By-election and local authority results.

Interestingly it is as I thought might happen - where there is a high Muslim vote - the voters are turning away from Labour, and turning to other parties.

So as a result Oldham is now no overall control.

Bump

BBC reporting that results are worse than the Tories feared.

Labour have done well, and the Tories only just beat Reform in one area:

www.bbc.co.uk/news

By elections and or local council elections used to be considered as an opportunity for a protest vote. I don’t think this is the case with yesterday’s polling. I think the Tories will get annihilated at the GE - whenever it is held. I’m in two minds though about this. I want the Tories out they’ve made such a mess of pretty much everything but I’m wary of Labour, who will romp it. Eek!

urms live dangerously and give Labour a go😄😄

It can’t get a lot worse!

Haven’t seen any news regarding a by-election in Liverpool, loads of news items regarding g Labour winning the by-election in Blackpool South.

Not sure any of the declared results are a surprise.

Labour won Liverpool by a massive 26% swing.

The question in my mind is, will these results make it so clear to Sunak that the electorate just doesn't want the tories that he will call a GE for the summer, or will he just keep the government limping on until the very last minute to cause maximum devastation for the next government to clear up?

Urmstongran

By elections and or local council elections used to be considered as an opportunity for a protest vote. I don’t think this is the case with yesterday’s polling. I think the Tories will get annihilated at the GE - whenever it is held. I’m in two minds though about this. I want the Tories out they’ve made such a mess of pretty much everything but I’m wary of Labour, who will romp it. Eek!

I agree with you the Tories will get annihilated at the election but not because the Labour Party show amazing leadership but just because the Conservatives have been so bad

MaizieD

The question in my mind is, will these results make it so clear to Sunak that the electorate just doesn't want the tories that he will call a GE for the summer, or will he just keep the government limping on until the very last minute to cause maximum devastation for the next government to clear up?

I’m sure that’s what he would prefer to do, but let’s see what his MPs do over the next few weeks.

There is all sorts of rumours - from a re-shuffle to a cut and run. All desperate measures though.

It’s going very well for Labour so far, and for the Lib Dem’s in their strongholds, it’s going to be an interesting day.

I want to have a little whinge though, about the Police Commissioner elections where that is the only election you are voting for. I don’t know if it was the case anywhere else, but because the PCCs are elected nationally on the same cycle, a huge amount of money was spent sending out polling cards, running polling stations and for the counts just for them - I’d be very surprised if the turnout was above about 15% - I voted at 8.30am, and I was only the third person at my station. Surely it would make more sense if they were elected on the same cycle as local councils for each area?

I found it amusing that Boris was sent back home for his photo ID.

rosie1959

Urmstongran

By elections and or local council elections used to be considered as an opportunity for a protest vote. I don’t think this is the case with yesterday’s polling. I think the Tories will get annihilated at the GE - whenever it is held. I’m in two minds though about this. I want the Tories out they’ve made such a mess of pretty much everything but I’m wary of Labour, who will romp it. Eek!

I agree with you the Tories will get annihilated at the election but not because the Labour Party show amazing leadership but just because the Conservatives have been so bad

That is the usual reason for a change in government.

Governments rarely get booted out because they are doing so well.

MaizieD I guess election will be held at the very last minute. Not sure how much more devastation is in the pipeline however. Whatever it won’t bring in more votes!

Whitewavemark2

rosie1959

Urmstongran

By elections and or local council elections used to be considered as an opportunity for a protest vote. I don’t think this is the case with yesterday’s polling. I think the Tories will get annihilated at the GE - whenever it is held. I’m in two minds though about this. I want the Tories out they’ve made such a mess of pretty much everything but I’m wary of Labour, who will romp it. Eek!

I agree with you the Tories will get annihilated at the election but not because the Labour Party show amazing leadership but just because the Conservatives have been so bad

That is the usual reason for a change in government.

Governments rarely get booted out because they are doing so well.

That is true but looking back I felt much less let’s say wary of Blair than I do about Starmer but that was a while ago and at that time I had much less interest in Politics

The low turnout always angers me. 30% here and no change because the same people voted the same as last time.
The excuses for not voting included, "nothing ever changes" and "they're all as bad as each other"!!!

We had a Mayor and a PCC to vote for, no councillors, Casdon. When Mr M and I went to vote at about 9 am the polling clerk said that they'd been quite busy.

I do agree with you, though. I don't think the PCC role has really grabbed anyone's interest so running it as a sole election seems a bit wasteful.

Whitewavemark2

Labour won Liverpool by a massive 26% swing.

Low turnout though c.30%

Would a higher turnout have altered the swing?

MaizieD

The question in my mind is, will these results make it so clear to Sunak that the electorate just doesn't want the tories that he will call a GE for the summer, or will he just keep the government limping on until the very last minute to cause maximum devastation for the next government to clear up?

I think Sunak want the flights to Rwanda to be up and running before he calls a GE.

MaizieD

We had a Mayor and a PCC to vote for, no councillors, Casdon. When Mr M and I went to vote at about 9 am the polling clerk said that they'd been quite busy.

I do agree with you, though. I don't think the PCC role has really grabbed anyone's interest so running it as a sole election seems a bit wasteful.

We had zero communication from PCC candidates and only knew there was a vote when our cards arrived. No wonder there was apathy.

Would a higher turnout have altered the swing?

We will never know Whitewave. Voter apathy analysis throws up all sorts of reasons. Quite probably not, but 🤷‍♀️

I looked back, the turnout in local elections has been between 30-40% for a number of years now, it’s disappointing but this election looks little different so far. If you don’t vote you aren’t entitled to moan if you’re not happy.