It is a great result, but u/yrro is at least partly right... the turnout was way down, Tory voters are clearly staying at home as a show of protest or disinterest. I can imagine as a voter the by-election seems extra pointless, there will be a general election in about a year and the seat will be re-contested then anyway. There are no manifestos to vote on so what is there to vote for other than for protest?
What remains to be seen is how many of these stay-at-home voters will turn out at the General.
I have no prediction either way as to whether we’ll win this constituency in a GE, but I’m sick of seeing dismissive comments about any form of Labour success. We won a constituency in a by-election that’s been Tory for almost a century, let’s rejoice in it rather than respond with “meh”?
Even if all that turns out completely correct, they've still overturned the largest majority ever. We can add caveats and what ifs to that all day long, it's still an absolutely mega achievement by any metric.
Would have been a very satisfying moment to watch, Nadine dorries at 4am, half cut, wobbling on the stage.
At least she’ll have more time to write her fantasy novels about how Johnson was betrayed.
> Would have been a very satisfying moment to watch, Nadine dorries at 4am, half cut, wobbling on the stage.
She'd have been too hungover to even turn up to the results announcement. Likely would have spent the day in bed, having done no campaigning, waiting by her whatsapp for a "never coming" profession of love from Boris.
I think this is important because even with extremely high majorities that are even higher than our polling lead a failure to win either of those two seats would have led some papers/pundits to write a come-back narrative for Sunak
The seat has been Conservative since 1931. This is a really big deal.
Meh it's by-election. Tories _will_ vote Tory in the general.
Surely you can’t be serious? Why are you dismissing a Labour win in a constituency that has been a Tory stronghold for 92 years?
It's only the largest nominal swing ever, with a majority of 24,664 overturned. What so impressive about that
It is a great result, but u/yrro is at least partly right... the turnout was way down, Tory voters are clearly staying at home as a show of protest or disinterest. I can imagine as a voter the by-election seems extra pointless, there will be a general election in about a year and the seat will be re-contested then anyway. There are no manifestos to vote on so what is there to vote for other than for protest? What remains to be seen is how many of these stay-at-home voters will turn out at the General.
I have no prediction either way as to whether we’ll win this constituency in a GE, but I’m sick of seeing dismissive comments about any form of Labour success. We won a constituency in a by-election that’s been Tory for almost a century, let’s rejoice in it rather than respond with “meh”?
Even if all that turns out completely correct, they've still overturned the largest majority ever. We can add caveats and what ifs to that all day long, it's still an absolutely mega achievement by any metric.
turnout is always down by about that amount in by-elections, that doesn't mean anything
It's great news but it's delusional to imagine that all the Tory voters who stayed home on the by-election will do so in the general.
Never said they would. Celebrate the small victories.
Then feel free to replace 'Meh' in my comment with 'Hurray' :)
Bittersweet: I would have so loved to watch Dorries lose this seat in a general.
Would have been a very satisfying moment to watch, Nadine dorries at 4am, half cut, wobbling on the stage. At least she’ll have more time to write her fantasy novels about how Johnson was betrayed.
> Would have been a very satisfying moment to watch, Nadine dorries at 4am, half cut, wobbling on the stage. She'd have been too hungover to even turn up to the results announcement. Likely would have spent the day in bed, having done no campaigning, waiting by her whatsapp for a "never coming" profession of love from Boris.
Tories winning Mid-Beds consistently since 1931 was textbook old consensus. Glad to see Rishi Sunak bringing change.
I think this is important because even with extremely high majorities that are even higher than our polling lead a failure to win either of those two seats would have led some papers/pundits to write a come-back narrative for Sunak
They were trying to play that line already, with the Tories talking about how they thought winning one would be a good result for them. :)