Recent British By Elections (Government)

I promised an update to this blogpost after Nadine Dorries' resignation in the Updates blogpost - here it is!

Not much to update either way, barring that the Conservatives have suffered four further defeats since that blogpost was published - three to the Labour Party and one to the Lib Dems, in constituencies ranging from the previously navy Mid Bedfordshire (Tory since 1931 and never Labour) and Somerton and Frome (picked up by the Lib Dems who'd previously held the seat for eighteen years).

There's been one seat that the Tories have held - former Prime Minister Boris Johnson's former constituency, Uxbridge and South Ruislip - a victory the Tories milked more than a farmer does an elderly cow. The Tories saw their vote share decrease by about 7.5%, with their majority only about 1.6% that of the constituencies' voters, yet it was hailed as an example of how Uxbridge residents had rejected policy ideas such as the Ultra Low Emission Zone, and some reported on it being an upset. Labour even started to question ULEZ, and the by-election was prominently in the news compared to the results in Selby and Ainsty, for example. I don't want to get too opinionated (why would I do such a thing on my blog?) but surely keeping hold of a seat which Johnson held with a 7,000+ vote majority and a vote share above 50% (an uncommon sight in British politics) albeit much reduced isn't that great a success or an upset? Yes, Labour were polling higher than the Tories in the constituency at times, but I reckon the result was never seen as a guaranteed Labour win. Overall, in terms of by-election success, the current government have held three constituencies, won one (Hartlepool, back in 2021, and that was when the Tories were polling high nationally) and lost eight constituencies - since the last blogpost back in July, it has thus doubled. 

Obviously part of the reason for that is when I wrote that blogpost - it was in anticipation of the three by-elections happening, specifically posted a day before the results were to be announced. If I decided not to post a review of The Ballad of Darren on the 21st and posted the by-election post on that day instead, it would be only two. So that statistic is meaningless, really. As well as that, the previous blogpost was rather limited in its data, what with it not reflecting how the government was performing based on by-elections in general, only in the ones where it achieved a result -  I probably could have expanded on it, and perhaps I'll write a better blogpost in the future reflecting most by-elections affecting the government.

Using the data from the previous blogpost, however, I've analysed a bit more data from that spreadsheet - overall, the Tories achieved a result (gain/hold/loss) in twelve by-elections, with eight defeats - or, 66.7% of all results have been defeats. There are obviously limitations to using this method as mentioned before, but either way, this is the highest proportion since the Conservative record of eight defeats from eight from 1992 to 1997, and the third highest (behind the Tories from 1987 to 1992, with seven defeats from ten). The spreadsheet is below again for comparison (I've only mentioned results with more than five by-elections, for obvious reasons). Again, there are flaws with how long the gaps lasted between elections, so this isn't particularly useful, but I reckon this is a good way of looking at how the Tories are performing right now.

I'll conclude by mentioning Gillian Keegan's statements following the by-election that "there was no real love for Labour" and that "people stayed at home". It raises a good question over whether by-elections are that important to analyse - after all, the turnouts at by-elections are commonly much lower than at general elections. In Mid Bedfordshire, for example, turnout was just 44.1% compared to about 70% back in 2019. But that's not too dissimilar to the turnout changes at Uxbridge - 46.2%, compared to 63.5%. Does that mean there's no real love for the Tories, since surely many more voters would have turned out in their droves for them? In Mid Bedfordshire, meanwhile, about the same number of voters chose Labour, whereas only a third voted for the Conservatives compared to 2019. Keegan's statement is understandable - these results aren't certain to be the same next year* - but people did vote for Labour, not the Tories, that's undeniable.

So that's the update that I promised, and the final one (unless it's far into the future). I know many people don't want to read political posts and prefer it when I write about some park in South London, so I'll try to limit when I write about politics (not that it isn't important, it obviously very much is).