Dem
51
GOP
49
There was a by-election in England yesterday, and regular British correspondent S.T. in Worcestershire agreed to send in a report:
Blackpool was once one of the—if not THE—premiere seaside resorts in the U.K. Unfortunately, the advent of cheap "package" holidays to the rest of Europe, starting in the 1960s, dealt a body blow to such communities. Blackpool still has its perennially windy and cheerfully gaudy seafront (think Coney Island), but just inland lie wards with some of the most significant levels of social and economic deprivation in England,
This decline had a political impact. For much of the 20th century, Blackpool supported at first one, then two, reliably Conservative constituencies, North and South. From the 1970s onwards, they began to slowly trend towards the Labour party. In the 1997 general election, assisted by favorable boundary changes, former historian Gordon Marsden became Blackpool South's first ever Labour MP. He held the seat for 22 years until the 2019 "Brexit" general election, when Scott Benton regained the seat for the Conservatives.
Regular Electoral-Vote.com readers may be able to guess what happened next. In a classic sting operation, journalists from the Sunday Times, posing as businessmen, had a meeting with Benton during which he agreed to leak confidential information and lobby ministers in return for payments. There followed an independent inquiry, a recommendation for a 35-day suspension which was approved by MPs, and the launch of a recall petition to hold a by-election. Benton jumped before he was pushed and resigned.
Given these circumstances and the current opinion polls in the U.K., it is no surprise that Labour's Chris Webb was elected yesterday, albeit on a miserable turnout of just 32%. Not that Webb will be too worried: he achieved a swing of 26%, the 3rd highest Conservative-to-Labour swing ever in a by-election! The Conservative vote plummeted by over 30%, leaving their candidate David Jones just 107 votes ahead of populist Reform party's Mark Butcher. There is absolutely no comfort for the Conservatives in this result. It confirms, and indeed far exceeds, the 16.5% swing in recent national opinion polls. It also highlights the vulnerability of the so called "Red Wall" seats, the traditionally Labour-voting seats which the Conservatives won at the last general election, and without which their majority evaporates.
Thanks, S.T.!
Now, you might be wondering why we ran this as our schadenfreude item of the week. Part of it is because it's good to see a corrupt politician get his just desserts (which we would say, in his case, is spotted dick). However, it's also because there were local elections in several constituencies, including Boris Johnson's home of South Oxfordshire. And the former PM, who probably thinks of himself as a potential future PM, showed up to vote but could not, because he had forgotten to bring valid ID. Sorry, Boris!
It is possible American readers did not know that the U.K. has a voter ID law, because it hasn't been on the books for very long. It was adopted by Parliament while it was under the leadership of... Boris Johnson. If that is not schadenfreude, we don't know what is. In any case, congrats to the former PM for blocking at least one undesirable voter from casting a ballot. (Z)