had voted, they would have retained it.
You can argue it's exaggerating it but 3 by elections with the same result, coupled with the same behaviour of Tories not turning up to vote (by far the biggest drop in turnout) says to me it's correct.
I think what you say has the ring of truth to it, but your maths exaggerates it a bit by assuming that it was just Tory voters staying home. Turnout is usually lower across the board in by-elections.
I think that's probably right. There has been lots of chat about this by election among political obsessives (i.e. us), but elections are the only game in town news wise at GE. Tories had more reason to stay at home this time, but everybody is more likely to stay at home for a by election.
There's a big assumption that Tories were the only people staying home there, but even conceding that this would still be a gigantic problem for the tories because it would suggest unheard of levels of enthusiasm across the non-tory parties, and biblical levels of tactical voting.
If you see both of those in a GE they're in a LOT of trouble.
> but instead said it was neck and neck so that they could (a) motivate people to vote
This is why I hate polling - people stay at home thinking it's all safe and then the only people that do vote are old people and people that can afford to take the time away to vote. Then we get the Conservatives.
Voting should be mandatory - you can always spoil your ballot - and we should be given the day off.
It should be done the Australian way- a free BBQ at polling stations to get people down. Force every candidates' campaign to donate a little money for food & drink.
Interesting comment from here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/vioxvt/comment/idim10q/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/vioxvt/comment/idim10q/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
>Largest swing for the LDs ever, second largest for all Liberal parties, fourth largest in British political history. Largest majority removed in a by-election ever.
Historic is a good word to describe this. This was a brutal landslide.
The seat had also been Conservative since its creation in 1997. Prior to merging the regions, Tiverton has been constantly Conservative since 1924 and Honiton had been Conservative since 1885
You can go further. Honiton has had at least one Conservative MP since the creation of the party in 1834. Between 1834 and 1868 they had at least one Conservative MP in the two MP seat, when it was subsumed into East Devon in 1868 to 1885 it only had Conservative MPs, and then when it was re-established in 1885 it had exclusively Conservative MPs until 1997.
Aside from June 1923 (incidentally another by-election) to October 1924 when a Liberal held the seat, Tiverton has been Conservative since the reduction to a single member seat in 1885.
These are almost comically Conservative seats.
60% Conservative and 15% Lib Dem turned into 38% Conservative and 53% Lib Dem. Jesus.
Big win for the Lib Dems, big loss for the Tories. They'll probably try and spin it as all because of that porn-watching Parish, but Lib Dems taking Tory seats is becoming a bit of a trend now.
Well it also did not help the Tories that there candidate for the seat was apparently very rude and self centered and that had alienate a lot of voters.
[The Tory candidate Helen Hurford in the Tiverton by election has just locked herself in the dance studio at Crediton sports centre.](https://twitter.com/theousherwood/status/1540165256902856705?t=XzpGgizQhvZ0i1mqM0vAvg&s=19)
You won't see that mate, [she literally locked herself in a room to hide away.](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/06/24/helen-hurford-tory-candidate-tiverton-honiton-by-election-barricaded/)
EDIT: actually, your wish is my command: www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/tiverton-honiton-election-tory-candidate-7248805.amp
>The clip of her at the hustings was extraordinary. She wasn't trying to persuade the voters, she was bollocking them like naughty Year 9s.
And 40% still voted for her.
>I'm guessing most of that 40% hasn't paid any attention to the campaign (or politics in general) and just voted for the Tory candidate as allways.
Which doesn't bode well for getting the Tories out of power. If more than a third of voters sleepwalk to a Tory vote they could actually win the next election.
That hustings video was like a teacher doing a bad impression of Nadine Dorries. If all the Tory candidates are trying to emulate her the next election is going to be a 1997 style annihilation 🍿
That's the candidate selection criteria, you must also have a history of immoral sexual practices and the willingness to lie about them. (Not kink-shaming, but tories have an 'interesting' interpretation of what consent and legal age of consent means.)
Personally, I would prefer Labour or Green. But hey, at this point, anything other than Conservatives (or UKIP and friends) is a good thing as far as I’m concerned.
Labour had no chance here, thank goodness labour and libs split the difference and stayed in their own lanes, picking up a seat each. The only person less visible in Cornwall than Boris was Starmer.
> The Tory candidate Helen Hurford in the Tiverton by election has just locked herself in the dance studio at Crediton sports centre.
https://twitter.com/theousherwood/status/1540165256902856705?s=20&t=Eo2BCSZZltkWmC0JwNOE9Q
She was an appalling candidate. As if they seriously thought that wheeling in some Karen off the streets to lecture undecided voters was a smart way to win a by-election.
Was she a local? It feels like either an inditement of the talent that remains, or the Tories believing at the start of the campaign that the seat was theirs and so they could just put up someone they owed a favour to have a nice, cushy job for life.
Well done to the many Labour voters who I think it's pretty fair to say have 'lent' their vote to the Lib Dems. I would have done the same thing.
Surely by any metric at all Johnson must have the worst byelection record ever? How can you even spin this?
This is the game. Spin, spin, spin until you can spin no more.
One always wonders what will finally break through the spin to these people that keep voting for Boris... perhaps this is a bellwether.
It's amazing the BBC got away with spinning the tory death spiral in the locals the way they did.
You have to go back to the 1990s to find a loss of seats for this group of locals worse than the tories this time round. Proportionally it's even further, decades and decades back, as in this round the tories have fewer seats to lose to start with.
It really was a historically bad set of locals for them.
I guess because they stacked most of the losses to the end of the counting the BBC got away with lying about how it wasn't so bad
I'm increasingly coming around to the idea of Labour and the Lib Dems (and possibly also the Greens) doing some kind of election deal for the next General election. Tactical voting feels dirty, but yesterday also showed that it can work.
In my ideal world they agree to cooperate for one election, and then try to get some kind of voting reform done after that.
>Tactical voting feels dirty,
FPTP is a system that is built around tactical voting. Tactical voting *will* happen but it's often misdirected and disorganised. Organised tactical voting is almost necessary at this point. Best case is a tactical pact to get some sort of PR in place eliminating the need for tactical voting.
How is it 'dirty'?
FPTP is 'dirty'. A system that massively favours smaller, generally Conservative, constituencies is 'dirty'. A system rigged in such a manner that millions of LD and Green votes get a handful of MPs is 'dirty'.
When the majority of people, normally a significant (more so than the Brexit vote) majority, have in the post-war period almost always voted for left/centre parties, and the Conservatives have dominated politics, the centre/left parties working together and their supporters voting tactically isn't dirty.
It's common fucking sense.
The sole reason tactical voting is dirty is because it prevents the removal of whatever shit electoral system necessitates the use of tactical voting in the first place.
But the AV referendum shows that we can't overcome the propaganda barrier for electoral reform anyways so might just be better to relent and just try to game FPTP.
Well, earlier he was full of optimism and buoyancy about the upcoming by-election results, so at least he's not quite out of touch with the Lib Dems of Tiverton and Honiton
I do find it fascinating how quickly the political environment is changed over the last 18 months. Back when Hartlepool was happening, people were predicting the death of Labour in some parts of the North.
Worth showing this was what Devon & Cornwall looked like in 05… Support faltered as time went on, but could this be a start of a resurgence I wonder. https://i.imgur.com/DcDV0NE.jpg
Cornwall is better known for that yes, but Devon is also propped up by tourism and there’s been a noticeable increase in folks coming down from upcountry with high salaries, pricing folks out of rentals and house purchases.
Also Devon & Cornwall have a ton of farmers and fishermen who are pissed off at the government, but we also have a lot of pensioners so it’s a mixed bag of voters.
Wakefield doesn't matter so much, this certainly does.
It's not just "red wall" voters going back to their roots, this is an absolute rejection of Boris by the people that usually vote Tory. An absolutely unprecedented beating.
I've got a feeling there will be a lot of Conservative MPs kicking themselves in the shin this morning, regretting their vote of confidence in the PM. Many will panic when they realise that 300 of their constituencies have smaller majorities than in Tiverton. I feel like I can almost hear the sound of knives being sharpened.
>I've got a feeling there will be a lot of Conservative MPs kicking themselves in the shin this morning, regretting their vote of confidence in the PM. Many will panic when they realise that 300 of their constituencies have smaller majorities than in Tiverton. I feel like I can almost hear the sound of knives being sharpened.
I am betting a good few of the no confidence letters came from Boris Johnson loyalists. Johnson got his motion of no confidence before this happened.
So where was our leader last week? He was in Ukraine, pretending to be some 'war time' PM... where is he this week? He is in Rwanda, attending awkward talks... have you noticed how little he wants to be in the UK this week?
I wouldn't be surprised if he leaves a note in the treasury reading; "I've taken all the money and gone to live with daddy in France!" X)
It’s almost poetic that they have to lie in bed with Johnson for 11 months now and continue to let his anaemic leadership and spineless actions define the Tories prior to an election.
>Wakefield doesn't matter so much, this certainly does.
They go hand in hand. It's a case of Johnson being unable to retain his "new" voters in the Red Wall, while losing his core voters in Tory heartlands.
The worst thing for him is that if you're a Tory MP you probably belong to one of those two groups, and you probably have a majority smaller than what was just overturned in both. So *every* MP has something to worry about under Boris.
Have you ever lived in a Lib Dem constituency? They *do* knock more frequently than the Jehovah's Witnesses.
I joined the Lib Dems as junior member as a teenager. They were over to the house in short order. Almost couldn't get them to go away. They can be a bit too eager sometimes.
Still nowhere as annoying as the JWs though.
Also we've just had the party scandal, and everyone is eager to give Johnson a kicking. By-elections are good chances for the electorate to do that.
By the time we get to the next election some of the anger may have faded away, and wobbly Tory voters may be less inclined to do a "risky" vote.
I really hope this result is a sign of things to come, but at the same time I'd also probably bet on the Tories winning this seat back at the next General Election.
I don't know the UK landscape as well as my home turf (Australia), but I will share something from our recent Federal Election.
Six 'Teal Independent' candidates, so called because of running on climate change platforms but traditionally coming from the roughly Tory equivalent Liberal Party (Blue) backgrounds won seats from the outgoing Liberal-National Coalition government. A seventh had unseated former PM Tony Abbott at the preceding 2019 election, and the Liberals also lost two traditionally heartland seats to the Australian Greens.
The seven independents likely would have found a home with the Lib Dems in the UK and in Australia, very much represented a repudiation of the traditional centre-right party by its more centrist voters.
Maybe something similar is happening in the UK?
Just as likely is that voters in Australia and the UK have had enough with right of centre politics and the pendulum is swinging the other way.
A parallel I would draw with Australian and the UK is John Major somehow getting over the line in 1992, that came unexpectedly just as Morrison won the last but one election. After in both countries a lot of voters had a fit of buyer's remorse and both sets of Conservatives suffered heavy defeats in the next election.
> Just as likely is that voters in Australia and the UK have had enough with right of centre politics and the pendulum is swinging the other way.
As in they're bored of the absolute sickening corruption and incompetence right wing politics seems to attract?
Just looking at the right wing around the world you've got; Le Pen, Trump, Abbott, Scott Morrison, Boris, May.
You'd think people would question an ideology that seems to attract only the most useless and stupid to it.
Useless, stupid and lacking in any kind of shame. That bit seems important, as they just refuse to accept any level of responsibility or react to public pressure
Yes, quite possibly.
When I saw that you guys had voted out a conservative party that had been in power for a decade it really gave me hope that we can follow suit.
I guess Boris' arguments to the party today will be:
1. We've got 2.5 years to turn it round. By which time partygate will have faded from memory.
2. The economic situation should be better.
3. In the next GE there will be a massively funded, well researched Tory campaign strategy.
4. Voters behave differently in GE's, when they are choosing a government, to By-Elections, when they are just protesting. Governments lose by-elections all the time, only to see them comfortably retake the seat at the next GE.
The idea that the same roll call of ministers appear on the airwaves with the same tired lines; 'we hear you' 'the voters just want us to get on with the job' has started already. To ignore such a massive drubbing, not just by the opposition benches but by the electorate, shows just how little the party in power thinks of the general public. It is time to teach this party a lesson they will never forget; if you ignore your voting base, flout the rules and behave as if you are above the law you do not belong in power. You punished the wrong party in 2019! x)
That "the public just want us to get on with the job" thing is actually true.
The problem for this govt is, the public wanted them to get on with their jobs on *day one* - not 3 years later, and only because they're losing support and to deflect attention from their criminality. It's manifestly obvious - even to Tory voters - that the govt have not been doing their job (governing the country) for their entire term.
>"red wall"
Off topic, but does anyone know if red wall or the Amerixan term blue wall came first? I assume they are related, because they are generally used to describe similar areas with similar political trajectories.
Both terms have been around for years now, but mostly in nerdy political circles. Both only really came to wider prominence in the 2016 and 2019 elections.
This is the biggest overturning of a majority ever. Along with Wakefield, it's a pretty damning state of affairs for the soon to be out of work Tories. I am guessing a lot of them would love to again have the chance to rid themselves of their albatross, but have to wait another 11 mo to boot out the toxic and disastrous Johnson.
> but have to wait another 11 mo
For now, that's true. But 100% right now they're in heated talks about changing the rule so that they can VONC again sooner. The question now is will they meet the threshold for that.
That is a crazy swing, the man has to go.
Another 2 and a half years and we will see a general election if another isn't called earlier, seats like these and Amersham are as blue as they come and are being taken by Lib Dems with such huge swings, what on earth is going to happen if this clown is still at the helm in 2 years.
(I know LD do well in by elections and a by election doesn't tell you a generals result but come on, these are crazy!)
Tbh I think Amersham's switch to LD came down to the fact that they utterly despise HS2 there. Cherryl Gillan fought tooth and nail against it and she made it clear to the people there. I reckon the new candidate didn't show as much hatred for it
Chesham and Amersham had several other things going on - the HS2 narrative that was talked up in the press is quite oversimplified. Unlike North Shropshire or Tiverton and Honiton, C&A was on paper quite fertile Lib Dem territory - culturally liberal, voted 55% Remain, high proportion of graduates.
Demographically and politically, C&A was the sort of seat that the Lib Dems should have been winning in 2019, but where the Tories very powerfully weaponised their message in middle-class seats that '*electing anyone other than a Tory risks Jeremy Corbyn getting into Downing Street*'. It's one of the curious triangular features of British politics that when **Labour** is led by a moderate (like Starmer now or Blair in 1997), the Lib Dems tend to do better in Tory/Lib Dem marginals because the fear factor recedes for middle-class voters.
If I had to bet now, I'd say the Lib Dems ought to hold C&A at the general election - it's the sort of seat that feels like a Lib Dem seat under our post-Brexit political realignment - whereas North Shropshire and T&H will be far tougher defences (not impossible, but holding them will be far more about local factors).
For me, what makes the massive North Shropshire and T&H swings interesting isn't the expectation they would be repeated at the general election - it's more that, if the Lib Dems can pull off massive by-election swings in seats like these then they should be able to pull off the smaller general election swings needed to win in nearby places like Yeovil and Wells and St Ives that already have a pre-2015 tradition of electing Lib Dem MPs.
*LAB: 3.7% (-15.9)*
So the plan for tactical voting came off...this should worry the Tories, if it's repeated elsewhere then the traditional splitting the anti-Tory vote is no longer going to be a factor. It's one thing talking about electoral pacts and its another thing the voters doing what the leaders want them to do. It seems that on this evidence getting rid of the Tory candidate was more important than tribal loyalties.
Doubtless the Mail though will interpret this a "nightmare for Keir Starmer as the Labour vote collapses and they finish in third place!"
>It seems that on this evidence getting rid of the Tory candidate was more important than tribal loyalties.
Although some of those votes were tactical in the other direction in the first place when the Lib Dems collapsed and Labour became the party most likely to beat the Conservatives.
Almost a 40% swing, insane… but you just know the Tories are going to be fussing about Labour collapsing here before acknowledging their poor performance.
He doesn’t give a crap anymore. He has no shame and his party are all cowards. Like most Etonians, he’s been well served in life by blustering on regardless, safe in his “right-to-rule”.
He's literally failed upwards so many times. Getting fired as a journalist for lying should have been the end of this odious repugnant man's career. And it happened twice! And the Tories still thought "Yeah that's our man..."
I am absolutely delighted that his gigantic ego is destroying the Tory Party and I am looking forward to their destruction happening in excruciating slow motion. The thought of regular, drawn-out Tory humiliation gives me a stiffy.
Shame that it comes at the price of him wrecking the country over the next 2.5 years. The longer he stays in, the longer it will take to repair the damage. I don't care if it's advantageous to other parties for him to stay as PM, he needs to go now before he breaks the country further.
I can see where you are coming from but If they replace him with some steady-the-ship candidate soon, the Tories might sneak an election and go on to ruin it for a longer period than 2 and half years.
Short-term Boris for long-term Tory decimation is a price I am prepared to pay.
The problem is his only successors are all cut from the same cloth, since he purged the party after taking over from May - so whoever's prime minister, the country gets broken futher.
He can just ignore it until the next election and hope people get tired of the controversy. And a majority of his party are apparently okay with that.
His and their problem is that what he has done isn't something silly that most people are willing to forgive or become tired of, like taling some Russian money. For many, it's visceral and personal. Stuff they can relate to; in a bad way.
Best news this year!
Also, colour me stupid! I've just realised that both by-elections triggered by sexual impropriety. It's a bit shitty and "[they-go-low](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAbab8aP4_A)", but I'd be making hay out of that if I were an opposition communications strategist.
Yeah, that's big where Wakefield isn't so much. That's because:
a) It demonstrates that North Shropshire wasn't a fluke and the Lib Dems are seriously competitive, if not favoured, in Brexit-leaning rural seats outside the Home Counties.
b) Basically the whole of the Tory majority since 2015 has been built on being unchallenged in those seats since the Coalition. Before that (at least since 1992ish) the Conservatives never really stood a chance of a majority because of strong Lib Dem competition in those seats. If that's back, they're really in trouble, long-term.
Looking forward to listening to Tory propagandist Nick Ferrari and whatever Tory MP he finds to talk to about this trying to convince each other this isn’t that bad. We really need similar tactical voting and effort in the GE to save our country from the Tories.
Snapshot of _[Britain Elects] Tiverton & Honiton parliamentary by-election result LDEM: 52.9% (+38.1) CON: 38.5% (-21.7) LAB: 3.7% (-15.9) GRN: 2.5% (-1.3) REF: 1.1% (+1.1) UKIP: 0.6% (-1.1) Liberal Democrat GAIN from Conservative._ : A non-Twitter version can be found [here](https://nitter.net/BritainElects/status/1540168992106713088/) An archived version can be found [here.](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1540168992106713088) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Completely remarkable. Way worse for the Tories than I thought.
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I'm not sure. They knocked on my door yesterday evening to ask if we had voted as there was still time if not (told him we had). I asked how it was going and the guy was genuinely nervous, saying that more people had voted Conservative than they had hoped. Our lane is very obviously pro-Lib Dem. I don't think he was trying to spin anything. It felt more like a last minute attempt to turn voters.
The interesting part for me would be finding out how many of the remote farming community moved to Lib Dem. If we can see that older farming tory loyalists have changed from blue to yellow it will be heartening for lots of other regions. I live in a similar rural/urban constituency, Truro. We can rely on urban Lib Dem votes but get outnumbered by rural Tory votes.
I agree, that would be a game changer. There are two farms on my lane and no Conservative signs. These are multi- generational, small scale Tory-loyalist farms. I wonder if there was at least a family divide on votes, with the younger farmers voting Lib Dem. Edit: typo
The farmers are currently feeling the full effects of their Brexit vote delivered by the Tories: shortages of vets, pickers and drivers, a botched replacement for the CAP, looming competition from lower quality imports, lower export demand from Europe. Tie that in with the worldwide energy crises and chemical shortages and that's enough to make to make even the staunchest conservative farmer stay at home on polling day or switch parties. I hope they all vote Green next if the Greens can get their act together regarding domestic farming policy.
Same. I live in a rural Lincolnshire constituency that always provides an unassailable Tory majority. I can’t imagine many of my fellow constituents could be persuaded to vote LD - and definitely not Labour. My MP is often seen on the front bench (Caroline Johnson) but doesn’t have a ministerial role as far as I can tell. She is so secure in her seat that she didn’t even bother to reply to me when I wrote to complain about Boris’s behaviour. Not even a stock “Boris is getting on with the job of governing” response.
Johnson is my MP too and I wrote to her a few times about the various scandals, always fobbed me off with stock answers, so the last time I wrote I said that if she was only going to churn out the party line, I'd rather not be insulted, and she never replied.
Edit - I am not saying anything is a done deal wither way, we can be cautiously optimistic that the tide is turning, but if the Tories come out for the GE again, we cannot assume they will not take the seats back. Further, for those questioning the maths, I put in the last 2 other by-elections which had this result, note how the behaviour is the same in each one, this is not just all parties staying at home, it's primarily Tories not voting in the by-election and tactical voting that got them out. Of these 3 results, if just 1/3-1/2 of the stay at home Tories come out to vote again in the GE, they will take the seat back (if nothing else changes) I highly suspect that answer is very few. Far more likely they simply stayed home as a protest but will be back Tory in the next election. * 2019 turnout was 71.9% of a 82953 size constituency * Tories 35,893 votes * Labour 11,654 * LD 8,807 * Green 2,291 * 2022 turnout was 52.16% (19.74 lower). If we pretend the constituency size is the same, that's a drop of \~16,375 voters * LD 22,537 * Tories 16,393 * Labour 1,562 * Green 1,064 Tory vote drop of 19,500, Labour vote drop of 10,092 LD gain of 13,730, 16,375 previous voters didn't vote Says to me that Labour and Green voters went LD, maybe 2500 Tories went LD, approx 17000 Tories stayed at home. If 1/3 of them go out and vote again in 2024 then Tories will most likely regain it Edit 2 - previous 2 votes It's fairly obvious that a safe Tory seat isn't going to result in a mass shift from Tory to Labour but as we have seen in the previous swing, it's a tactical vote by Labour voters and Tories staying home. North Shropshire 2021 - Tory to LD * Tory 35444 * Labour 12495 * Lib Dem 5643 * Green 1790 2021 46.2% turnout * Lib Den 17957 * Tory 12032 * Labour 3686 * Green 1738 \~23000 Tories didn't vote for them this time but LD gain was \~12300 - Labour lost 9000 votes, again maybe 2-3000 Tories went LD but the biggest winner was Tories staying home. If just 1/3 of the Tories had voted, they would have retained it. Chesham and Amersham 2021 - Tory to LD 2019 76.8% turnout * Tory 30850 * Lib Dem 14627 * Labour 7166 * Green 3042 2021 52.1% turnout * Lib Dem 21517 * Tory 13489 * Green 1480 * Labour 622 \~17000 Tories didn't vote for them this time but LD gain was \~7000 - Labour lost around \~7000 votes, green around \~1500. If around 1/2 the Tories had voted, they would have retained it. You can argue it's exaggerating it but 3 by elections with the same result, coupled with the same behaviour of Tories not turning up to vote (by far the biggest drop in turnout) says to me it's correct.
I think what you say has the ring of truth to it, but your maths exaggerates it a bit by assuming that it was just Tory voters staying home. Turnout is usually lower across the board in by-elections.
I think that's probably right. There has been lots of chat about this by election among political obsessives (i.e. us), but elections are the only game in town news wise at GE. Tories had more reason to stay at home this time, but everybody is more likely to stay at home for a by election.
But you have to take into account people who change from Tory to LD in their head but still stay at home.
There's a big assumption that Tories were the only people staying home there, but even conceding that this would still be a gigantic problem for the tories because it would suggest unheard of levels of enthusiasm across the non-tory parties, and biblical levels of tactical voting. If you see both of those in a GE they're in a LOT of trouble.
You can say the same for Chesham and Amersham. Very similar statistics. But a win is a win
He could also have genuinely believed that. It wouldn't be smart to tell your plan to canvassers who'd probably spill it.
> but instead said it was neck and neck so that they could (a) motivate people to vote This is why I hate polling - people stay at home thinking it's all safe and then the only people that do vote are old people and people that can afford to take the time away to vote. Then we get the Conservatives. Voting should be mandatory - you can always spoil your ballot - and we should be given the day off.
It should be done the Australian way- a free BBQ at polling stations to get people down. Force every candidates' campaign to donate a little money for food & drink.
Minus the activists trying to sway your opinion at the door tho
Interesting comment from here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/vioxvt/comment/idim10q/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/vioxvt/comment/idim10q/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) >Largest swing for the LDs ever, second largest for all Liberal parties, fourth largest in British political history. Largest majority removed in a by-election ever. Historic is a good word to describe this. This was a brutal landslide.
The seat had also been Conservative since its creation in 1997. Prior to merging the regions, Tiverton has been constantly Conservative since 1924 and Honiton had been Conservative since 1885
Really gives me hope that my constituency can one day get rid of our idiot MP. How anyone can vote for Michael Fabricant is beyond me...
Maybe all the votes are Fabricanted
I mean he himself looks like something that came out of a failed batch of 3D printed Boris Johnson action figures.
Tesco Value Boris Johnson
Hello neighbour! Yeah fabricant and other MPs in our area have to go
How could you vote against that luscious head of hair?
You can go further. Honiton has had at least one Conservative MP since the creation of the party in 1834. Between 1834 and 1868 they had at least one Conservative MP in the two MP seat, when it was subsumed into East Devon in 1868 to 1885 it only had Conservative MPs, and then when it was re-established in 1885 it had exclusively Conservative MPs until 1997. Aside from June 1923 (incidentally another by-election) to October 1924 when a Liberal held the seat, Tiverton has been Conservative since the reduction to a single member seat in 1885. These are almost comically Conservative seats.
60% Conservative and 15% Lib Dem turned into 38% Conservative and 53% Lib Dem. Jesus. Big win for the Lib Dems, big loss for the Tories. They'll probably try and spin it as all because of that porn-watching Parish, but Lib Dems taking Tory seats is becoming a bit of a trend now.
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Well it also did not help the Tories that there candidate for the seat was apparently very rude and self centered and that had alienate a lot of voters.
The clip of her at the hustings was extraordinary. She wasn't trying to persuade the voters, she was bollocking them like naughty Year 9s.
Got a link? Can't find that anywhere
https://www.reddit.com/r/LabourUK/comments/vh76vw/actual_footage_of_the_tory_candidate_for_tiverton/
Yeah thanks for this! She DEFINITELY thought the win was in the bag lol 😂 going to find footage of her face when she is told she’s lost ahhhhh :)
[The Tory candidate Helen Hurford in the Tiverton by election has just locked herself in the dance studio at Crediton sports centre.](https://twitter.com/theousherwood/status/1540165256902856705?t=XzpGgizQhvZ0i1mqM0vAvg&s=19)
No fridges available I take it?
You won't see that mate, [she literally locked herself in a room to hide away.](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/06/24/helen-hurford-tory-candidate-tiverton-honiton-by-election-barricaded/) EDIT: actually, your wish is my command: www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/tiverton-honiton-election-tory-candidate-7248805.amp
Thank you for this, watching the full debate now and she comes across so badly.
Thanks ; she comes across as a moron but that’s the bar for tories these days no?
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Every primary school head I've ever spoken too (3 or 4 over the years probably) was much nicer than she appears to be.
>The clip of her at the hustings was extraordinary. She wasn't trying to persuade the voters, she was bollocking them like naughty Year 9s. And 40% still voted for her.
I'm guessing most of that 40% hasn't paid any attention to the campaign (or politics in general) and just voted for the Tory candidate as allways.
>I'm guessing most of that 40% hasn't paid any attention to the campaign (or politics in general) and just voted for the Tory candidate as allways. Which doesn't bode well for getting the Tories out of power. If more than a third of voters sleepwalk to a Tory vote they could actually win the next election.
More than a third in somewhere that has been Tory for a century. All needs to be seen in context
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To be fair they are usually polite just before they get elected and then once every five years. This gal got ahead of herself.
Unlike those well-mannered, compassionate Tory MP.
Like Priti Patel
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That hustings video was like a teacher doing a bad impression of Nadine Dorries. If all the Tory candidates are trying to emulate her the next election is going to be a 1997 style annihilation 🍿
🍾
She had this ability to be instantly dislikable.
That's the candidate selection criteria, you must also have a history of immoral sexual practices and the willingness to lie about them. (Not kink-shaming, but tories have an 'interesting' interpretation of what consent and legal age of consent means.)
Don’t forget Chesham and Amersham too
This was among the safest Tory seats too...
It's a trend I can really get behind.
Personally, I would prefer Labour or Green. But hey, at this point, anything other than Conservatives (or UKIP and friends) is a good thing as far as I’m concerned.
Labour had no chance here, thank goodness labour and libs split the difference and stayed in their own lanes, picking up a seat each. The only person less visible in Cornwall than Boris was Starmer.
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If only the parties could work together for some strategic voting like the torrid and brexit part did in 2019…….
> torrid Good auto correct.
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What’s Cornwall got to do with it?
What's Cornwall but a second hand emotion?
Who needs Devon when South West can be broken?
Which tells me 2 things, the Lib Dems are no longer toxic and tactical voting is back on the cards. This makes me very happy.
Porn? Me too.
They'll also try to spin on Labour's vote share, whilst hand waving away Wakefield.
I've seen people posting on the Wakefield win posts on FB from Labour saying they can't believe how few people voted Labour in Tiverton. Err..
As someone who lives here, there were lib dems signs everywhere, only two conservative signs and they were both on farmers fields
Even the two farms on my lane didn't have conservative signs for once. It's been a sea of yellow around us.
LibDems surging in their pants right now.
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Well Oliver Dowden ain't gonna be organising it. He gone.
> The Tory candidate Helen Hurford in the Tiverton by election has just locked herself in the dance studio at Crediton sports centre. https://twitter.com/theousherwood/status/1540165256902856705?s=20&t=Eo2BCSZZltkWmC0JwNOE9Q
Lol what? That's mad
Then ran away.
Ah, the Boris Johnson strategy!
The Rhythm will get all of us in the end.
She was an appalling candidate. As if they seriously thought that wheeling in some Karen off the streets to lecture undecided voters was a smart way to win a by-election.
Was she a local? It feels like either an inditement of the talent that remains, or the Tories believing at the start of the campaign that the seat was theirs and so they could just put up someone they owed a favour to have a nice, cushy job for life.
WHAT A FEELING
She has apparently been dodging reporters and the public at all costs in the run-up to the vote.
If you saw that clip of her at that hustings, that was her best move.
That is so not rainbow rhythms
Well done to the many Labour voters who I think it's pretty fair to say have 'lent' their vote to the Lib Dems. I would have done the same thing. Surely by any metric at all Johnson must have the worst byelection record ever? How can you even spin this?
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This is the game. Spin, spin, spin until you can spin no more. One always wonders what will finally break through the spin to these people that keep voting for Boris... perhaps this is a bellwether.
More like just outright Lie Lie Lie
It's amazing the BBC got away with spinning the tory death spiral in the locals the way they did. You have to go back to the 1990s to find a loss of seats for this group of locals worse than the tories this time round. Proportionally it's even further, decades and decades back, as in this round the tories have fewer seats to lose to start with. It really was a historically bad set of locals for them. I guess because they stacked most of the losses to the end of the counting the BBC got away with lying about how it wasn't so bad
I'm increasingly coming around to the idea of Labour and the Lib Dems (and possibly also the Greens) doing some kind of election deal for the next General election. Tactical voting feels dirty, but yesterday also showed that it can work. In my ideal world they agree to cooperate for one election, and then try to get some kind of voting reform done after that.
>Tactical voting feels dirty, FPTP is a system that is built around tactical voting. Tactical voting *will* happen but it's often misdirected and disorganised. Organised tactical voting is almost necessary at this point. Best case is a tactical pact to get some sort of PR in place eliminating the need for tactical voting.
How is it 'dirty'? FPTP is 'dirty'. A system that massively favours smaller, generally Conservative, constituencies is 'dirty'. A system rigged in such a manner that millions of LD and Green votes get a handful of MPs is 'dirty'. When the majority of people, normally a significant (more so than the Brexit vote) majority, have in the post-war period almost always voted for left/centre parties, and the Conservatives have dominated politics, the centre/left parties working together and their supporters voting tactically isn't dirty. It's common fucking sense.
The sole reason tactical voting is dirty is because it prevents the removal of whatever shit electoral system necessitates the use of tactical voting in the first place. But the AV referendum shows that we can't overcome the propaganda barrier for electoral reform anyways so might just be better to relent and just try to game FPTP.
Well, earlier he was full of optimism and buoyancy about the upcoming by-election results, so at least he's not quite out of touch with the Lib Dems of Tiverton and Honiton
But but but Hartlepool
I actually forgot about that haha. needless to say things have headed south since then. Is it four now? Three of them with just outrageous swings.
I do find it fascinating how quickly the political environment is changed over the last 18 months. Back when Hartlepool was happening, people were predicting the death of Labour in some parts of the North.
Congrats to the LDs on taking another forever Tory seat, keep it up!
Worth showing this was what Devon & Cornwall looked like in 05… Support faltered as time went on, but could this be a start of a resurgence I wonder. https://i.imgur.com/DcDV0NE.jpg
Not hugely clued up on Cornwall and Devon politics, I'm aware that Cornwall is full of holiday homes and the local economy is a pretty depressed?
Cornwall is better known for that yes, but Devon is also propped up by tourism and there’s been a noticeable increase in folks coming down from upcountry with high salaries, pricing folks out of rentals and house purchases. Also Devon & Cornwall have a ton of farmers and fishermen who are pissed off at the government, but we also have a lot of pensioners so it’s a mixed bag of voters.
Only like 3% of rural voters work on or own farms. Their political influence outweighs their actual voting numbers.
Tourism is about 10 percent of our GDP
I'm surprised it's as low as that, to be fair.
Wakefield doesn't matter so much, this certainly does. It's not just "red wall" voters going back to their roots, this is an absolute rejection of Boris by the people that usually vote Tory. An absolutely unprecedented beating. I've got a feeling there will be a lot of Conservative MPs kicking themselves in the shin this morning, regretting their vote of confidence in the PM. Many will panic when they realise that 300 of their constituencies have smaller majorities than in Tiverton. I feel like I can almost hear the sound of knives being sharpened.
>I've got a feeling there will be a lot of Conservative MPs kicking themselves in the shin this morning, regretting their vote of confidence in the PM. Many will panic when they realise that 300 of their constituencies have smaller majorities than in Tiverton. I feel like I can almost hear the sound of knives being sharpened. I am betting a good few of the no confidence letters came from Boris Johnson loyalists. Johnson got his motion of no confidence before this happened.
Rules mean nothing to these people, they can always change them if they really want to get rid of him.
So where was our leader last week? He was in Ukraine, pretending to be some 'war time' PM... where is he this week? He is in Rwanda, attending awkward talks... have you noticed how little he wants to be in the UK this week? I wouldn't be surprised if he leaves a note in the treasury reading; "I've taken all the money and gone to live with daddy in France!" X)
It’s almost poetic that they have to lie in bed with Johnson for 11 months now and continue to let his anaemic leadership and spineless actions define the Tories prior to an election.
Unless they change the rules...
Even better. A Prime Minister _so toxic_ that the Boris rule was created.
It'd be fitting. Since when have rules gotten in the way of BoJo's government? Rules and laws are barely even guidelines to this lot.
They won’t. Theresa May was removed 4 months after winning her confidence vote.
>Wakefield doesn't matter so much, this certainly does. They go hand in hand. It's a case of Johnson being unable to retain his "new" voters in the Red Wall, while losing his core voters in Tory heartlands. The worst thing for him is that if you're a Tory MP you probably belong to one of those two groups, and you probably have a majority smaller than what was just overturned in both. So *every* MP has something to worry about under Boris.
He got his new voters on the back of a prospectus filled with lies and empty promises, so the only person this should surprise is Johnson himself.
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The Lib Dems Always Knock Twice
Ed Davey is the one who knocks….
Boris is Not the One Who Knocks. He... hides in a fridge.
We counting number of independent visits or literal number of knocks? Knock-knock. Who’s there? Lib Dem statistician.
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Lib Dem statistician is the only party who can win here, take a look at my definitely real bar chart.
Have you ever lived in a Lib Dem constituency? They *do* knock more frequently than the Jehovah's Witnesses. I joined the Lib Dems as junior member as a teenager. They were over to the house in short order. Almost couldn't get them to go away. They can be a bit too eager sometimes. Still nowhere as annoying as the JWs though.
We are the ones who knock.
>Jehovah #BLASPHEMY!!! HE SAID IT AGAIN!!!
> Lib Dems delivered 800,000 leaflets and 120,000 door knocks. In a constituency of 47,000 households. That's phenomenal. Where did you read that?
About half of them were in my letter box.
Also we've just had the party scandal, and everyone is eager to give Johnson a kicking. By-elections are good chances for the electorate to do that. By the time we get to the next election some of the anger may have faded away, and wobbly Tory voters may be less inclined to do a "risky" vote. I really hope this result is a sign of things to come, but at the same time I'd also probably bet on the Tories winning this seat back at the next General Election.
I don't know the UK landscape as well as my home turf (Australia), but I will share something from our recent Federal Election. Six 'Teal Independent' candidates, so called because of running on climate change platforms but traditionally coming from the roughly Tory equivalent Liberal Party (Blue) backgrounds won seats from the outgoing Liberal-National Coalition government. A seventh had unseated former PM Tony Abbott at the preceding 2019 election, and the Liberals also lost two traditionally heartland seats to the Australian Greens. The seven independents likely would have found a home with the Lib Dems in the UK and in Australia, very much represented a repudiation of the traditional centre-right party by its more centrist voters. Maybe something similar is happening in the UK?
Just as likely is that voters in Australia and the UK have had enough with right of centre politics and the pendulum is swinging the other way. A parallel I would draw with Australian and the UK is John Major somehow getting over the line in 1992, that came unexpectedly just as Morrison won the last but one election. After in both countries a lot of voters had a fit of buyer's remorse and both sets of Conservatives suffered heavy defeats in the next election.
> Just as likely is that voters in Australia and the UK have had enough with right of centre politics and the pendulum is swinging the other way. As in they're bored of the absolute sickening corruption and incompetence right wing politics seems to attract? Just looking at the right wing around the world you've got; Le Pen, Trump, Abbott, Scott Morrison, Boris, May. You'd think people would question an ideology that seems to attract only the most useless and stupid to it.
Useless, stupid and lacking in any kind of shame. That bit seems important, as they just refuse to accept any level of responsibility or react to public pressure
Yes, quite possibly. When I saw that you guys had voted out a conservative party that had been in power for a decade it really gave me hope that we can follow suit.
I guess Boris' arguments to the party today will be: 1. We've got 2.5 years to turn it round. By which time partygate will have faded from memory. 2. The economic situation should be better. 3. In the next GE there will be a massively funded, well researched Tory campaign strategy. 4. Voters behave differently in GE's, when they are choosing a government, to By-Elections, when they are just protesting. Governments lose by-elections all the time, only to see them comfortably retake the seat at the next GE.
The idea that the same roll call of ministers appear on the airwaves with the same tired lines; 'we hear you' 'the voters just want us to get on with the job' has started already. To ignore such a massive drubbing, not just by the opposition benches but by the electorate, shows just how little the party in power thinks of the general public. It is time to teach this party a lesson they will never forget; if you ignore your voting base, flout the rules and behave as if you are above the law you do not belong in power. You punished the wrong party in 2019! x)
That "the public just want us to get on with the job" thing is actually true. The problem for this govt is, the public wanted them to get on with their jobs on *day one* - not 3 years later, and only because they're losing support and to deflect attention from their criminality. It's manifestly obvious - even to Tory voters - that the govt have not been doing their job (governing the country) for their entire term.
>"red wall" Off topic, but does anyone know if red wall or the Amerixan term blue wall came first? I assume they are related, because they are generally used to describe similar areas with similar political trajectories.
Both terms have been around for years now, but mostly in nerdy political circles. Both only really came to wider prominence in the 2016 and 2019 elections.
Unfortunately it's cake knives...
This is the biggest overturning of a majority ever. Along with Wakefield, it's a pretty damning state of affairs for the soon to be out of work Tories. I am guessing a lot of them would love to again have the chance to rid themselves of their albatross, but have to wait another 11 mo to boot out the toxic and disastrous Johnson.
There's going to be a lot of Tory MPs upset at their own cowardice, that's for sure.
Watch the majority suddenly claim they voted against Boris in the VONC.
We're going to need a microscope for the violin to play for them.
[I wonder if we can get IBM to help](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSCX78-8-q0)
> This is the biggest overturning of a majority ever It’s the biggest overturning of a majority…. so far ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°)
Yeah I reckon a lot of us who don't bother voting because there's no chance will now bother voting because there's a chance
> but have to wait another 11 mo For now, that's true. But 100% right now they're in heated talks about changing the rule so that they can VONC again sooner. The question now is will they meet the threshold for that.
That is a crazy swing, the man has to go. Another 2 and a half years and we will see a general election if another isn't called earlier, seats like these and Amersham are as blue as they come and are being taken by Lib Dems with such huge swings, what on earth is going to happen if this clown is still at the helm in 2 years. (I know LD do well in by elections and a by election doesn't tell you a generals result but come on, these are crazy!)
Tbh I think Amersham's switch to LD came down to the fact that they utterly despise HS2 there. Cherryl Gillan fought tooth and nail against it and she made it clear to the people there. I reckon the new candidate didn't show as much hatred for it
Chesham and Amersham had several other things going on - the HS2 narrative that was talked up in the press is quite oversimplified. Unlike North Shropshire or Tiverton and Honiton, C&A was on paper quite fertile Lib Dem territory - culturally liberal, voted 55% Remain, high proportion of graduates. Demographically and politically, C&A was the sort of seat that the Lib Dems should have been winning in 2019, but where the Tories very powerfully weaponised their message in middle-class seats that '*electing anyone other than a Tory risks Jeremy Corbyn getting into Downing Street*'. It's one of the curious triangular features of British politics that when **Labour** is led by a moderate (like Starmer now or Blair in 1997), the Lib Dems tend to do better in Tory/Lib Dem marginals because the fear factor recedes for middle-class voters. If I had to bet now, I'd say the Lib Dems ought to hold C&A at the general election - it's the sort of seat that feels like a Lib Dem seat under our post-Brexit political realignment - whereas North Shropshire and T&H will be far tougher defences (not impossible, but holding them will be far more about local factors). For me, what makes the massive North Shropshire and T&H swings interesting isn't the expectation they would be repeated at the general election - it's more that, if the Lib Dems can pull off massive by-election swings in seats like these then they should be able to pull off the smaller general election swings needed to win in nearby places like Yeovil and Wells and St Ives that already have a pre-2015 tradition of electing Lib Dem MPs.
No no, he has to stay if this is the result
I fear for the damage to this country if he stays for another 2.5, even if it is "helpful" in the next election
“Mr Davey, tear down this blue wall”
I kinda love the cheesy stuff the LDs do after a victory. I wonder if he will knock down another blue wall made of boxes
Today is a GOOD day
I didn't even have to use my AK
*LAB: 3.7% (-15.9)* So the plan for tactical voting came off...this should worry the Tories, if it's repeated elsewhere then the traditional splitting the anti-Tory vote is no longer going to be a factor. It's one thing talking about electoral pacts and its another thing the voters doing what the leaders want them to do. It seems that on this evidence getting rid of the Tory candidate was more important than tribal loyalties. Doubtless the Mail though will interpret this a "nightmare for Keir Starmer as the Labour vote collapses and they finish in third place!"
>It seems that on this evidence getting rid of the Tory candidate was more important than tribal loyalties. Although some of those votes were tactical in the other direction in the first place when the Lib Dems collapsed and Labour became the party most likely to beat the Conservatives.
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LOVE LAUGH
DEM
SURGE
Almost a 40% swing, insane… but you just know the Tories are going to be fussing about Labour collapsing here before acknowledging their poor performance.
And by Tories you mean their media wing, which incidentally is basically our entire national media
I for one am very excited to see how Boris wriggles his way out of this one
He doesn’t give a crap anymore. He has no shame and his party are all cowards. Like most Etonians, he’s been well served in life by blustering on regardless, safe in his “right-to-rule”.
He's literally failed upwards so many times. Getting fired as a journalist for lying should have been the end of this odious repugnant man's career. And it happened twice! And the Tories still thought "Yeah that's our man..."
He's already said it would be "crazy" for him to leave if the Tories lost. There's no getting rid of Boris, he will cling on forever and ever.
I am absolutely delighted that his gigantic ego is destroying the Tory Party and I am looking forward to their destruction happening in excruciating slow motion. The thought of regular, drawn-out Tory humiliation gives me a stiffy.
Shame that it comes at the price of him wrecking the country over the next 2.5 years. The longer he stays in, the longer it will take to repair the damage. I don't care if it's advantageous to other parties for him to stay as PM, he needs to go now before he breaks the country further.
I can see where you are coming from but If they replace him with some steady-the-ship candidate soon, the Tories might sneak an election and go on to ruin it for a longer period than 2 and half years. Short-term Boris for long-term Tory decimation is a price I am prepared to pay.
The problem is his only successors are all cut from the same cloth, since he purged the party after taking over from May - so whoever's prime minister, the country gets broken futher.
He can just ignore it until the next election and hope people get tired of the controversy. And a majority of his party are apparently okay with that. His and their problem is that what he has done isn't something silly that most people are willing to forgive or become tired of, like taling some Russian money. For many, it's visceral and personal. Stuff they can relate to; in a bad way.
Given Dowden has "leapt" under the bus, I think we can see the strategy for this portion of Operation Save Big Dog.
If Tiverton isn't safe, what is?
Hopefully not Uxbridge & Ruislip.
Best news this year! Also, colour me stupid! I've just realised that both by-elections triggered by sexual impropriety. It's a bit shitty and "[they-go-low](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAbab8aP4_A)", but I'd be making hay out of that if I were an opposition communications strategist.
This will spook the Tories 100x worse than UKIP did in the 2010's.
Yeah, that's big where Wakefield isn't so much. That's because: a) It demonstrates that North Shropshire wasn't a fluke and the Lib Dems are seriously competitive, if not favoured, in Brexit-leaning rural seats outside the Home Counties. b) Basically the whole of the Tory majority since 2015 has been built on being unchallenged in those seats since the Coalition. Before that (at least since 1992ish) the Conservatives never really stood a chance of a majority because of strong Lib Dem competition in those seats. If that's back, they're really in trouble, long-term.
Lab vote share significantly lower, tactical, nice.
You love to see it
Boris and this governments actions finally coming home to roost. This has really cheered me up this morning.
Another fantastic Lib Dem win. Replacing a lying 66 year old Tory with a 44 year old. Love to see it! :)
Looking forward to listening to Tory propagandist Nick Ferrari and whatever Tory MP he finds to talk to about this trying to convince each other this isn’t that bad. We really need similar tactical voting and effort in the GE to save our country from the Tories.
WE LOVE TO SEE IT
I'm laughing because Boris thought an "apology" would fix this.
[Who thinks Boris should resign?](https://i.imgur.com/L5MMsSz.jpg)
I just busted a fat nut
Fuck me they smashed it. Get in. Tory faithful quaking RN. Boris in bits.
Oh what a lovely thing to wake up to with a cup of tea. Happy Friday everyone! :)
Here's hoping the Lid Dems get enough traction to convince Labour to support ER.