Byelections 27th July

[yellowperil]

If I were Labour I'm not sure I'd be happy being told losing by 3 votes was a great result. Looks as though Noc who gave us all so much mirth may have had the last laugh. But this is Blandford and the Bastards always come out on top in the end

[Davıd Boothroyd]

North Dorset remained a Liberal Parliamentary seat into the early 1950s so Labour never displaced the Liberals as the main challengers to the Conservatives. The 2017 election was the first time Labour had finished higher than third.

[peterl]

Jul 28, 2017 8:12:03 GMT yellowperil said:

If I were Labour I'm not sure I'd be happy being told losing by 3 votes was a great result. Looks as though Noc who gave us all so much mirth may have had the last laugh. But this is Blandford and the Bastards always come out on top in the end

Almost 600 votes off winning two years ago, so great progress made. If Labour can get this close, they can win next time. If they can win in Blandford, there are several Dorset towns where they can win: Wareham, Verwood, Dorchester even. Combining this with the General Election results in Bournemouth and Poole, I can see a huge Labour surge in Dorset in the next few years.

[thetop]

[marksenior]

Jul 28, 2017 7:44:32 GMT CatholicLeft said:

Jul 28, 2017 6:51:36 GMT AdminSTB said:

Unconfirmed but reported as

Conservative GAIN from Independent in North Dorset DC, Blandford Central

Conservatives 310
Labour 307
LD Hugo Mieville 229
Turnout: 25%

If true, this is a great result for Labour and upholds the Electoral Calculus guess for this ward at the General Election which put Labour at second p!ace with 28.7% of the vote behind the Tories on 42.4, the Lib Dems on 25.04%, with the Greens trailing on 3.86%.
If Labour are putting in the work in wards like this, it makes politics interesting in this part of South West, confirming Labour's move ahead of the Lib Dems in constituencies like North Dorset.

It indicates nothing of the sort . When turn out is so low , all it shows is which party's core supporters are most enthused to vote . Yes Labour came 2nd but their 307 votes was fewer than they polled in the ward in 2015 and less than half the prediction Electoral Calculus give for Labour in this ward in June . .

[Adrian]

Jul 28, 2017 7:39:31 GMT @benjl said:

Wait so it's OK not to vote if you live in a safe area or are a student... It's the principle dam it

It's okay not to vote, period.

[The Bishop]

Labour's almost successful candidate in Blandford - is it the same person who stood for the N Dorset parliamentary seat back in 1970 (!)?

For the record, I believe our sole success on the council is one member elected in 1995 (can't remember where, but somewhere else I think)

[yellowperil]

I till think its a failing (usually seen in Lb Dems,tbh) to rejoice in a near miss when you should be asking what went wrong. If you can get within 3 votes, you could have won, and at that stage its a matter of belief.

[The Bishop]

True, but I suspect this one really does fall into the "if only enough people had thought we could win, we would have" category.

At least it sets things up nicely for 2019

[andrew111]

I think that was a very bad night for the Lib Dems despite small increases in their vote in all three seats. In the period between the referendum and Theresa May calling the General Election they would certainly have won in Lincolnshire and Dorset and might have won in Fallowfield when you consider how many Lib Dem leaflets have been delivered there this year. However as I recall things were similar for a few months after the 2015 Election

For the time being at least the landscape has been changed since the GE was called as we saw first in the May elections. Hopefully from my point of view things change before next May or there will be another round of Lib Dem losses from the already low base of 2014....

[marksenior]

Jul 28, 2017 11:35:29 GMT The Bishop said:

True, but I suspect this one really does fall into the "if only enough people had thought we could win, we would have" category.

At least it sets things up nicely for 2019

All Labour needed to do was get out the 350 people who voted Labour in 2015 . With a normal turnout in 2019 , Labour will fall back and not be close to winning .

[yellowperil]

Agree with Andrew111 that this was a bad night for the LibDems -we would certainly have gobbled up both Blandford and the Linconshire seat only a few months ago and even our Forum predictors had Blandford down as a LD gain by 8 to 1, so third place there was poor by any standard. Yes maybe a post-election slough but we really do need to go away and analyse what went wrong, or we are in real trouble. We did drop to third place in the GE here and the Tory majority in North Dorset was some 25k, but this still remains the sort of seat the LibDems traditionally do well in (i.e these days, don't lose a deposit). Not so sure Fallowfield was ever realistic though, even for a respectable second - I know Andrew has in mind all those leaflets from the Gorton non-by-election and hoping they would have had some impact
but, realistically, no chance.

[seanf]

It does seem that in the South West, the anti-Conservative vote is switching from Lib Dem to Labour, albeit the Conservatives now have a very big lead.

The Lib Dems do have a chance of winning back North Devon, St. Ives, or Cheltenham, but they've fallen away elsewhere.

[ColinJ]

Jul 28, 2017 9:25:08 GMT The Bishop said:

Labour's almost successful candidate in Blandford - is it the same person who stood for the N Dorset parliamentary seat back in 1970 (!)?

For the record, I believe our sole success on the council is one member elected in 1995 (can't remember where, but somewhere else I think)

Good memory. Bulbarrow ward: R. Day (Lab) 179, J. Haynes (Con) 146.

As for Labour candidate, Mr. Haydn R. White, we learn from The Times Guide 1970 that he was born in June 1940, so is now 77.

[yellowperil]

Jul 28, 2017 13:59:12 GMT ColinJ said:

Jul 28, 2017 9:25:08 GMT The Bishop said:

Labour's almost successful candidate in Blandford - is it the same person who stood for the N Dorset parliamentary seat back in 1970 (!)?

For the record, I believe our sole success on the council is one member elected in 1995 (can't remember where, but somewhere else I think)

Good memory. Bulbarrow ward: R. Day (Lab) 179, J. Haynes (Con) 146.

As for Labour candidate, Mr. Haydn R. White, we learn from The Times Guide 1970 that he was born in June 1940, so is now 77.

So this young man has quite a political career in front of him .

I have happy memories of Bulbarrow, but they date from the 40s and 50s long before the days of Day or Haynes.

I am just wondering now whether the failure to produce the killer blow for Labour, falling just 3 votes short as I commented on above, may be caused by Haydn White realising he was in dire danger of actually getting elected

[The Bishop]

Jul 28, 2017 13:59:12 GMT ColinJ said:

Jul 28, 2017 9:25:08 GMT The Bishop said:

Labour's almost successful candidate in Blandford - is it the same person who stood for the N Dorset parliamentary seat back in 1970 (!)?

For the record, I believe our sole success on the council is one member elected in 1995 (can't remember where, but somewhere else I think)

Good memory. Bulbarrow ward: R. Day (Lab) 179, J. Haynes (Con) 146.

As for Labour candidate, Mr. Haydn R. White, we learn from The Times Guide 1970 that he was born in June 1940, so is now 77.

And has stood in most if not all regular DC elections since it was set up in 1973, it appears.

[albion]

Jul 28, 2017 13:08:16 GMT seanf said:

It does seem that in the South West, the anti-Conservative vote is switching from Lib Dem to Labour, albeit the Conservatives now have a very big lead.

The Lib Dems do have a chance of winning back North Devon, St. Ives, or Cheltenham, but they've fallen away elsewhere.

And, in the current circumstances of an imploding Conservative party, North Cornwall comes back into play as it remains a Labour-free zone.

[Sibboleth]

Jul 28, 2017 13:59:12 GMT ColinJ said:

Jul 28, 2017 9:25:08 GMT The Bishop said:

Labour's almost successful candidate in Blandford - is it the same person who stood for the N Dorset parliamentary seat back in 1970 (!)?

For the record, I believe our sole success on the council is one member elected in 1995 (can't remember where, but somewhere else I think)

Good memory. Bulbarrow ward: R. Day (Lab) 179, J. Haynes (Con) 146.

As for Labour candidate, Mr. Haydn R. White, we learn from The Times Guide 1970 that he was born in June 1940, so is now 77.

Not to be confused with Hayden White, presumably

[The Bishop]

Jul 28, 2017 15:22:07 GMT albion said:

Jul 28, 2017 13:08:16 GMT seanf said:

It does seem that in the South West, the anti-Conservative vote is switching from Lib Dem to Labour, albeit the Conservatives now have a very big lead.

The Lib Dems do have a chance of winning back North Devon, St. Ives, or Cheltenham, but they've fallen away elsewhere.

And, in the current circumstances of an imploding Conservative party, North Cornwall comes back into play as it remains a Labour-free zone.

Historically speaking Labour's worst seat in England, though unlike many others it has actually had an MP from the people's party

[johnloony]

Jul 28, 2017 7:39:31 GMT @benjl said:

Wait so it's OK not to vote if you live in a safe area or are a student... It's the principle dam it

If you believe in compulsory voting as a principle, then it should be completely irrelevant whether current turnouts are very low, or very high, or something else. There is no logical basis for you to argue that a turnout of 9% is an argument for compulsory voting; if that is your belief then you need to justify it with reasons unrelated to turnout.