3 by-elections - let’s have your comments

[AuroraSaab]

Mixed reports, and not all votes counted of course, but suggested Spain might be heading for a right wing coalition.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.s...-could-help-popular-party-take-power-12926185

 

[Deleted member 49]

Mixed reports, and not all votes counted of course, but suggested Spain might be heading for a right wing coalition.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.s...-could-help-popular-party-take-power-12926185

View: https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1683239082875396102?t=0U5gVFuZCffzAxr-sjDn1w&s=19

 

[AuroraSaab]

Looks like the left wing haven't enough seats to form a coalition either though and will need the Catalan separatist party to prop them up.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.th...spain-election-2023-polls-results-latest-news

 

[Bromptonaut]

Looks like the left wing haven't enough seats to form a coalition either though and will need the Catalan separatist party to prop them up.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.th...spain-election-2023-polls-results-latest-news

Like Labour needing the SNP to prop them up.....

 

[Bromptonaut]

That cannot be good for the overall governance of Spain - politicians spending months gazing at each other's navels.

And some people on here advocate PR for our country.

Do we want even more pointless politicking?

I think not.

Time to agree what's to be done/dropped is factored in where countries' constitutions require it.

 

[Bromptonaut]

Under PR, depending on the system, I think Ukip would have got 80 seats at their best showing, possibly holding the balance of power. FPTP does keep the more extreme parties out, to some extent anyway. Not sure how the Spanish far right party would do in today's election under a system like ours. I'd be interested to see a calculation. Bit moot really as neither of the big 2 here want PR as it obviously limits what they can do once in power. Which could be good or bad depending on your view and whether you're in charge or opposition

Is 80 based on a GE or on European etc elections where UKIP was seen as a protest vote?

Suppose they'd held the balance of power and got an In/Out referendum as a condition of supporting a government. That might actually have resulted in any number of things such as a definition of out, a margin some way over 52% to be effective and, above all, an effective multi party remain campaign like in 1975.

 

[Deleted member 49]

No it doesn't.

Uxbridge has never even a Labour seat, always Tory. And yet, this time Labour came within a whisker of winning, increasing their vote share from 37% to 43%.

More about anti Tory than any enthusiasm for Labour.Even Selby the Labour vote rose by just 2,598, while the Tory vote fell by 21,700.
Now imagine if we actually had a opposition that offered voters some vision,even just a little optimism would be nice.

 

[BoldonLad]

More about anti Tory than any enthusiasm for Labour.Even Selby the Labour vote rose by just 2,598, while the Tory vote fell by 21,700.
Now imagine if we actually had a opposition that offered voters some vision,even just a little optimism would be nice.

Yes, that suggests to me that:

- a lot of people ie approximately 19,000 did not want to vote Tory, but, could not bring themselves to vote Labour

- it is a by-election, so, lots of people cannot be bothered to make the effort

 

[Beebo]

Brunel University students were not on campus as term has ended.
That would almost certainly have swung the 500 votes needed in Uxbridge.
The focus on ULEZ is wrong.

 

[AuroraSaab]

Is 80 based on a GE or on European etc elections where UKIP was seen as a protest vote?

Suppose they'd held the balance of power and got an In/Out referendum as a condition of supporting a government. That might actually have resulted in any number of things such as a definition of out, a margin some way over 52% to be effective and, above all, an effective multi party remain campaign like in 1975.

If I recall correctly, the 80 seats figure is based on the most favourable form of PR from a small parties point of view, ie. the best Ukip could hope for. I forget exactly which permutation of the PR options it is.

It's certainly possible that a stronger Ukip could have led to other parties cooperating more to neutralise their influence. And obviously other smaller parties would have benefited too, like the Greens.

There's also the factor that a protest vote that might result in a large number of votes under FPTP might not be replicated under PR when people know it counts.

Interesting analysis of 2019 election and PR here. It was the first time in 60 years that Labour lost out with FPTP, even in years they didn't win the election:

https://www.channel4.com/news/factc...ve-happened-under-proportional-representation

ie. no incentive for the big 2 to back PR.

 

[winjim]

Looking at the last eight years of government, the threat of greater UKIP influence is a complete non argument. They had their flagship policy enacted, we have a massively right wing anti-immigration authoritarian administration and Farage is getting support from them as he tries to take on the bloody King's bank.

UKIP won.

 

[Pale Rider]

Brunel University students were not on campus as term has ended.
That would almost certainly have swung the 500 votes needed in Uxbridge.
The focus on ULEZ is wrong.

Reminds me of Monty Python's election night special.

Something like 'the silly party lost this seat because lots of slightly silly people moved down the road'.

Why try so hard to explain away Uxbridge?

Everyone knows it was so close it was near to a score draw.

 

[icowden]

Why try so hard to explain away Uxbridge?
Everyone knows it was so close it was near to a score draw.

It's not really explaining it away - it's analysing what happened. It wasn't really that more people voted labour - their increase was quite small. But there was a notable drop in people voting Conservative. Tory voters just didn't vote. About 20,000 of them. Tactical voting would have won the seat for Labour - the Greens and Lib Dems are wasting their time there, just as Labour would be wasting their time in my constituency.

 

[Pale Rider]

It's not really explaining it away - it's analysing what happened. It wasn't really that more people voted labour - their increase was quite small. But there was a notable drop in people voting Conservative. Tory voters just didn't vote. About 20,000 of them. Tactical voting would have won the seat for Labour - the Greens and Lib Dems are wasting their time there, just as Labour would be wasting their time in my constituency.

I suppose I've done it, but it's nonsense to say stuff like if Count Binliner's voters had voted for us and if the Green Party candidate had fallen down the town hall steps and broke her leg, we'd have won.

 

[winjim]

It's not really explaining it away - it's analysing what happened. It wasn't really that more people voted labour - their increase was quite small. But there was a notable drop in people voting Conservative. Tory voters just didn't vote. About 20,000 of them. Tactical voting would have won the seat for Labour - the Greens and Lib Dems are wasting their time there, just as Labour would be wasting their time in my constituency.

Lib Dems being down 4.6 points would suggest that there was an element of tactical voting. They got effectively zero. OK if every single Lib Dem and Green voter had cast their vote for the Labour candidate that would have swung it, but that's unrealistic to expect.