Chesham and Amersham

[Merseymike]

Jun 18, 2021 9:05:27 GMT pl said:

Jun 18, 2021 9:01:57 GMT Davıd Boothroyd said:

Problem with that take is that the planning reforms won't make it easier for young people to buy a house.

And it's a bit rich for Tim Montgomerie to take the sour grapes line that it's a victory for NIMBYs. The Lib Dems took an issue they thought would resonate locally, ran with it, and were proved right. The Conservatives have deliberately exploited culture war issues, dividing British society; Johnson and Cummings spent the latter part of 2019 making the Brexit debate toxic in a way that meant Labour MPs getting death threats, so that they could win a general election. You can either take the view that that's politics and finding an issue that wins votes is what it's supposed to be about, or that political campaigning should be pure and principled everywhere; you can't really adopt both at the same time.

Don't talk such utter twaddle David. The culture war has been coming from the left for the past 20 years - culture wars come from the hard left and fascists the world over. It is the left which has been vilifying the right all that time - and suddenly you act all surprised when the Conservatives choose an electorally successful formula?

Do you class , say, legal equality for gay people as evidence of culture wars?

[Deleted]

Conservative seats in 1997 that they no longer hold:

Canterbury
Chesham & Amersham
Westmorland & Lonsdale

[Merseymike]

Jun 18, 2021 9:07:45 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

Jun 18, 2021 8:32:48 GMT Merseymike said:

Which we all know is typical right wing stirring. There does need to be a much more coordinated approach to refugees who are going to increase in number given the truth of world conflicts and the need to flee.

However, most refugees will be housed in the cities where there will often be established community networks. Everyone knows this to be the case.

So what you're saying is that Amersham would be a better choice as there's easier access to London via the Metropolitan line?

It's more likely to be High Wycombe, or Slough, for the reasons given, if we are talking the local area. It's scary enough being a refugee, and support from organisations and members of the community of origin is vital. So the cities are often the best option, or towns where they may be the possibility of that sort of support.

[gerrardwinstanley]

Cummings taking Hodges apart on Twitter - a beautiful thing to see. 

[sirbenjamin]

Jun 18, 2021 8:33:58 GMT Clark said:

"Imagine a fanatical Tory supporter who refused to live anywhere where there was not Conservative rule at every level: parliamentary, county and district or borough. Such a fictitious person would not have much choice at all in the Britain of the 1990's. Only 1 county authority, Buckinghamshire, remained in Tory overall control after their disaster of May 1993. After May 1994 only 3 of the district councils in the county remained in Conservative hands: South Bucks, Wycombe and Chiltern. Our mythical enthusiast, therefore, would be confined to a tract of land in the Chiltern hills, north west of London. He or she would have an excellent chance of winding up in the Chesham & Amersham constituency"


He or she would now be looking for a new house!

Fictitious?!?

[edgbaston]

Jun 18, 2021 8:13:21 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

Jun 18, 2021 7:54:21 GMT Richard Cromwell said:

I'm not happy to have been right. I'm sure, however, as the LDs here have pointed out ... we can spin this as a win for development!

Headline:

CHESHAM AND AMERSHAM SAYS YES TO MORE HOUSING

They've voted for this

Chalfont Common seems like a good spot to build homes for Syrians..

Well proportionally they have ‘voted’ to take about 15. Why do people often imagine that they will all be housed in one mass development. I remember similarly Farage talking about ‘a city the size of Newcastle’. Just bizarre.

So yes why not 5 homes for Syrians in Chalfont Common.

[hullenedge]

Jun 18, 2021 9:21:03 GMT @conservativeestimate said:

Conservative seats in 1997 that they no longer hold:

Canterbury
Chesham & Amersham
Westmorland & Lonsdale

Running a cluster analysis for vote share changes (2017-19) Con v Lib Dem plus Remain performance in 2016 these seats cluster together:-

Chesham and Amersham
Guildford
Henley
Kenilworth and Southam
Maidenhead
Mid Sussex
North East Hampshire
Romsey and Southampton North
South East Cambridgeshire
Tunbridge Wells
Wantage
Windsor
Witney
Woking
Wokingham

TM may be nominated (and selected) as Head of NATO...

[wallington]

No doubt that this is a fantastic result for the Liberal Democrats. It also shows that any formal so-called Progressisve Alliance is just not needed. It kinda has a similar feeling to a by-election from the early 1990s. a Conservative Party which has been in power for many years and a Labour Party seemingly treading water with no real direction. I imagine on a General Election turnout this will prove a tough seat for them to hold, especially as it seems many Conservative voters protested by staying at home. As I have said before, right now there so much more fertile ground for the Lib Dems to put themselves forward as a socially liberal alternative to the Conservative Party than attempting to fish from the same pond as Labour and The Green Party.

[Deleted]

Jun 18, 2021 9:29:59 GMT hullenedge said:

Jun 18, 2021 9:21:03 GMT @conservativeestimate said:

Conservative seats in 1997 that they no longer hold:

Canterbury
Chesham & Amersham
Westmorland & Lonsdale

TM may be nominated (and selected) as Head of NATO...

A Maidenhead by-election would be very interesting.

[Merseymike]

Jun 18, 2021 9:33:07 GMT wallington said:

No doubt that this is a fantastic result for the Liberal Democrats. It also shows that any formal so-called Progressisve Alliance is just not needed. It kinda has a similar feeling to a by-election from the early 1990s. a Conservative Party which has been in power for many years and a Labour Party seemingly treading water with no real direction. I imagine on a General Election turnout this will prove a tough seat for them to hold, especially as it seems many Conservative voters protested by staying at home. As I have said before, right now there so much more fertile ground for the Lib Dems to put themselves forward as a socially liberal alternative to the Conservative Party than attempting to fish from the same pond as Labour and The Green Party.

Interesting point, but what would that actually mean in policy terms, given that Johnson's Tories are hardly small-state sound money advocates?
Would you suggest they should have more emphasis on sound money but retain social liberalism and a more constructive approach to Europe?
In what way do you see Labour and the Greens as fishing in the same pond?

[stb12]

Wow. I know a government losing a by-election isn’t uncommon and this is arguably a return to those trends but surprised at the scale of the victory. Did that many Tories convert or has the reduced turnout largely come from their side?

[stb12]

HS2 and a couple of other things are significant local issues I know but would a bad turn out from Conservative supporters fed up of lockdown be a possible cause here as well after the recent announcements?

[therealriga]

Jun 18, 2021 8:53:26 GMT andrew111 said:

Jun 18, 2021 8:41:23 GMT therealriga said:

It's also noticeable in Russia-influenced countries. Russia and Bulgaria have the lowest vaccinated rates and Latvia, which has a lot of ethnic Russians, is one of the lowest. Also happening is that Russian media is pushing the line that "western" vaccines are unreliable, seizing on any and all stories of blood clots etc, while simultaneously pushing the line that their own Sputnik is the only one that can be trusted. That's why you get utter madness like this

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/19/we-booked-straight-away-first-covid-vaccine-tourists-arrive-in-san-marino

ethnic Russians making a 26-hour trip to San Marino to pay to get Sputnik vaccine, which has 91% efficacy, when AZ, Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, which have about 94% efficacy are all free and in abundant supply in Latvia.  

The Sputnik vaccine is also perfectly good, probably better than Astrazenica, but Russians don't believe it. Astra has suffered badly from the blood clots story (almost certainly ramped by rival Pharma companies, recently there has been push back with similar scare stories on Pfizer) everywhere in the world except the UK, so you really can't blame the Russians for that.

Though the concerns seem overblown to me, ok. If Astra was the only one available, maybe, but Moderna and Pfizer were widely available at no charge at the time that that story was published. There does seem to be an issue of a different and more conspiracy friendly information bubble. Much Russian media pushes all kinds of dubious conspiracy theories about the west but the side effect is that their own citizens then become less trusting as well.

[Merseymike]

Jun 18, 2021 9:37:02 GMT @conservativeestimate said:

Jun 18, 2021 9:29:59 GMT hullenedge said:

TM may be nominated (and selected) as Head of NATO...

A Maidenhead by-election would be very interesting.

At the moment the LibDems would be in a very good place. Maidenhead has a strong LibDem history (and Liberal before that) and while they have dropped considerably since 2005 and 2010,in the last election, they regained second place. Labour's small vote is distributed around the seat which is why they struggle to elect any councillors.
The LibDems have 10 seats on the borough council and 8 of them represent Maidenhead wards. Including the last parliamentary candidate.

[andrewp]

Jun 18, 2021 9:37:02 GMT @conservativeestimate said:

Jun 18, 2021 9:29:59 GMT hullenedge said:

TM may be nominated (and selected) as Head of NATO...

A Maidenhead by-election would be very interesting.

I imagine Maidenhead might not be that interesting in terms of predictability of result. It has more Lib Dem history than Chesham and Amersham.I would think it would be a very likely Lib Dem gain. 

[nodealbrexiteer]

Turns out that the Lib Dems can still knock skins off rice puddings now and again!

[Deleted]

Jun 18, 2021 9:53:05 GMT andrewp said:

Jun 18, 2021 9:37:02 GMT @conservativeestimate said:

A Maidenhead by-election would be very interesting.

I imagine Maidenhead might not be that interesting in terms of predictability of result. It has more Lib Dem history than Chesham and Amersham.I would think it would be a very likely Lib Dem gain. 

The Tories would go into it with a 33% majority so not that much bigger that what they were defending in this seat.

[The Bishop]

Jun 18, 2021 1:37:46 GMT cogload said:

Not one to thrash our national broadcaster but where is the BBC coverage barring the excellent local radio reporter? I mean they were all over Hartlepool and have probably sent an entire newsroom to Batley and Spen.

And - this is not the most important thing of course, but still - why was Laura K claiming it was an easy Tory hold even after polls closed?

[johnloony]

Jun 18, 2021 3:32:31 GMT minionofmidas said:

Jun 18, 2021 3:19:55 GMT markgoodair said:

When was the last time Labour lost their deposit at a Parliamentary by-election? To come fourth behind the Greens does look poor.

not so long ago - Richmond Park. 3.7%. Now the question is, when's the last time they stood but polled under 1.6%?

Never in a parliamentary by-election

[Davıd Boothroyd]

Jun 18, 2021 9:56:11 GMT @conservativeestimate said:

Jun 18, 2021 9:53:05 GMT andrewp said:

I imagine Maidenhead might not be that interesting in terms of predictability of result. It has more Lib Dem history than Chesham and Amersham.I would think it would be a very likely Lib Dem gain. 

The Tories would go into it with a 33% majority so not that much bigger that what they were defending in this seat.

Unlike Chesham and Amersham, Maidenhead has a history of being a near-marginal. May was thought to be in some trouble in 2001 and 2005. That might be good or bad news for the Lib Dems - it means they are building on some previous work, but it also means the Maidenhead Tories have developed anti-Lib Dem campaigning skills.