My analysis of British local by-elections from the first fortnight of September 2021

 Readers, the results of British local by-elections from the first fortnight of September 2021 (2 and 9 September 2021) were as follows:

(02/09/2021):

Calerdale MBC, Park: Labour 1,980 (82.9%, -4.3%), Conservative 212 (8.9%, +2.2%), Green 137 (5.7%, +1.8%), Liberal Democrats 60 (2.5%, +0.3%). All changes are since 2019.

Calerdale MBC, Ryburn: Conservative 1,188 (53.6%, +25.4%), Labour 798 (36.0%, +24.8%), Green 163 (7.4%, +0.9%), Liberal Democrats 66 (3.0%, -0.9%). Conservative gain from Independent; all changes are since 2019.

Cheshire East UA, Wilmslow Dean Row: Residents of Wilmslow 447 (50.7%, -18.7%), Conservative 354 (40.2%, +9.6%), Liberal Democrats 46 (5.2%), Green 34 (3.9%). 

(09/09/2021):

Newcastle-upon-Tyne MBC, Castle: Liberal Democrats 1,306 (42.5%, -5.9%), Labour 773 (25.1%, -6.0%), Conservative 657 (21.4%, +6.8%), Green 250 (8.1%, -0.2%), North East Party 89 (2.9%). [No Independent candidates this time; the Independent in May was the North East Party candidate in this by-election]

North East Derbyshire DC, Barlow & Holmesfield: Conservative 294 (69.0%, +3.8%), Labour 90 (21.1%, -0.4%), Liberal Democrats 42 (9.9%, -3.4%).

North East Derbyshire DC, Killamarsh East: Labour 291 (49.9%, +2.7%), Conservative 251 (43.1%, -9.8%), Liberal Democrats 41 (7.0%). Labour gain from Conservative.

North Tyneside MBC, Camperdown: Labour 957 (66.7%, +7.2%), Conservative 352 (24.5%, +6.5%), Green 78 (5.4%), Liberal Democrats 48 (3.3%).

South Derbyshire DC, Seales: Wheelton (Independent) 399 (39.8%), Conservative 390 (38.9%, -11.7%)) Labour 188 (18.7%, -11.4%), Green 27 (2.6%). Independent gain from Conservative. [SDP did not stand]

South Tyneside MBC, Cleadon & East Boldon: Conservative 989 (35.1%, -13.5%), Green 943 (33.5%, +22.4%), Labour 886 (31.4%, -8.9%). 

Of these nine by-elections, the most surprising result was a near-miss by the Green Party in Cleadon & East Boldon ward, the only ward in South Tyneside that has elected Conservative councillors recently; in the North East the Green Party has generally fared better in traditionally Labour-held seats (all the recent Green gains in South Tyneside have been from Labour, for example), and which is normally a tight Conservative-Labour marginal.

Meanwhile, in Killamarsh East, Labour gained the seat partly because the Liberal Democrats accidentally split the Labour vote; in ex-mining areas such as Killamarsh the Liberal Democrat vote (and the Green vote) is naturally weak and generally hits the Conservative vote much more than the Labour vote, although in most cases this makes little difference. The recent National Insurance rise, which all but five Conservative MPs (Sir Christopher Chope, Phillip Davies, Neil Hudson, Esther McVey and Sir John Redwood) voted for, was also a significant factor in the Conservatives' loss of that by-election, as well as their loss of the Seales by-election in South Derbyshire (which also had a sitting Conservative councillor re-running as an Independent) and them nearly losing Cleadon & East Boldon. It has also led to the Conservatives polling below Labour for the first time in seven years; this is not surprising given that it will be low-income workers and self-employed small businesspeople (who formed a large proportion of Labour-Conservative switchers and Brexit Party voters in 2019) who will be hit hardest by National Insurance rises, at a time where the UK is still struggling to recover economically and socially from COVID despite restrictions having been lifted nearly two months ago.



Comments

  1. clivelord.wordpress.com10 September 2021 at 22:23

    Just to reinforce the trend for Greens to take Con rather than Lab votes. The Tories should lose all their 'red wall' gains as a result of their recent mean tax on the poorest with Covid as the pretext. But Greens should be pushing the IPCC 'Red Alert' warning, and those pics of a devastated street in Germany

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On the 2020 Serbian election: Why a boycott will only worsen things there

First of all, I apologise for the recent hiatus; however elections are still postponed or on hold in many countries, including the UK. Serbia, however, was able to proceed with its 2020 general election amidst this crisis. Its overall result proved reminiscent of Hungarian elections under Viktor Orban's tenure (2010-present), since the leading national-conservative coalition, the SNS (Progressive Party of Serbia) coalition led by Serbian President Aleksander Vucic (Ana Brnabic is the Serbian Prime Minister, and the first woman and openly homosexual person to hold that position), polled 61.6% of the vote, giving them as many as 191 seats out of 250 and a majority of as high as 132, almost unheard of in any country with proportional representation. Press freedom has endured significant curbs since President Vucic first came into power as Serbian PM in 2012 (he became President of Serbia in 2017), as have civil liberties of Serbs in general. Nepotism and corruption in the Serbian
Read more

My analysis of local by-elections from 22/11/18

Readers, the results of this week's British local by-elections were as follows: Enfield LBC, Bush Hill Park: Conservative 1540 (52.4%, +12.7%), Labour 828 (28.2%, -8.3%), Liberal Democrats 313 (10.7%, -0.8%), Green 127 (4.3%, -6.6%), WEP 79 (2.7%), Independent (Oyaloyu) 50 (1.7%). [UKIP did not stand] Westminster LBC, Lancaster Gate: Conservative 913 (47.2%, -1.5%), Labour 684 (35.4%, -1.0%), Liberal Democrats 275 (14.2%, -0.7%), Green 62 (3.2%). Windsor & Maidenhead UA, Datchet: Conservative 525 (56.0%, -3.1%), National Flood Prevention Party 223 (23.8%), Labour 121 (12.9%, -9.1%), Liberal Democrats 48 (5.1%,-13.8%), Green 21 (2.2%). Wirral MBC, Upton: Labour 1490 (61.3%, +3.1%), Conservative 705 (29.0%, +0.4%), Green 151 (6.2%, -0.5%), Liberal Democrats 83 (3.4%, -0.8%). [TUSC did not stand] All changes are since May. The open divisions in the Conservatives, which resulted in a failed attempt to call for a vote of no confidence in Theresa May by the European Researc
Read more

My analysis of the Swedish general election of 2022

The Swedish general election of 2022 generated some surprising results, despite also averting pollsters' predictions significantly. The last three years in particular proved to be a rough ride for the Social Democrat led governments of Stefan Lofven and Magdalena Andersson respectively. Although Sweden's laxer approach to the COVID-19 pandemic (compared to most countries in Europe, which imposed lockdowns during much of 2020 and 2021, an approach that arguably caused more problems than it solved) proved effective, Mr Lofven's desire to lift the austerity tax (which only affected a wealthy minority, similar in nature to the wealth tax initiative of former French President Francois Hollande) and to join NATO proved contentious, with two of the Social Democrats' former coalition partners (the Swedish Greens and Swedish Left Party, who had both pulled out of confidence and supply) unsurprisingly voting against Swedish accession to NATO membership (all other parties in the R
Read more