As Israel attacked Lebanon, the US sanctioned someone else!

Right, so quite a lot of by-elections have been triggered across the country, particularly of Labour seats, where in no small part the imposition of Starmer centric parliamentary candidates has meant that such people have been picked from amongst various councils, therefore where said councillors have been successfully elected now as MPs, nodding through all of Starmer’s noxious moves, from keeping kids hungry to freezing pensioners, council seats have become vacant and now that we’re two months on, a glut of replacements have now been elected. Last night there were no fewer than six Labour defences declared and given how Starmer has wasted no time showing the country how foolish they were to back him, how would Labour do? Well already the trend shown should be alarming the Labour right, because even where they held on, their share of the vote collapsed significantly and still 8 months away from the next round of national local elections, if things are this bad for Labour electorally now, how much worse will they get following what is expected to be an awful budget for all and a very tough winter for many.
Right, so by-elections. We’re not in local election season yet, we’re still only just getting over a general election and yet we’ve got loads of by-elections popping up all over the place. There were actually 8 seats contested last night, but six were Labour defences, mostly caused by councillors readily abandoning their local council duties to go full time as MPs, not every councillor that has been elected has done this, some choose to stay on until a more convenient time, reducing duties, my own MP is one such case as this and indeed we are in Cornwall for one of these Labour defences, but a result that is absolutely nothing for Labour to celebrate.
Were in London, Cornwall, Worcestershire, Yorkshire and Surrey for these, so a good spread, Cornwall Council, Bromsgrove Council, Hartlepool Council, Worthing Council and Westminster Council twice are the six we’re looking at, and it wasn’t a good night anywhere really.
We’ll start with where Labour hung on and we’ll start in Cornwall in which case, the by-election in Falmouth to replace Jayne Kirkham, now the local MP, a Starmer loyalist, I know Jayne, it doesn’t surprise me one iota she’s voted with Starmer all the way thusfar, she’s no fan of mine either I can’t imagine why. Anyway, no Tory standing on this occasion, which might actually mask some of the damage done to Labour’s result, despite it being truly awful, because although Labour held against a Lib Dem and Green candidate, their vote share collapsed by nearly 20 points, by slightly more actually than the share of the vote the Tories got when they stood in this division last time.
Turnout was down, nothing unusual too much in that outside of normal election cycles, especially after a recent major election, perhaps the Tories all stayed at home not liking the candidates on offer, but perhaps Labour voters did too.
Let’s zip up to the other end of the country next then and Hartlepool and Burn Valley, also having lost it’s Labour councillor Jonathan Brash, to parliament and there are similarities here to the situation in Cornwall too. Again, there was no Conservative candidate, can they not get anyone to stand for them or is their own party leadership contest demonstrating that they are to all intents and purposes completely rudderless right now, not that I’d put the rudder in the hands of any of the foul entities vying to become the next Tory leader, they are a rancid bunch. But anyway, Labour again can’t really celebrate this result. They might not have had a Tory Tory to face, but they did have a hard right Tory running against this time in the form of Reform UK Ltd, as well as a Green and Lib Dem.
As you might expect, the Reform candidate, happily it appears hoovered up that Tory vote, as well as half of Labour’s as despite hanging on, Labour’s vote share fell 21.5% with both the Lib Dems and Greens making gains as well, though these appear to be academic since they didn’t stand previously.
Turnout was yet again down as is always expected, but we can’t say it is Tory voters necessarily staying at home, because Reform took nearly 40% of the vote. It’s also well outside margins of just assuming Labour voters stayed home as well, they clearly found other options. You can see the trend already though, because these are big losses on Labour’s part, despite clinging on. They aren’t a party that typically takes much of the Tory vote as Starmer has desperately tried and largely failed to win over, and even where he did going into the General Election, his claim of change might have convinced a few to lend their votes, but having not delivered on it, and with many traditional Tory voters largely older, the attacks on pensioners will not have gone down well at all in particular with them, not that it has with anyone with a pang of conscience.
We’ll move to London now and the two by elections in Westminster, because this is where Labour held on in one seat and lost the other, so we can directly compare those results in a localised area, as well as with the national picture from other by-elections.
Harrow Road is where Labour held on, following the departure of Councillor Tim Roca for parliament. It was one of their biggest losses of vote share last night anywhere and the only reason they’ve held on is a measure of how safe a Labour seat this is, because Labour secured what would normally be a respectable 44.2%, but when you consider that they lost over 27% of their vote share and fell to that, that should send shockwaves. Notably the Tories also stood this time, losing ground too it must be noted on last time, the Lib Dems also lost ground, but a decent showing by both the Greens who came second, becoming an ever bigger force in London, as well as a decent showing from Galloway’s Workers Party too, show standing for real change wins real results and there appears to be a turning on the three main parties here which is great to see and hopefully bodes well for the future.
But that is where Labour successfully defended seats. The other three they lost last night.
Also in Westminster was the seat for West End up for grabs, following Labour’s Jessica Toale heading off to be an MP as well and Labour managed to lose this seat to of all parties, the Tories. It was always a marginal seat this one, but where the Tories gained just over 8% to win the seat, Labour lost nearly 11% of the vote and with the Lib Dem vote halved, and the Greens winning just over 7% of the vote, it seems a story of apathy was the winner here too, it’s truly disappointing to see the Tories winning again already, but it’s also an indictment of what two months of Starmer is delivering now for the country, how fed up people are and the next by-election story follows a similar theme.
Staying in the south East, Worthing in Surrey saw a defence of the division of Marine, deserted by the now MP for the area Beccy Cooper. You tend to think of Surrey as Tory country anyway, so perhaps the Tories winning this seat is not the biggest surprise in this list, but Labour’s vote share collapsed again by over 19%, where the Tories only gained 9% of that to take it. It’s not like for like, the other half of Labour’s vote share here taken by Reform UK, so arguably the Tory vote split, but given Labour voters and Tory voters and rarely interchangeable, though perhaps have been this past general election more than most, people desperate for change and now seeing they aren’t getting it, perhaps Tory voters are turning out again and it is Labour voters staying at home? Whatever the reason, the ultimate result is Labour’s vote share going down everywhere.
Lastly, and out of traditional Tory heartlands, is the by-election Bromsgrove, the division of Sidemoor and for once not due to the desertion of a Labour councillor for Westminster, just a plain, ordinary resignation, but when you’re in the Midlands and you expect Labour to do well there, to see their biggest loss of the lot should be putting the frighteners on. Labour lost nearly 30% of their vote share, falling to just 16.6% and coming third, behind both the Tories, who made a small gain and the Lib Dems who actually won the seat, gaining nearly 25% of the vote, virtually exclusively from Labour, to win more than half the count, coming in on 52.6%, nearly double that of the Tories, so it’s now gone from Labour to being a fairly safe Lib Dem seat. That’s a mind boggling loss and taking all six collectively, Labour is averaging a 19 point loss across the board in all seats. That’s the trend. We’re only 2 months after people voted in the general election, apathy tends to be highest at this sort of point in time, but considering, the scale of these losses despite that and considering the local elections in May will garner higher turnout, on average looking at the turnouts in these by elections, voter turnout is down by anywhere between a third and a half, and also bearing in mind the hardship that will be inflicted on many people going through this winter and who knows who else and in what areas the rest of us will face certain hardship as Rachel Reeves gleefully draws up what looks set to be the biggest horror for many this Halloween with her austerity laden budget, Labour’s numbers, already tumbling hard look set to fall a lot harder yet. A lot of people are getting very angry already that yet again, we’ve been duped by lying politicians and the thought of having to wait 5 years for change? Nah, we can give them a bloody nose at the locals if so inclined and put the frighteners up them. That’s the least they deserve surely?
Meanwhile of course another source of national ire is Starmer and his freebies, not least the fact the mainstream media has finally been forced, thanks to news outlet Open Democracy exposing it, that Labour has received the biggest donation in it’s history – and it’s from a hedge fund representing the interests of fossil fuels, arms manufacturers and big banksters, can’t imagine what they want in return can you? Shows this Labour government are Labour in name only though. Get the details of this story in this video recommendation here as your suggested next watch and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.