Safe Tory seat gone

If you were about to go and vote Labour in Hartlepool the media spent a month camped there telling you, that Labour were going to lose, so what’s the point in turning out.
The result - surprisingly being a very small gain in the number of Tory votes, but a victory anyway as… the Labour vote stayed home.

The media have ignored this ‘test for the PM’ though. Why would that be?

I can’t believe you’re so down about it Jim after proposing exactly this for the last few months.

 

Thats an incredible swing. 30% up for Lib Dems, 20% down for Tories.

A glimmer of hope provided by the south as the north turns bluer. There are certainly a lot of disgruntled tory voters who don't like whats happened to their party and see DePfeffel for what he is.

If a seat can swing that much, just about every seat in the country is up for grabs at the next GE. But can an anti populist rainbow coalition put national interest before their own? Will the south see significant tory losses and can labour cling onto enough seats in the north to make any non tory gains have significance?

I don't think we'll see a GE for a while. I see the tories are hoping to privatise Channel 4 before the end of the year, that could rid more critical coverage and I suspect they'd want that done before a GE. I suspect they'll want to call it before the covid enquiry reports though, but that seems miles away.

I still can't see beyond a significant tory win at the next GE though. But that might just be that there has been a progressive political slide for over a decade and positives have been fleeting and rare.

 

Channel 4 the only resistance media we have, amazing that no minister has appeared on CH 4 news for well over 12 months.
They love challenge and being cross examined this mob.

 

Its been a personal hobby horse of Whittingdale for over a decade, now Dowden and DePfeffel are responsible, it's obvious they will push for its privatisation and I wouldn't be suprised if they have a buyer lined up, I suspect DePfeffels very close friend, Lebedev may be the suitor.

 

Possibly so. But it's a seat taken away. I'd vote monster raving loony party if it guaranteed taking away a tory seat.
MRL party. Tory party, one and the same.
Tactical voting may be the only chance labour beat these b'stds.

 

Thing is, this governing party isn't the conservative party. It's a populist party akin to BXP lite with a sociopathic lying chancer heading it up who wants to evade scrutiny and having to make hard decisions. Every choice is about trying to retain power. Saying much, doing little.

It's painful to say but if you had a ballot with a binary choice of Johnson on one hand, and any of May, Cameron or Major on the other, it wouldn't be a difficult choice for most.

 

If that is tactical voting in action, there is no hope. Voting in the Lib Dems? Out of the frying pan into the fire.

 

If the Libdems were the same as the Tories why would anyone with political ambitions join the Libdems instead of the Tories when there is a much, much smaller chance of being elected?
They aren't the same but, hey, let's stick to tribalism and keep the Tories in longer.

 

Sadly nowt to read into at all IMHO, Tory protest votes are easy to register at times like this, when it comes to a proper election their voters tend to revert to kind

 

It was a proper election. As such the LibDems now have one extra MP sitting in the house of commons. That LibDem MP now has more airtime and weight locally to show they are trying to do something for their constituents.

The Hartlepool election showed hardly any gain for the tory vote, but a collapse in labour vote. This by election showed a huge collapse of Tory vote and a massive gain in LibDem vote.

There will be many factors that are both nationally and locally specific, but to say an 8,000 majority will be swiftly undone at the next GE doesn't give justice to the huge swing thats just taken place.

 

Anybody but the Tories is a result to savour. I don’t think there’s much to read into it regards Labour. Unlike July 1st which is a genuine litmus test for Starmer and co.

 

Always amazed by the ability of sections of this forum to make any Tory failure a Labour failure, and to label anyone that isn’t an exact match to their ideals as “Tory”

 

Starmer, Davey & Lucas had better start talking soon. A progressive alliance under PR is the only way to get these evil cuπts out.

 

Seen as

They never mentioned anything about charging university tuition fees either but did do .
Kind of sums up where we are . All the parties have pretty much the same policies , you merely vote on who you think is your favourite personality is .
I think Batley and spen will be a better marker as to where the Labour party is . Loose that then labour will become an even bigger irrelevance , more so than they are now .

 

Way I look at it is in their minds it wouldn't have a radical effect but would register a protest, its just a big mess at ther moment.
If anybody asked me if I would vote Lib Dem, I have hardly any idea what they look like or stand for, same goes for Mr Charisma Starmer and his bunch of nonentities.

 

But locally, there has been heavy campaigning going on, so those who voted will be aware of what they stand for, or what they stand against and have the backdrop of the governments actions to view too.

At the next GE, there will be manifestoes, but how many people actually read them anyway? Some do, absolutely, but many have already decided how they'll vote or indeed, who they wont vote for at the next GE.

I don't think we should underestimate how dimly viewed this government is. My inlaws former next door neighbour worked for the tory party and you couldn't get someone more staunch in their views. She quit the tories when DePfeffel won the GE. My Mother in Law, staunch tory telegraph reader, voted against the tories at the last GE (she wont say which way, but she's completely against what he stands for).

Thats only 2 people granted, but I don't think we should gloss over this LibDem win as a temporary aberration.

 

I'm happy with my assessment of the Lib Dems. If you believe the Lib Dems who change policy quicker than the wind are any more trustworthy than the tories, then likewise you haven't been paying attention.

 

As Egham Tyke pointed out there was massive local dissatisfaction over Hs2 and also Government plans to relax planning laws.

 

So what do the Tories stand for?
Is it what they say or what they do?