I thought it was probably worth noting that in the by-election this week in Chesham and Amersham (that is one combined constituency), the Lib Dems won unexpectedly. Or, they won *massively*, unexpectedly. The Lib Dems took over 50% of the turnout, which admittedly was low, I think it was 52%, but that is standard for a by-election.
A couple of things:
1. I won £20 off of Paddy Power by backing the Lib Dems at 8/1. I only bet £2.50, I'm a bit disappointed I didn't put more on now. But I could afford to lose £2.50. I only put that bet on on Tuesday, it seems even the bookies weren't expecting the Lib Dems to do so well.
2. This is only one data point, but it is interesting. There is another by-election in Batley and Spen in a couple of weeks, and the Conservatives are expected to win there as well; it'll be interesting to see if they can accomplish that. It will be interesting to see whether the Chesham and Amersham result has any impact on the Batley vote.
3. The acceptance tweet by the Conservative candidate was particularly ungracious: he tweeted that he was "disappointed" that the voters didn't vote for him, and he also remarked that the election had been held under "extraordinary circumstances". This links to something else I want to cover, but I'll mention that later. If the Conservatives want to dismiss this as a one-off that won't be repeated, without any reflection or analysis, they may be doomed to suffer similar results?
4. Part of the Hartlepool result was explained by commentators as voters thinking that by voting Conservative they may get the ear of the government. I think the vote in Chesham disproves that theory. It's been said that a lot of Labour voters voted for the Lib Dem candidate, and I guess the Conservative voters must've largely stayed at home. But by showing that other parties can win, it gives hope, I think, to other campaigners in other constituencies. Will this, for example, encourage Labour to redouble their efforts in Batley and Spen?
5. Please no more political "jokes" like Ed Davey knocking down an actual blue wall with an orange hammer. That is cringeworthy and on a par with the "Ed Stone" and Johnson knocking through a wall on a JCB.
Overall it's nice to see that the Conservative vice-like grip on the UK electorate doesn't seem as vice-like as maybe it did at first glance. Hopefully this is the first of several progressive successful results.
The other thing I wanted to mention, which goes back to point 3, is the defection of John Bercow to Labour. If the Conservative party were truly an inclusive "one nation" party, that wouldn't have been necessary. But I fear that the Conservative party and government are becoming increasingly one-eyed and narrow in outlook. The reaction to Bercow's defection from an official party spokesperson was that Labour were "welcome to him".
If you don't want to engage with others who have different viewpoints, even if those viewpoints are close to yours, I don't see how you can expect to persuade people around to your point of view. And that feeds into a wider point, I think, which is that Johnson and his government are not subtle. They currently rely on overwhelming other perspectives, or ignoring them altogether. Since Bercow hasn't signed up to "the project" (I'm not quite sure what "the project" is at this stage), his support isn't required. He was a Conservative MP for a number of years, he had been out there beating the drum for the Conservatives, and yet all that hard work is dismissed in one phrase; Labour are "welcome to him".
I don't think that kind of reaction is going to garner loyalty to the party. But we'll see. And maybe the Batley and Spen by-election will provide some more information about what is going on in the country. Let's see.
TTFN.
