Two things have to happen for Labour to win here - nationalist fatigue and Unionist tactical voting. Are both likely? I see no evidence of that
Tactical voting is harder (from the voter's perspective) in a Westminster election than a Holyrood one because there is no parallel party list vote to give your "true" vote to.
“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” ― Blaise Pascal
Post by minionofmidas on May 12, 2021 19:10:39 GMT
The guy who caused this unnecessary by-election received an absolute majority last week. I don't think there's any degree of tactical voting by Unionists that would put this seat in play.
Two things have to happen for Labour to win here - nationalist fatigue and Unionist tactical voting. Are both likely? I see no evidence of that
Tactical voting is harder (from the voter's perspective) in a Westminster election than a Holyrood one because there is no parallel party list vote to give your "true" vote to.
Tactical voting is also easier for Conservatives in Labour seats than the other way round. The Tories may find a call for a tactical vote to be a good way to get around what could be a dire looking result (although they have brazen these results out before). It might also be a way of tarnishing a Scottish Labour victory in a way that makes it less transferable to Labour south of the border.
EDIT: Also tactical voting is pretty much expected at by-elections, as plenty of opposition party and Liberal wins have shown.
Labour seem to have a strong stubborn support in the Fortissat ward (Shotts) but it's still a tall order for them. One analyst on this site concluded that it might have been the only ward they carried in the whole of Scotland at the 2016 Scottish election.
Hi all is there a byelection special tonight on any channel,thanks
Try this one ...
When in that House M.P.’s divide, If they’ve a brain and cerebellum, too, They’ve got to leave that brain outside, And vote just as their leaders tell ’em to (W.S. Gilbert, "Iolanthe")
BBC politics page just after the polls close will probably have a story about it revealing when the count is and when a result is expected. Personally, as this will most likely not be a fascinating contest, I will not be staying up too late for the result.
Long Live King Charles!
“Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are right.”H.L. Mencken
I had Sky News on, in the vague assumption that it was more likely to broadcast the declaration than the BBC News channel, but I wasn’t expecting the newsreader to mention it so briefly and casually in passing without even attempting to tell us any of the figures.
Bah humbug.
"Budapest" is pronounced [ˈbudɒpɛʃt] ; "Fidesz" is pronounced [ˈfidɛs] ; "Raymond Luxury-Yacht" is pronounced [θrəʊt ˈwɒblə ˈmæŋɡrəʊv]
Someone has hastily set up a Wikipedia page for the newly-elected MP. It's unusual for someone to be elected to Westminster who didn't previously have a page.
Yet again this Twit insults us by telling us percentages without telling us the result.
Well of course it's the vital information needed if you happen to be involved in a prediction competition, and barring that why should anyone be interested?
Well of course it's the vital information needed if you happen to be involved in a prediction competition, and barring that why should anyone be interested?
If they're only going to give one set of information I'd rather have the raw figures, since anyone can work out the percentages, whereas it's impossible to work out the raw data from the percentages. Statement of the obvious I know.
About 20 years ago, Croydon council had a referendum on how much Council Tax should be increased by (the options were 2%, 3.5% and 5%). For some reason, the conduct of the referendum was contracted out to Electoral Reform Services, instead of being done by the usual elections department of the council. Idiotically and annoyingly, the ERS reported the results of the referendum (with separate totals for each ward) in the form of percentages rather than numbers. But they were published to an accuracy of two decimal places, so that the numbers were precise enough that it was possible to calculate backwards to find the original numbers. But I was still annoyed because one of the wards added up to 100.05%, so there must have been a discrepancy of about 2 votes somewhere.
"Budapest" is pronounced [ˈbudɒpɛʃt] ; "Fidesz" is pronounced [ˈfidɛs] ; "Raymond Luxury-Yacht" is pronounced [θrəʊt ˈwɒblə ˈmæŋɡrəʊv]
Someone has hastily set up a Wikipedia page for the newly-elected MP. It's unusual for someone to be elected to Westminster who didn't previously have a page.
I remember back in the day when pages for challenger party candidates would be successfully challenged and deleted because being a candidate on its own didn't imply notability
Yet another result which indicates that voting is based on one issue, and one side of that issue has a largely united voting force, as opposed to the other.