Chesham and Amersham

[yellowperil]

Apr 6, 2021 17:02:29 GMT Davıd Boothroyd said:

Apr 6, 2021 15:35:46 GMT Devil Wincarnate said:

That sounds an intriguing story (not least given the state of some senior politicians in Belgium at the time) - what went on?

Sorry, wrong government - it was the Dutch government.

Dutch sacked me, says UK minister

by Boris Johnson EEC Correspondent in Brussels

EDWARD LEIGH, the former Minister of Technology, accused John Major yesterday of giving in to pressure from Holland and France and sacking him after he vetoed a £600 million subsidy.

The charge is certain to raise new fears that the Prime Minister's most critical personnel decisions are susceptible to EEC pressure. With Mr Leigh gone, Britain is poised to accede to a scaled-down deal in Brussels on Wednesday to subsidise a new breed of so-called highdefinition televisions, keystone of the "industrial policy" of Jacques Delors, EEC commission president.

Protests by Ruud Lubbers, the Dutch prime minister, had helped to persuade Mr Major to fire him last month, the former junior minister claimed — the first time other EEC powers have been blamed for a ministerial dismissal.

But Tristan Garel-Jones, the former Foreign Office Minister, said yesterday that,Mr Leigh's dismissal had been on the cards several months before.

Independent sources confirmed that Mr Lubbers berated Mr Major over Britain's hardline stance at the Edinburgh summit, after Mr Leigh repeatedly vetoed subsidies in defiance of all other EEC countries.

This was followed by a "complaint" from the Foreign Office to No. 10 that Mr Leigh was "souring the atmosphere". The EEC had proposed spending hundreds of millions of pounds to encourage French and Dutch manufacturers of commercially unproven wide-screen sets, said Mr Leigh. The 16ftby-9ft television sets, built by Philips of Holland and Thomson of France, cost £3,000 each.

The Foreign Office had accepted the logic of his refusal, based on the assumption that Philips and Thomson were trying to cover losses, he said, but senior advisers had been appalled by his confrontational stance. Industry analysts said last night that Mr Leigh had prevented the squandering of £600 million on an outdated system.

Wonder what ever happened to that journalist.

Given it was that particular journalist, do you think there is the remotest possibility that there was the slightest bit of truth in the story, or was it totally made up?

[East Anglian Lefty]

Apr 6, 2021 17:12:33 GMT manchesterman said:

Apr 6, 2021 14:40:50 GMT Andrew_S said:

I think the LDs could do well here. In fact it's probably one of the best 50 constituencies for them to fight at by-election at the moment.

Early prediction: Con 50%, LD 40%, Others 10%.

I agree with that. I think if a "normal" by-election occurred with all candidates standing,  I could see that being something close to the result.

I think this by-election would be an ideal petri dish however for the policy propounded, by the likes of me and Merseymike amongst others, that there needs to be at the next GE a cross-party one-off agreement to do whatever is necessary to help the best-placed anti-Tory candidate to win, with the primary purpose of implementing PR for future elections.

This would require a hell of a LOT of internal discipline across all the parties; some will have to get used to standing down just this once . It's a very short-term sacrifice for a very long term benefit. However I appreciate it wont be easy and it is counter-intuitive to stand aside, albeit for the 'greater good'.  In many seats Labour would be the beneficiary of this pact, but in quite a few they wont ..like this one!  Here is a great chance for Labour to show some leadership and stand aside.

Of course it wont happen, as Starmer, Davey , Lucas et al havent even had 'pre-discussion discussions' about any such policy [and they may never do]. Indeed I suspect Labour will stand here..get 5% or so and think "ah well maybe next time".

if you want the Tories to continue ruling ad infinitum with 40% support, just carry on regardless. if Starmer wants to be the next PM he needs to wake up and smell the coffee.

The idea that Chesham and Amersham would fall to a progressive alliance is ludicrous. There are conversations to be hard about how hard parties should fight in each other's target seats and if they should stand down (though frankly that's not usually very useful), but if an asteroid hits the constituency then the cockroaches are still going to give the Conservatives at least 50% of the vote.

[Deleted]

If the Labour Party ever stood down and asked me to vote LibDem I'd vote Tory just to make sure the pact failed

[Deleted]

Why should Labour stand down for a party that insults us, treats us with contempt, makes beating us one of the main planks of their campaign, and then goes into coalition with the Tories anyway?

[andrewp]

Apr 6, 2021 18:46:10 GMT @europeanlefty said:

If the Labour Party ever stood down and asked me to vote LibDem I'd vote Tory just to make sure the pact failed

I have a friend who’s a Labour member in Somerset who says the same. 

[manchesterman]

Apr 6, 2021 18:44:24 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

Apr 6, 2021 17:12:33 GMT manchesterman said:

I agree with that. I think if a "normal" by-election occurred with all candidates standing,  I could see that being something close to the result.

I think this by-election would be an ideal petri dish however for the policy propounded, by the likes of me and Merseymike amongst others, that there needs to be at the next GE a cross-party one-off agreement to do whatever is necessary to help the best-placed anti-Tory candidate to win, with the primary purpose of implementing PR for future elections.

This would require a hell of a LOT of internal discipline across all the parties; some will have to get used to standing down just this once . It's a very short-term sacrifice for a very long term benefit. However I appreciate it wont be easy and it is counter-intuitive to stand aside, albeit for the 'greater good'.  In many seats Labour would be the beneficiary of this pact, but in quite a few they wont ..like this one!  Here is a great chance for Labour to show some leadership and stand aside.

Of course it wont happen, as Starmer, Davey , Lucas et al havent even had 'pre-discussion discussions' about any such policy [and they may never do]. Indeed I suspect Labour will stand here..get 5% or so and think "ah well maybe next time".

if you want the Tories to continue ruling ad infinitum with 40% support, just carry on regardless. if Starmer wants to be the next PM he needs to wake up and smell the coffee.

The idea that Chesham and Amersham would fall to a progressive alliance is ludicrous. There are conversations to be hard about how hard parties should fight in each other's target seats and if they should stand down (though frankly that's not usually very useful), but if an asteroid hits the constituency then the cockroaches are still going to give the Conservatives at least 50% of the vote.

The idea of my post wasnt to make it likely that the LDs would win the by-election [as mentioned earlier, that would be relatively meaningless as things stand; albeit a fillip]. i was more talking about using it as a petri dish experiment..(which I specifically mentioned!)

As I said, if Labour (and others) dont want to come together in a one-off scenario to promote a fairer voting system, then so be it. Get used to Tory governments for 90% of the rest of your life...

[Pete Whitehead]

There's also the more important point that YL made which is while there may be plenty of moderate/wet/Remain supporting (insert other cliched label) Conservative voters here of the kind who can easily swing to the Lib Dems in the right circumstances, in local elections or in a by-election (but note this is not 1993), a Lib Dem candidate who is endorsed by Labour and the Green party and is standing explicitly on some kind of Unite the Left, Popular Front ticket is going to down like a cup of cold sick with them. And there's a lot more of them to be won over than there is Labour voters (especially bearing in mind that each vote won from the Conservatives is worth two gained from Labour)

[East Anglian Lefty]

And this is essentially what it comes down to. There have been effective anti-Tory pacts before, because the electorate has voted for the candidate who can most successfully beat the Tories. This has not required any party to stand down. Voters are smart enough to vote strategically if they want to stop somebody winning.

[Defenestrated Fipplebox]

Apr 6, 2021 19:06:29 GMT manchesterman said:

Apr 6, 2021 18:44:24 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

The idea that Chesham and Amersham would fall to a progressive alliance is ludicrous. There are conversations to be hard about how hard parties should fight in each other's target seats and if they should stand down (though frankly that's not usually very useful), but if an asteroid hits the constituency then the cockroaches are still going to give the Conservatives at least 50% of the vote.

The idea of my post wasnt to make it likely that the LDs would win the by-election [as mentioned earlier, that would be relatively meaningless as things stand; albeit a fillip]. i was more talking about using it as a petri dish experiment..(which I specifically mentioned!)

As I said, if Labour (and others) dont want to come together in a one-off scenario to promote a fairer voting system, then so be it. Get used to Tory governments for 90% of the rest of your life...

The Tories are the natural party of government in the UK, they've been the governing party for about two thirds of the time for the last century. I think it's approximately 61 of the last 100 years or 61 of the last 95 non wartime governments (if you include all 1930s National Governments).

They'd be part of a government most of the time, whatever voting system we have.

[manchesterman]

I agree with the first sentence. They will almost always win under FPTP for reasons everyone knows on this forum...

[Richard Allen]

Apr 6, 2021 19:23:54 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

And this is essentially what it comes down to. There have been effective anti-Tory pacts before, because the electorate has voted for the candidate who can most successfully beat the Tories. This has not required any party to stand down. Voters are smart enough to vote strategically if they want to stop somebody winning.

And smart enough to see a stich up and decide that they don't approve of it.

[greenhert]

Apr 6, 2021 19:23:54 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

And this is essentially what it comes down to. There have been effective anti-Tory pacts before, because the electorate has voted for the candidate who can most successfully beat the Tories. This has not required any party to stand down. Voters are smart enough to vote strategically if they want to stop somebody winning.

As was proved in 1997 in particular, with some notable exceptions (e.g. Bridgwater, Wells).

[Andrew_S]

Apr 6, 2021 18:44:24 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

Apr 6, 2021 17:12:33 GMT manchesterman said:

I agree with that. I think if a "normal" by-election occurred with all candidates standing,  I could see that being something close to the result.

I think this by-election would be an ideal petri dish however for the policy propounded, by the likes of me and Merseymike amongst others, that there needs to be at the next GE a cross-party one-off agreement to do whatever is necessary to help the best-placed anti-Tory candidate to win, with the primary purpose of implementing PR for future elections.

This would require a hell of a LOT of internal discipline across all the parties; some will have to get used to standing down just this once . It's a very short-term sacrifice for a very long term benefit. However I appreciate it wont be easy and it is counter-intuitive to stand aside, albeit for the 'greater good'.  In many seats Labour would be the beneficiary of this pact, but in quite a few they wont ..like this one!  Here is a great chance for Labour to show some leadership and stand aside.

Of course it wont happen, as Starmer, Davey , Lucas et al havent even had 'pre-discussion discussions' about any such policy [and they may never do]. Indeed I suspect Labour will stand here..get 5% or so and think "ah well maybe next time".

if you want the Tories to continue ruling ad infinitum with 40% support, just carry on regardless. if Starmer wants to be the next PM he needs to wake up and smell the coffee.

The idea that Chesham and Amersham would fall to a progressive alliance is ludicrous. There are conversations to be hard about how hard parties should fight in each other's target seats and if they should stand down (though frankly that's not usually very useful), but if an asteroid hits the constituency then the cockroaches are still going to give the Conservatives at least 50% of the vote.

I would be 90% confident that the Tory share will be between 50% and 55%. I don't see it going up when the party is doing so well with working-class voters in places like Hartlepool.

[bsjmcr]

Apr 6, 2021 19:47:51 GMT Andrew_S said:

Apr 6, 2021 18:44:24 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

The idea that Chesham and Amersham would fall to a progressive alliance is ludicrous. There are conversations to be hard about how hard parties should fight in each other's target seats and if they should stand down (though frankly that's not usually very useful), but if an asteroid hits the constituency then the cockroaches are still going to give the Conservatives at least 50% of the vote.

I would be 90% confident that the Tory share will be between 50% and 55%. I don't see it going up when the party is doing so well with working-class voters in places like Hartlepool.

For the record the Tory share in Witney at the by election was 45%. The Labour vote share actually only went down 2.2% and notably they were second in 2015, so this didn't appear to be a huge amount of tactical voting but a straight Tory-LD switch by many. It should also be said that Labour in third got slightly more votes (5765) than the 5702 majority, so if all those votes went LD... 

This is not an area I know well I don't know how appropriate the Witney comparisons are - a difference I can think of is there is no major university near Chesham/Amersham, other than London. I would be surprised if Witney was not a university commuting area for staff at both institutions. Probably how Cameron and Johnson managed to be selected in those parts, if they bigged up their local credentials having been students nearby for 3 years...

I am also surprised Ukip came second in C&A in 2015 despite it turning out to be a comfortably Remain area, so interesting to hear HS2 was a key issue there.

[johnloony]

I am imaging what sort of result there would be in a general election if the Labour Party, Green Party and Lib Dems really were daft and deluded enough to do an electoral pact with each other, AND be bonkers enough to call it a "Popular Front" or similar title. Ideally this would be combined with my preference for a parallel universe in which opinion polls and exit polls don't exist, because literally nobody has ever thought of doing them (i.e. not because they're banned). The PF people would nod sagely at each other, and smirk in anticipation of a 1906/1945 result, whereas the great mass of Normal People would elect a Conservative landslide like 1931/1935.

[Chris from Brum]

Apr 6, 2021 19:32:25 GMT Richard Allen said:

Apr 6, 2021 19:23:54 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

And this is essentially what it comes down to. There have been effective anti-Tory pacts before, because the electorate has voted for the candidate who can most successfully beat the Tories. This has not required any party to stand down. Voters are smart enough to vote strategically if they want to stop somebody winning.

And smart enough to see a stich up and decide that they don't approve of it.

Like I say, perhaps the optimal situation is for there to be a full slate of candidates, but some parties decide not to campaign *too* hard, no need for any formal announcement ...

[heslingtonian]

Was there an obvious reason why Labour's vote was as low as 2,942 (5.6%) at the 2010 General Election? I appreciate Labour have never done well in this seat but that represented a decline from 6,610 (14%) in 2005 and the Labour vote went back up to 6,712 (12.7%) in 2015, 11,374 (20.6%) in 2017 and 7,166 (12.9%). Labour's 2010 result looks erroneous to me unless there were some candidate issues I have long forgotten.

[minionofmidas]

Apr 6, 2021 20:03:24 GMT bsjmcr said:

Apr 6, 2021 19:47:51 GMT Andrew_S said:

I would be 90% confident that the Tory share will be between 50% and 55%. I don't see it going up when the party is doing so well with working-class voters in places like Hartlepool.

For the record the Tory share in Witney at the by election was 45%. The Labour vote share actually only went down 2.2% and notably they were second in 2015, so this didn't appear to be a huge amount of tactical voting but a straight Tory-LD switch by many. It should also be said that Labour in third got slightly more votes (5765) than the 5702 majority, so if all those votes went LD... 

This is not an area I know well I don't know how appropriate the Witney comparisons are - a difference I can think of is there is no major university near Chesham/Amersham, other than London. I would be surprised if Witney was not a university commuting area for staff at both institutions. Probably how Cameron and Johnson managed to be selected in those parts, if they bigged up their local credentials having been students nearby for 3 years...

I am also surprised Ukip came second in C&A in 2015 despite it turning out to be a comfortably Remain area, so interesting to hear HS2 was a key issue there.

speaking of shock ld near-gains in affluent London commuterland, albeit further in, there was also Bromley & Chislehurst 2006. That came out of the blue iirc.

[minionofmidas]

Apr 6, 2021 21:00:11 GMT heslingtonian said:

Was there an obvious reason why Labour's vote was as low as 2,942 (5.6%) at the 2010 General Election? I appreciate Labour have never done well in this seat but that represented a decline from 6,610 (14%) in 2005 and the Labour vote went back up to 6,712 (12.7%) in 2015, 11,374 (20.6%) in 2017 and 7,166 (12.9%). Labour's 2010 result looks erroneous to me unless there were some candidate issues I have long forgotten.

Labour hit rock bottom in these kinds of seats generally in 2005-10 though before being revived by the LDs joining the Coalition. Which gave them an insanely favorable vote distribution under fptp and gave the Tories a fixation on changibg the redistribution rules.

[heslingtonian]

Apr 6, 2021 21:09:00 GMT minionofmidas said:

Apr 6, 2021 21:00:11 GMT heslingtonian said:

Was there an obvious reason why Labour's vote was as low as 2,942 (5.6%) at the 2010 General Election? I appreciate Labour have never done well in this seat but that represented a decline from 6,610 (14%) in 2005 and the Labour vote went back up to 6,712 (12.7%) in 2015, 11,374 (20.6%) in 2017 and 7,166 (12.9%). Labour's 2010 result looks erroneous to me unless there were some candidate issues I have long forgotten.

Labour hit rock bottom in these kinds of seats generally in 2005-10 though before being revived by the LDs joining the Coalition. Which gave them an insanely favorable vote distribution under fptp and gave the Tories a fixation on changibg the redistribution rules.

It appears odd to me that there have been more than 6,000 Labour voters consistently in this seat for the past 20 years despite Labour having zero chance of winning here but in 2010 less than half of this core vote turned out unlike every other recent election. That says to me there was something more than national issues behind the 2010 result.