Tories lose two by-elections – but Labour only wins by default
![](https://voxpoliticalonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/180217-ballot-box.jpg)
The ballot box: do either of Labour’s two new MPs actually have a mandate, when the vast majority of voters in both constituencies did not support them?
Once again, This Writer feels compelled to say: don’t buy what Keir Starmer is pedalling – the by-election results in Tamworth and Mid-Bedfordshire are not great victories for Labour.
Yes, Starmer’s party gained the Parliamentary seats in both constituencies after yesterday’s (October 19) votes – but only because 46,000 Conservative voters stayed away from polling stations or didn’t post in their choices.
And yet, once again, we’re seeing reports of huge swings toward Labour only because they are recorded as percentages of the turnout, rather than of the electorate.
So, in Tamworth, we’re told this:
Tamworth parliamentary by-election, result:
LAB: 45.8% (+22.1)
CON: 40.7% (-25.7)
REF: 5.4% (+5.4)
UKIP: 1.7% (-0.1)Labour GAIN from Conservative.
— Britain Elects (@BritainElects) October 20, 2023
But turnout was down from 46,066 in the 2019 general election to 25,586 – a drop of 20,480. The Conservative vote fell from 30,542 to to 10,403 – a drop of 20,139. So we can see very clearly that Labour’s gain was due to Tory disaffection.
The electorate is currently taken to be 72,544 (although these figures are from 2010 and are therefore around 13 years old).
Labour had 10,908 votes in 2019 – around 15 per cent of that electorate. Yesterday the party’s vote did indeed increase in real terms – but only by 811 votes to 11,719 – around 16 per cent of the electorate.
That is hardly a thumping majority.
Some might say it is not acceptable. With turnout at just 35.3 per cent, we can see that 64.7 per cent – nearly two-thirds of the electorate – did not want any of the candidates offered to them.
How can Sarah Edwards – the apparent winner – claim to represent them or their political desires?
She can’t.
Let’s move on to Mid-Bedfordshire, where the situation is even worse, although you wouldn’t know it from what’s being said:
Mid Bedfordshire parliamentary by-election, result:
LAB: 34.1% (+12.4)
CON: 31.1% (-28.6)
LDEM: 23.1% (+10.5)
IND: 4.6% (+3.3)
REF: 3.7% (+3.7)
GRN: 1.8% (-2.0)Labour GAIN from Conservative.
— Britain Elects (@BritainElects) October 20, 2023
At 40,720, turnout was 48.3 per cent of the 84,212-strong electorate but, again, the number actually voting for the winning candidate was pitiful.
Tory voters again avoided the ballot boxes in huge numbers, with only 12,680 supporting the Conservative candidate – down a massive 26,012 from the 38,692 who voted Nadine Dorries back into Parliament in 2019.
As turnout then was 64,717 we can see that the 23,993 fall in voter numbers is entirely Conservative, with 2,019 others choosing to vote who did not take part in 2019.
So, again, Labour’s gain is due only to Tory voters turning away.
Labour’s candidate, Alistair Strathern, actually gained fewer votes than the party’s candidate in 2019, Rhiannon Meades. She collected 14,028 – around 16.7 per cent of the electorate, while he could only manage 13,872 – around 16.5 per cent.
Again, it may be suggested that, with 51.7 per cent of the electorate not turning out, and with 83.5 per cent not voting for him, the winning candidate does not have a valid mandate to represent the constituency.
But you wouldn’t think that, listening to Starmer!
“I think this really is a gamechanger,” he said, according to the BBC.
“There is a confidence now in this changed Labour party that we can go anywhere across the country, put up a fight and win seats that we’ve never won before.”
Fine words about two constituencies where Labour will almost certainly lose both its new MPs at the next general election, when the disaffected Tory voters will most likely return to do their bit to foil Starmer’s chances of forming a government!
In fairness, he did admit, “I don’t want to get carried away” and added that “every single vote on this journey has to be earned”.
Some Conservatives are being far more realistic about their own performance:
The Tamworth & Mid-Beds by-elections are extremely bad for my party @Conservatives, and I don't think it helps to suggest otherwise, as some party figures have done this morning.
The current national polls are dreadful for us but these results are even *worse*.
The very worst…
— David Frost (@DavidGHFrost) October 20, 2023
I hate to say anything positive about the Tories…
But at least Frost isn’t lying to you. Starmer’s words are disingenuous at best.
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The turnouts in both elections were so low as to be irrelevant. If these elections had been in industry for strike action they would have been declared invalid as they hadn’t reached the minimum number of votes. Surely there should be a minimum percentage of votes for political elections just like the minimum percentage required to make a vote for industrial/ strike action valid?
That would make sense and provide consistency – so we already have two reasons why it won’t happen!
Listen to the leading poll expert John Curtice and then you might have a good idea what last night means in a general election.
I didn’t hear what Curtice had to say. If it was based on swings in the percentage of people voting in each individual election, then it was based on a fallacy.
In the last three by-elections there has been a scandal hit MP stepping down and in Scotland, as in England, the previous MP had served an incumbent party (SNP in the Scottish Parliament of course) who have been in for over a decade.
Protest votes, low turnouts, fed up with current party and scandal have all come together to give big swings to Labour. Starmer has offered nothing and is indeed reneging on yet more promises every day.
It’s almost like he doesn’t want a landslide and only wants to ‘just’ win. The swing is not repeatable in a GE although they are bound to win but without a massive majority that they could have.
He’s depending on Tory Wets, racists and Labour voters who have no one else to vote for. I feel for the Labour voters, it’s almost like he’s daring them to vote for someone else and doing (as the Scottish Labour former MSPs did when first kicked out of Holyrood) blame the elctorate for their stupidity rather than look in the mirror. As soon as Labour voters find another home for their vote the party are finished. IT happened in Scotland so it can happen anywhere..
From what I have read in today’s Guardian, Labour had a really good ground campaign. However, that does beg the question as to why its actual number of votes was so low.
Conservatives are massively shedding voters but Labour is not gaining them in any significant numbers unless, of course, Labour is losing some of its past voters.
Tamworth is interesting because it was actually held by Labour quite recently.
The old South East Staffordshire by election in 1996 saw Labour’s vote rise by 4,000. It was replaced by the new Tamworth constituency which Labour then held until the 2010 election. Why Labour ceased to be competitive in this constituency is not something that I understand.