Starmer’s Labour CRUSHED AGAIN In More By-Election SHOCKERS!

Right, so we’ve had another glut of 13 by-elections this week, again mostly replacing councillors who have gone on to become MPs, but again, and this being the third bloc of by-elections being resolved having been triggered by vacant seats created by the General Election, we really are now seeing a solid trend of significant double digit vote losses, even where Labour hold a seat they are defending. Keir Starmer has made Labour so unpopular so fast, his party have now over the course of some 105 council by elections held since Labour took power, lost 35% of the seats the held. In a little over 100 days, Starmer’s Labour has lost over a third of the seats they were defending and that’s after having won a landslide at that General Election. We’ve never seen a party’s approval amongst the electorate demonstrably decline this fast ever I don’t think. Polls are one thing, but these are actual results and for as much as there will still be people seeking to defend Labour by saying local election results have no bearing on general election results, the scale of the losses, the scale of the loss in vote share is very much heavily reflecting those poll results that come out on national voting intention anyway. Labour is more and more shaping up to ending up being a single term government as Keir Starmer leads them to more and more losses, with next weeks budget likely set to make things even worse for them with another brutal austerity assault on ordinary working class people and deservedly so.
Right, so another 13 by-elections, unlucky for some as the number 13 is, for Keir Starmer. It’s just he latest set of bad local election results, which are the polar opposite of the general election result he won, the rapidly broken promises and demonstration that under him there will no change from 14 years of Tory attacks on the working class as lives look set to be blighted for at least another 5 years.
As such, voters are undoubtedly making their ire felt against Labour the country over. Of these 13 seats up for grabs, Labour were defending 6 of them, the Tories 3, Lib Dems 2, Plaid Cymru one and the other was vacated by an independent.
Labour lost half their defences and of those they held double digit loss in vote share, some very heavy double digit losses of vote share were delivered. There is an element of they don’t give two hoots about it all right now, 5 years in power as they now have, but if they think someone as woefully unpopular as Keir Starmer is the one to turn things around for them, I just can’t see it, the man is so dislikeable for so many reasons now, I just can’t see it, but these are the results as they panned out anyway and perversely the Tories had a good night at Labour expense in another demonstration of what appears to be abject short-sightedness that there is no difference between these two parties and people really do need to start thinking in terms of a third way.
A lot of these by-elections this time around were in Wales, so we’ll start with Talybolion on the Isle of Angelsey, North Wales, staunch Plaid Cymru country as this tends to be, no Labour candidate here, it was Plaid, versus the Tories the Greens and an Independent who was also a former councillor and may have benefitted from previous incumbency as the Independent took the seat with over 50% of the vote.
Another somewhat unremarkable contest was in Barton & Becton in the New Forest, this was a Tory defence, created by the death of the incumbent Tory councillor, the only challenge they had came from the Lib Dems, who’s vote share shot up by 20% and ended up running the Tories close, as neither Labour nor the Greens stood here this time as they had previously, but the Tories held on.
In every other contest Labour stood and Labour basically got hammered.
We’ll take another Tory hold next, this was in Croft on East Lindsay District Council in Lincolnshire, again, the death of the incumbent Tory councillor was what triggered it, says a lot for the average ages of Tory councillors these days I suppose doesn’t it at this point? But having won the seat unopposed previously none of the challenging parties for this seat can be said to have lost vote share exactly since they had none to begin with, but of 6 parties running – notably not Reform UK Ltd either, which is odd since this area has the grinning permatanned idiot Richard Tice as it’s MP and if you count a candidate representing Skegness Urban District Society as a Party, Labour managed to come last! You can’t call it a loss of vote share, but winning just 1.2% of the vote, is hardly anything to shout about, but was the only gain in vote share they got anywhere all night.
Let’s look at a Lib Dem defence next just to shake things up a bit and we’ll go to Histon & Impington on South Cambridgeshire Council, which has been vacated by Pippa Heylings, who has now become an MP. Five contenders here, Lib Dems, Tories, Labour, Greens and an Independent and who could surmise it, Labour came last again! Only a 7.1% loss of vote share this time, and I so only because they lost so much more elsewhere, but also that loss still represents half the vote share they won here when contested previously, Labour lost 7.1% giving them just 7.4% of the vote this time, miles behind the Tories who came 4th on 11.6%, the two main parties coming last here a nice nod to somewhere perhaps leaning more to a deviation away from the same old tired, failing politics that keeps on being elected into national government.
This was also reflected, though with slightly different placings for the Tories and Labour in Old Dean on Surrey Heath Council. Surrey folks, Tory heartland stuff, triggered as this was by the resignation for a change of a young Tory councillor, who got a better job offer it seems, not to become an MP though. Both Labour and the Tories got decimated though on this occasion, losing the seat to the Lib Dems, who hadn’t even stood here previously, but came straight in and took nearly 45% of the vote, the Tories coming second, but losing nearly half of their vote share, losing 27.3% of their vote, dropping to just 31% of the vote, but Labour did even worse than that, losing over 30% of their vote share, dropping to just shy of 11% of the vote. Other’s running this time included Reform UK, who it can easily be said would have split the vote, but even if all of their vote had gone to the Tories, they would still have lost to the Lib Dems. An independent saved Labour’s blushes this time from coming last again, gaining just 0.5%, keeping labour from bottom.
Whickham North in Gateshead was another Lib Dem hold, a very safe Lib Dem seat, the incumbent councillor leaving after getting a promotion at work. The result therefore that they held the seat is not a surprise, the Lib Dems getting 64.6% of the vote, gaining nearly 7% more than last time, basically almost exclusively at the expense of Labour, who lost just over 6% to get some 20% of the vote, with the Tories and Greens some distance behind that.
Now we’ve just got the Labour defences left, so let’s start with where they held on.
Hemlington on Middlesborough Council was a by-election triggered again by the death of the incumbent, this time Labour councillor.
This was as solid a hold as Labour got really, gaining 53% of the vote, but that still meant they lost more than 10% of their previous vote share. With the Tories gaining 16% of vote share to get 30% of the vote, almost doubling their vote share is pretty depressing to see as well, especially when there was an independent challenger as well as new challenges from both the Lib Dems and George Galloway’s Workers Party, but it does go to show how incumbency is often favoured and new challengers need to work at getting their presence felt before necessarily reaping rewards.
Northgate & West Green on Crawley Council was another Labour hold, vacated by Peter Lamb who is now the MP for Crawley. Labour will therefore be relieved to have held the seat, even though their vote share dropped by almost a third, losing 15% of vote share to hang on by winning 38% of the vote. The Tories came second, though they also lost a small chunk of vote share, 2%, as also did previous contenders for the seat but running again this time as well, the Greens and TUSC, with vote share being mopped up by Reform UK Ltd and the Workers Party.
Labour’s third hold was Calder in West Yorkshire, Calderdale Council, vacated again by a new Labour MP, Josh Fenton-Glyn. A much bigger loss in vote share, more than 31% of it lost, but still hanging onto it, by winning 36% of the vote, so vote share virtually halved, not what you expect to see of the party of government just 100 days in, but rapidly becoming the norm for Labour. In a sign that this is another area becoming more progressive, the Greens came second, gaining over 13% more vote share than previously, winning 28.2% of the vote, which is a great result to build on, the Tories also losing vote share, falling to just 9%, the Lib Dems came third with 14% and a decent showing by an Independent too, as well as the SDP who also ran here, getting 0.4% and kept the Tories from coming last.
However Labour clinging on despite some big vote share losses couldn’t save their face when they lost their other 3 defences.
Middleforth on South Ribble Council saw Labour’s vote collapse by almost half, losing 25% of their vote share following the resignation of their councillor Will Adams. Sadly it went to the Tories, or at least 20% of it appears to have, as they took the seat with 45% of the vote, the Lib Dems also lost a bit of vote share, the Greens sucking up almost 6% of it, newly standing here as they were.
The two remaining Labour losses were in Wales, I did say there was a fair chunk of Wales here this time around.
Of these the first we’ll look at was in Town on Monmouthshire Council, vacated by Catherine Fookes who is now the local MP, where the Tories saw a surge in vote share, an increase of 30%, what are thinking of Town? But only half of that on paper coming from Labour who lost a third of their vote, ending up on 30% to the Tories almost 59%. Much of that came from an independent vote that didn’t stand again this time, but new showings from the Greens and Lib Dems here are hopefully a sign of something more progressive being on offer in future.
The final Labour loss was Prestatyn North in Denbighshire, to replace another councillor turned Labour MP Gill German. This result was so bad it saw Labour end up coming 4th, a Labour defence and the incumbent party comes 4th, losing 18.7% of the vote to win just 18.6% of it, so fully halved. Although the Tories took the seat, they themselves only gained 0.1% of the vote so this is very much a reversal of what we saw during the general election, a get Labour out vote instead of a get the Tories out vote. With losses for Plaid Cymru as well and only an academic showing for the Lib Dems who hadn’t stood previously, most of the Labour lost vote appears to have gone to an Independent who came second and Reform UK Ltd who stood for the first time.
Labour continue to be absolute massacred in local elections since Keir Starmer came to power. 35 of defences lost, in 100 days of a Labour government and I genuinely cannot see how with Starmer as leader, Labour can turn that around. They will continue to suffer at the ballot at every turn and really it’s a just a waiting game now for a parliamentary by-election to see what state they are in at that level and that will come at some point because it always does.
Last week we same much of the same, get all the details on this again, massive by election losses on this video recommendation here as your suggested next watch, Labour is in real trouble, but acts like it doesn’t matter right now, refusing to actually acknowledge how much bother they are in. Not sustainable and I’ll hopefully catch you on the enxt vid. Cheers folks.