Browsed by
Category: By elections

What we are seeing in British politics at the moment could be “The New Normal”

What we are seeing in British politics at the moment could be “The New Normal”

Comments 0 Comment

So, here we are, losses for both main parties, laceratingly large for the Tories, some in surprising places, the Lib Dems and the Greens cock-a-hoop, the NOTA party making a fine showing and the inevitable calls for a change of leadership  – with May more at risk, what with being heckled in Wales and facing an EGM in June. (Perhaps Trump could orchestrate proceedings during his forthcoming visit. He has experience in saying “You’re fired!” after all – with his British…

Read More Read More

George Galloway wants to be the Brexit candidate in Peterborough and threatens to run an as indy if he isn’t

George Galloway wants to be the Brexit candidate in Peterborough and threatens to run an as indy if he isn’t

Comments 0 Comment

https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1123685667236732928 Whoever he stands for Galloway will be a formidable opponent This could be tricky for Farage because Galloway is no slouch when it comes to by-elections and has a far better record here than the Brexit Party leader. In 2012 in Bradford West he was 33/1 in the betting when he put himself forward in the rock solid safe Labour seat. Even on the day you could have got him at 4/1. As it turned out Galloway took the…

Read More Read More

Tomorrow at 1800 the Peterborough recall petition closes and the count takes place that evening

Tomorrow at 1800 the Peterborough recall petition closes and the count takes place that evening

Comments 0 Comment

The parties are on standby for a by-election After what seems to be inordinately long period of time the Peterborough recall petition is drawing to a close and tomorrow night Fiona Onasanya will learn whether she can continue as an MP or not. Even if 6,967 (10% of the electorate) have signed that would not be the end of the matter for Onasanya. She would be able to stand in the ensuing by-election though not for Labour. While this has…

Read More Read More

Bye-bye by-elections? Part 2. MPs who resigned their seats and stood in the ensuing by-election

Bye-bye by-elections? Part 2. MPs who resigned their seats and stood in the ensuing by-election

Comments 0 Comment

In Part 1, I discussed how the reasons for triggering by-elections have changed since 1918. In Part 2, I will discuss in more detail the phenomenon (or lack) of MPs resigning and re-contesting their seats over principle or when they change party allegiance. In Part 1, I showed you the trends in both the number of and the reasons for Westminster by-elections over the last 100 years. Now, fast-forwarding to the present, just a couple of months ago, 11 MPs…

Read More Read More

The Tories should take some consolation from Newport West – the disaster that did not happen

The Tories should take some consolation from Newport West – the disaster that did not happen

Comments 0 Comment

Betting favourite for 2nd UKIP ended with barely a quarter of the CON vote The narrative at the moment is all about how appallingly the Tories will do in the Euro elections on May 23rd. Almost no threads appear on PB these without some new prediction of the impending disaster. But are we overstating this? I think that we might be Let us look back just three weeks when we were digesting the Newport West by-election result. The UKIP candidate…

Read More Read More

REWRITE: What will be the party of the next MP to join TIG

REWRITE: What will be the party of the next MP to join TIG

Comments 0 Comment

5/4 CON 36/1 DUP 32/1 GREEN 23/20 LAB 71/5 LD 32/1 PC 20/1 SNP 68/1 Sinn Fein I have just made an awful cockup and misread the name of the market. This is about from which party will the next defector to TIG come. Apologies. Still I think my initial reading of what the market was is a good idea for a bet. I’ve just come across this intriguing market from Smarkets on what will be the party of the…

Read More Read More

What does Newport West tell us?

What does Newport West tell us?

Comments 0 Comment

Newport West was the 28th by-election to be held in Wales since the 1950 General Election. Of those 28, twenty have been defended by Labour with only one loss (Carmarthen in 1966) so therefore a Labour hold was pretty much a given. However, that doesn’t mask the fact that Labour should be worried. Labour’s vote fell by 13% on the general election, the fourth biggest drop in the Labour vote share in a Labour defence since 1950 (Caerphilly 1967 -29%,…

Read More Read More

If the Tories lost a Brecon and Radnor by-election it could be the end

If the Tories lost a Brecon and Radnor by-election it could be the end

Comments 0 Comment

One of the significant constitutional changes that came out of the coalition era was a process for MPs to be recalled. We saw this used for the first time in Northern Ireland last year and we are seeing a recall petition taking place in Peterborough at the moment. The law lays down specific circumstances in which ia petition can be triggered and one of them is the MP being convicted of parliamentary expenses fraud as has happened in Brecon and…

Read More Read More