January 21, 20178 yr Author I'd make Labour slight favourites to win Stoke-on-Trent Central, but I could genuinely realistically see any of Labour/Ukip/Conservatives/Lib Dems taking it. Which is the first time I think that's ever been the case. I don't think Ukip will win though. What reason to vote Ukip is there over the Conservatives at the moment? Theresa May is showing no signs whatsoever of needing her feet held to the fire as far as hardcore Leave voters would be concerned. Indeed. Why vote for a UKIP MP to sit on the opposition benches when you can vote for a UKIP MP who can join the UKIP Prime Minister on the government benches?
January 22, 20178 yr I'm not aware of the demographics on the constituency although I assume it's old labour so maybe some would never vote for the Tories so would find it easier to transfer from Labour to UKIP?
January 22, 20178 yr I'm not aware of the demographics on the constituency although I assume it's old labour so maybe some would never vote for the Tories so would find it easier to transfer from Labour to UKIP? The winning post has been 38% for the last two elections. If it craters even more the winner could conceivably do it with just a third of the vote. Also I wouldn't be quite so sure. There hasn't been a more Old Labour-friendly Tory leader than Theresa May in quite some time.
January 22, 20178 yr I understand that but is there not some old labour voters who would never vote Tory?
January 22, 20178 yr Theresa May is a lot more 'old labour' than Corbyn ever could dream of being. Her Hard Brexit rhetoric will go down well in a 70% leave constituency.
January 22, 20178 yr I understand that but is there not some old labour voters who would never vote Tory? Oh of course there'll always be. But 'old Labour' often gets conflated with 'Bennite Labour'. A lot of people forget that most of the time, old Labour was closer the Labour "old right" position now of being eye-wateringly hardline on things like crime and immigration but broadly redistributive on the economy. That isn't Theresa May's position by any means, but I wouldn't be surprised if an old Labour voter who voted Leave and has only paid passing notice to the news would be perhaps more inclined to vote Tory when the comparison is her vs Corbyn, at least compared with when it was Cameron vs Corbyn. For a quick illustration of that you only need to go back to Danny's cautious positivity on Theresa May when she first got in and general non-chalance/luke-warm approval of her Brexit position.
January 22, 20178 yr Can't see the Lib Dems coming through the middle in either Copeland or Stoke to be honest. Would expect a 1,000-ish majority for the Tories in Copeland and Labour in Stoke. If either party can win both it'll be an interesting night.
January 22, 20178 yr Can't see the Lib Dems coming through the middle in either Copeland or Stoke to be honest. I don't think it's likely, but the pool of Remain votes in every by-election means it can't really be ruled out so long as it's a seat where Labour's vote likely predominantly voted Leave (and ergo is having to compete for that vote with Ukip and the Tories). Especially somewhere where the winning post can conceivably be as low as a third of the vote, which means the Lib Dems would notionally only need to unite about, say, 7,000 votes out of the ~20,000 that voted Remain in the Stoke seat (assuming a potentially optimistic turnout of about 21k for the by-election, given they only manage about 30k for general elections).
January 23, 20178 yr Copeland projected as an easy win for the Conservatives by Labour canvass returns, according to the Telegraph.
January 23, 20178 yr Chances that it's been deliberately leaked to manage expectations and it's actually going to be much closer? Somehow after the fiasco the leadership made of the selection, I'm not holding my breath.
January 23, 20178 yr Chances that it's been deliberately leaked to manage expectations and it's actually going to be much closer? Somehow after the fiasco the leadership made of the selection, I'm not holding my breath. I imagine the only advantageous expectation management here will be "we're going to lose anyway so let's get it priced in way beforehand", given holding it would've been seen as a success either way.
February 4, 20178 yr The full list of candidates for the Copeland by-election are: Independent - Michael Guest Liberal Democrat - Rebecca Hanson Conservative - Trudy Harrison Independent - Roy Ivinson Green - Jack Lenox UKIP - Fiona Mills Labour - Gillian Troughton No real surprise packages within the candidates to note. My prediction is for a Conservative gain. The candidates for the Stoke-On-Trent By-Election are - Independent - Mohammad Akram Liberal Democrat - Zulfiqar Ali Conservative - Jack Brereton Monster Raving Loony - The Incredible Flying Brick Green - Adam Colclough Christian Peoples - Godfrey Davies Independent - Barbara Fielding BNP - David Furness UKIP - Paul Nuttall Labour - Gareth Snell A much wider range of candidates in this constituency. Outside the question of whether newly minted Ukip leader Paul Nuttall will win the seat (my prediction is that Labour will hold on to it, with Ukip a closer than expected 2nd), one candidate of note is Barbara Fielding, who has a reputation as a vexatious litigant. According to someone familiar with her actions, she's claimed "that the media are affecting her heartbeat, reporters led to the downfall of Kings and Queens and she’ll therefore remove all homosexuals from the media as well as all Jewish reporters." Other bad smells running include seemingly the only member of the BNP left.
February 5, 20178 yr Still can't get over that candidate labour have in Stoke! What is it about him that's caused this flurry of disbelief?
February 6, 20178 yr He's an ardent remainer and former adviser to Tristram! Totally the opposite of the kind of candidate Labour need to stand in that seat!
February 6, 20178 yr It's a balancing act - the Lib Dems aren't completely moribund in Stoke, so having a Labour Leave member (not to mention that there's relatively few of them who are viable candidates in many places) might have spoiled our chance to drive up anti-UKIP turnout. Our candidate backs the triggering of Article 50, which at this point is all that matters.
February 17, 20178 yr Having read the BBC's guide to the Stoke-On-Trent by-election, I am getting a feeling that there's one of the candidates that the BBC is less keen on than the others. Look at the photo of the 4 main candidates on the page and note for which one they chose to use a photo that makes him look like a right eejit.
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