Local Council by-elections 13th July 2023

[yellowperil]

Jul 13, 2023 18:41:07 GMT andrewteale said:

Jul 13, 2023 16:50:15 GMT timrollpickering said:

Lawrencia Durojaiye has been misgendered. She is a she.

Apologies, that should be fixed now.

Perhaps that could have been better phrased , too

[ricmk]

Jul 14, 2023 6:37:51 GMT jamesdoyle said:

Labour just aren't very good at by elections, are they?

Good job for Labour there aren’t any larger significant by-elections coming up in Yorkshire or London then!

[yellowperil]

Jul 13, 2023 13:43:08 GMT jamesdoyle said:

And lo, the tablets were brought down from Mount Teale:

medium.com/britainelects/previewing-the-five-local-by-elections-of-13th-july-2023-af018b7e857d

I wonder if Moses has spotted that his map of the Norfolk divisions is captioned "Norwich CC"?

[batman]

Jul 14, 2023 6:37:51 GMT jamesdoyle said:

Labour just aren't very good at by elections, are they?

that's a rather silly generalisation. Nobody can deny that there have been 2 poor results for Labour this week but you surely can't be unaware that there have been many very good ones in recent months and that the bookmakers think there will be a couple more coming along in a week's time. 

[batman]

Also, nobody should underestimate the importance of incumbency in terms of who controls their local council. Some council administrations are pretty popular, many are not. Ticket-splitting on a grand scale is not exactly unusual in British electoral politics, indeed quite a few members of this forum practise it themselves.

[robert1]

I am told that Angela Rayner campaigned in Dinnington.

[borisminor]

Jul 13, 2023 23:27:13 GMT manchesterman said:

Does anyone know why BritainElects have different comparative results from ElectionMapsUK is it a trap street because BritainElects results don't line up with previous results in the ward as far as I can work out.

[carlton43]

Jul 14, 2023 7:03:59 GMT batman said:

Jul 14, 2023 6:37:51 GMT jamesdoyle said:

Labour just aren't very good at by elections, are they?

that's a rather silly generalisation. Nobody can deny that there have been 2 poor results for Labour this week but you surely can't be unaware that there have been many very good ones in recent months and that the bookmakers think there will be a couple more coming along in a week's time. 

No.  Bookmakers don't think about it at all, they merely react to the placing of bets.

The punters placing their money may think the results will be good or are merely investing in a hope of a good result because they are tribal or locked into a bit of mild euphoria.

[batman]

Jul 14, 2023 7:10:07 GMT robert1 said:

I am told that Angela Rayner campaigned in Dinnington.

that wouldn't be that surprising. She has a long record of campaigning in apparently not particularly important council by-elections. A few years ago she campaigned in the unwinnable Thamesfield ward by-election in Wandsworth, and so did Emily Thornberry. The ward is quite a bit more winnable now, though, than it was at the time.

[jamesdoyle]

Jul 14, 2023 7:03:59 GMT batman said:

Jul 14, 2023 6:37:51 GMT jamesdoyle said:

Labour just aren't very good at by elections, are they?

that's a rather silly generalisation. Nobody can deny that there have been 2 poor results for Labour this week but you surely can't be unaware that there have been many very good ones in recent months and that the bookmakers think there will be a couple more coming along in a week's time. 

It was (mainly) humorous. I knew it would get a rise out of some people...

[YL]

Jul 14, 2023 7:14:48 GMT borisminor said:

Jul 13, 2023 23:27:13 GMT manchesterman said:

Does anyone know why BritainElects have different comparative results from ElectionMapsUK is it a trap street because BritainElects results don't line up with previous results in the ward as far as I can work out.

Different ways of calculating party shares in multi-member elections. The results last time were
Con 1137, 916, 841
Lab 799, 738, 712
Ind Smith 601
Ind Hart 389
Green 316, 308
Lib Dem 284

Taking top vote (Con 1137, Lab 799, Ind Smith 601, Ind Hart 389, Green 316, Lib Dem 284) gives Con 32.2%, Lab 22.7%, Ind Smith 17.0%, Ind Hart 11.0%, Green 9.0%, Lib Dem 8.1%, which fits with the Britain Elects figures (except for Ind Smith, who I think they've compared with the wrong Independent from last time). But you'll get a different result if you treat Smith and Hart as an Independent slate, which I think is what Election Maps UK does.

[borisminor]

Jul 14, 2023 7:27:37 GMT YL said:

Jul 14, 2023 7:14:48 GMT borisminor said:

Does anyone know why BritainElects have different comparative results from ElectionMapsUK is it a trap street because BritainElects results don't line up with previous results in the ward as far as I can work out.

Different ways of calculating party shares in multi-member elections. The results last time were
Con 1137, 916, 841
Lab 799, 738, 712
Ind Smith 601
Ind Hart 389
Green 316, 308
Lib Dem 284

Taking top vote (Con 1137, Lab 799, Ind Smith 601, Ind Hart 389, Green 316, Lib Dem 284) gives Con 32.2%, Lab 22.7%, Ind Smith 17.0%, Ind Hart 11.0%, Green 9.0%, Lib Dem 8.1%, which fits with the Britain Elects figures (except for Ind Smith, who I think they've compared with the wrong Independent from last time). But you'll get a different result if you treat Smith and Hart as an Independent slate, which I think is what Election Maps UK does.

Ah yes. Hadn't realised it was just using independents as a slate

[batman]

James I thought you were aligned with the Greens. Hadn't noticed you'd gone non-aligned, or else I'd forgotten.

[Deleted]

Jul 14, 2023 5:35:53 GMT tonyhill said:

I know that all the caveats about local elections, and especially by-elections, apply, but it cannot be encouraging for Labour to have lost three out of four seats on significant local authorities in two weeks with the Conservatives gaining two of them.

Labour got unlucky with King's Hedges in Cambridge - there was a double-digit swing to the Conservatives there in May.

Rotherham Tories are fortunate that Labour won a majority in 2021 - they can still paint them as the establishment, despite Rother Valley's Tory MP. 

[The Bishop]

Hasn't it already been established that the Tory candidate in Rotherham campaigned on Nimbyism?

You would be "surprised" (or maybe not) with how many "shock" local election results are down to that.

[matureleft]

Local elections are local. Local issues, candidate selection, campaign work-rate, the council’s performance, the performance of existing councillors. They all matter particularly in low-turnout elections, as these all are.

If there’s a partisan point it’s probably true that the two largest parties have a bit more national baggage to carry and may be a little less able to make the most of these key differentiators. But both of them can manage it in spite of that, it’s just harder.

[The Bishop]

Jul 14, 2023 5:35:53 GMT tonyhill said:

I know that all the caveats about local elections, and especially by-elections, apply, but it cannot be encouraging for Labour to have lost three out of four seats on significant local authorities in two weeks with the Conservatives gaining two of them.

Tories won all three seats in Dinnington come the last elections, that you assumed otherwise maybe says something about your own biases if nothing else.

Btw, do you still think that Sunak will outshine Starmer whenever the next GE campaign comes?

[Adam in Stroud]

Jul 13, 2023 18:51:18 GMT Devil Wincarnate said:

Jul 13, 2023 18:34:52 GMT finsobruce said:

I think you need to change your strapline to "Our reporter on the spot"

Memories of the tipsters at greyhound races with titles like "Local Expert" and "Man in the Know" .

"I gotta norse"

[Adam in Stroud]

Jul 14, 2023 7:33:49 GMT batman said:

James I thought you were aligned with the Greens. Hadn't noticed you'd gone non-aligned, or else I'd forgotten.

Same here.

[stodge]

Morning all

The morning after the night before in Newham politics and two fascinating results to chew over.

Let's start with my home patch, Wall End, I predicted Labour would win big on a small turnout though that wasn't exactly rocket science. Labour's candidate scraped home with 61% of the vote with the Conservatives on 27%, the Liberal Democrats nicked third off the Greens with Reform last.

Compating this result to 2022 is complicated by the presence last year of Swarup Choudhury, an ally of Mirza (of whom more anon) who polled 957 votes but was the lone candidate in a 3-member Ward and enveryone had three votes so from where did Choudhury draw his votes? Did people just vote for him and for no one else or was there a vote split between him and other anti-Labour candidates so we had people voting for Choudhury and then for two Conservatives?

It's also worth noting the top Conservative polled 648 and the bottom 412 which is a huge difference.

Going back to 2018, Labour beat the Conservatives 78-18 so quite a swing last night but we've seen this before - in May 2021, the next door Ward, East Ham Central, had a by-election where the Conservative won over 30% of the vote - needless to say, come the full set of local elections the following year, normal service was resumed.

I'll offer a few other random thoughts a bit closer to the edge - the Conservative candidate was the only Hindu among the candidates and this is a strongly Tamil area - he was also a well-known local business man with plenty of contacts so the extent to which this was a personal vote rather than a Conservative vote is worth considering.

The Conservatives abandoned Boleyn yesterday (as the result suggests) and put all their effort into the seat which explains why from nothing the Ward was full of Conservative workers and leaflets. I'd also argue (and we see this elsewhere) the core Conservative vote comes out and votes or has a good postal operation.

Labour can feel fairly content - the fall in actual numbers was slight and turnout can explain most of that.

The LDs have never stood in the Ward so a distant third was about the best they could have expected. It was a poor result for the Greens but they concentrated their effort in Boleyn while the local Reform candidate, who I thought put out the best leaflet, lost ground on 2022.

On then to the shock of the night - Mehmood Mirza wins in Boleyn.

Mirza and his group broke with Labour in a particularly nasty internal spat in the post-Corbyn era. The Newham Mayor, Rokhsana Fiaz, had used the Corbynites to depose veteran Mayor and staunch Blairite Sir Robin Wales and they had delivered her the Mayoralty in 2018 and a clean sweep of the Borough.

However, the coming of Starmer changed the internal Labour landscape and Fiaz quickly saw which way the wind was blowing and pledged her allegience to Starmer and to his anti-Corbyn activities which led to a huge row within Newham Labour and the departure of Mirza and his cohorts who I thought were going to form their own group but in 2022 stood as Independents.

Mirza stood as Mayor but finished fourth - he's had some form of redemption with this success. I know he had quite a group of activists and followers so presumably they worked Boleyn very hard and have got a tremendous result.

Were Labour complacent? Perhaps - they were working the wrong Ward yesterday but the margin of Mirza's win was notable and he joins the two Green councillors on the Opposition benches at the Town Hall.

The Greens badly under-performed - I thought they would run Labour close but this was a disappointing performance while the Conservative vote disintegrated as the Party abandoned the seat - in 2022 the top Conservative in Boleyn polled 538 votes, last night the candidate got 69 votes so where did all the Tories go? Perhaps they weren't Conservatives at all but simply anti-Labour. I wonder whether Mirza will stand in East Ham next year - my information is Sir Stephen Timms will run again for the seat.

As for the others, the LDs had the ignominy of finishing one vote behind Reform but with both polling 45 votes between him it's of the slightest significance.

Mirza's group now has a foothold and I could see him picking up the other Boleyn seat in 2026 especially if they are standing on a radical socialist anti-Starmer platform.