UK local by-elections, 2017

[vileplume]

As I stated elsewhere, Labour seem to be doing unusually well in coastal and tourist industry places. This has been a pattern observed in the GE (although not consistently) and is continuing in the local by-election results.

Yes they do. I think if Labour win a majority next time around it will be because they perform extremely strongly in deprived areas (particularly seaside towns). This is because in these places lot of the Tory vote will have once voted UKIP and could probably be won over on a populist platform.

Whilst on the other hand I think Labour will struggle much more in target seats that are more suburban/commuterland where the Tory vote is much more solid 'true blue' and almost uniformly despises Corbyn. An example would be somewhere like Macclesfield. Labour is strong in the town itself but weak in the rest of the seat which is mostly wealthy commuter towns and villages. Bar a big Lib Dem recovery at the expense of the Tories I struggle to see where Labour would get the votes to win there.

As for the seats Labour lost to the Tories this time I think the likes of Mansfield and Walsall North (both very populist places) will definitely be easy to win back for a Corbynite Labour party on it's way to victory, whilst North East Derbyshire may well be much harder to regain given it is more suburban/commuter territory in character.

This character may also play out in Kent and Essex with a Corbynite Labour party on its way to national victory performing strongly in the places on the coast/estuary further away from London with a tourism heritage like Southend and Thanet yet more weakly in the more suburban areas closer to the capital like Dartford, Gravesend and Basildon.

[vileplume]

I think the likes of Mansfield and Walsall North (both very populist places) will definitely be easy to win back for a Corbynite Labour party on it's way to victory

Bluntly, both seats were largely lost because of their incumbents.

There is simply no evidence for that especially for Walsall North where the Tory majority was over 2,500 which is miles outside the range for a standard personal vote.

Personal votes rarely make much of a difference either way unless the MP is extremely popular/good at casework or is extremely controversial or gaffe/scandal prone. Neither of this is true for either of these MPs. Most MPs (including the former MPs for Walsall North and Mansfield) have small positive personal votes simply because of name recognition. Thus if Winnick and Meale had retired instead of defending their seats the Tory majority would likely be a couple of hundred higher in both.

In short the Tories won Walsall North and Mansfield primarily due to Brexit and the high leave votes in these seats. Their campaign tactic of 'citizens of nowhere' directly targeted these types of voters. Look at the swings in other Labour seats with very high leave votes and you'll see the swings to the Tories in Walsall North and Mansfield are roughly in line with these.

The incumbents had nothing to do with why the Tories gained those seats I'm afraid.

[vileplume]

Holy Word here.

Fylde, Staining and Weeton

Con 73.0 (+11.2)
Lab 20.2 (-18.0)
Lib Dem 6.7 (+6.7)

West Lindsey, Sudbrooke

Con 69.6 (+0.7)
Lab 30.4 (+10.5)

Hartlepool, Victoria

Lab 53.1 (+1.9)
UKIP 36.0 (+6.4)
Con 10.9 (-1.0)

South Holland, Whaplode and Holbeach St John's

Con 78.0 (+21.6)
Lab 22.0 (+22.0)

Darlington, Mowden

Con 60.7 (+13.2)
Lab 26.5 (-2.6)
Lib Dem 10.3 (+10.3)
Green 2.4 (-5.4)

Darlington, Red Hall and Lingfield

Lab 44.8 (-1.6)
Con 41.4 (+13.0)
FB 8.3 (+8.3)
Green 3.6 (-9.3)
Lib Dem 2.0 (-10.3)

Eden, Penrith North

Lib Dem 45.2 (+3.5)
Con 31.2 (-1.1)
Lab 16.6 (-9.4)
Green 7.0 (+7.0)

Chiltern, Penn and Coleshill

Con 80.6
Lib Dem 19.4

Waveney, Kirkley

Lab 47.8 (+12.6)
Con 27.7 (+9.9)
Lib Dem 10.7 (+10.7)
UKIP 10.0 (-11.1)
Green 3.8 (-5.

Waveney, St Margaret's

Con 41.7 (+13.4)
Lab 35.1 (-1.0)
UKIP 10.2 (-17.
Lib Dem 7.5 (+7.5)
Green 5.6 (-2.0)

Con gain St Margaret's from Lab

The results in Waveney and Darlington are truly shocking and disappointing to say the least,
Labour have never lost the waveney seat in a long time
we are being governed by the most incompetent government since the 1970s, brexit negotiations and universal credit aren't going well,
Labour should be 20+ ahead in the polls yet, we are level pegging nationally and losing votes locally   

I suppose that there are two possible explanations for this:

1) The type of voters that Corbyn energised (primarily the young) would be much less likely to turn out for a local by-election than the rest of the electorate. This should give Labour some comfort.

2) Whilst Corbyn may energise the Labour base he terrifies Tory inclined voters to such a degree that they are willing to stick with the Tories regardless of how incompetent/shambolic the government is. This interpretation does tie into the fact that Labour has been unable to gain a lead of more than a few points over the Tories despite them having their worst few weeks in several years. Speaking anecdotally I strongly disapprove of the governments competence but nevertheless I feel I will have to vote for them at the next election (whenever that may be) because I view the alternative (Corbyn, McDonnell, Abbott and co.) as being far worse. My parents and many in their social circles feel the same as I suspect do millions across the country. Now if the economy truly were to tank this may well change but as of now there is no real sign that Labour is making any progress at all with Tory voters.

However I would note that the Waveney constituency (which should be called Lowestoft but I digress) was one of Labour's worst results in England and Wales and was indeed the only seat where the Lib Dems were not seen as the primary opposition to the Tories where the Labour vote fell. Darlington too was a below average result for Labour with a small swing against them. These are clearly not areas massively enthused by 'Corbynmania' in the first place. Whilst in contrast Labour has had extremely strong local by-election results in more touristy places on the coast in this parliament e.g. Worthing, Shoreham, Weston-super-Mare, Thanet. Nevertheless there is no getting away from the fact that this weeks results were poor for Labour with a government in as much trouble as the current one is.

Arguably the failure to damage the Tory vote virtually at all in the London borough of Wandsworth (a Labour target council next year) ward of Thamesfield in last weeks by-elections should be more concerning to Labour. This is because unlike Lowestoft and Darlington this is an area where Brexit is exceedingly unpopular and the Tories have seemingly gone out of their way to chuck away votes.

[vileplume]

Remember when the Lib Dems thought that their local by election results in the run up to 2015 was proof that their vote was going to hold up at the GE?

Best not to read too much into these sorts of things.

Also, Thamesfield is probably the worst seat for Labour in the Putney constituency, possibly in the whole of Wandsworth.

The Lib Dems results locally virtually never correlate to their results nationally due to them being a more 'localist' party. Thus the only people who thought that the strong local by-election results for the Lib Dems before the last election would translate into a big recovery despite the national polls were the usual Lib Dem rampers and people who know next to nothing about British politics. The Tory and Labour votes in local by-election do by contrast have some correlation to how each is performing nationally though you are correct that they are far from the be all and end all.

On Wandsworth whilst you are correct Thamesfield is one of the Tories best wards in the borough but the swing to Labour in that ward last week was significantly below what they were expecting. Indeed applying that swing to all wards from the Wandsworth council elections from 2014 would give Labour the Tory seats in the three split wards and nothing else leaving a Tory majority on the council. If the Tory council survives in Wandsworth next year despite Brexit and the best efforts of Theresa 'citizens of nowhere' May it will be an incredibly disappointing result for Labour considering that not only did Labour absolutely trounce the Tories in Wandsworth in the mot recent general this was a borough Kahn won in the mayoral race.