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Vote totals are:

LIB 17,957

CON 12,032

LAB 3,686

GRE 1,738

REF 1,427

 

Nice going Lib Dems! 20 points down on turnout, 67% to 47%, but the Conservatives lost a good 23,000 voters on this one! The nominally 58th safest Tory seat, out of 365, is gone.

Fantastic news re the by-election outcome. So glad the won! This is sweet revenge for the Tories abysmal management of covid and covid party breaches.

That's a fantastic result! I had prepared myself for the disappointment of just missing out; a 6,000 majority is well beyond what I hoped for :yahoo:

Before the Tories blame the result on their supporters staying at home, it is worth pointing out that the total votes cast for the Lib Dems and Labour combined is 3,500 higher than in the general election.

Thought I would never see the day in this one party state!!

Mid-term blip. Nothing more. Ages to go until the next GE election, which is what really matters. Am not unduly worried as Starmer is unelectable.

Great news, anything to keep piling the pressure on Johnson.

 

 

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An absolutely MASSIVE result. Boris Johnson is in serious peril now, his authority as PM further shattered - I expect the letters will be going in for a no confidence vote.

 

Hope he's had a good night with the new screaming bambino. :D I say keep him on, make the pip squeak further - rising inflation, stagnating economy, make him own this complete shitshow. Merry Christmas all. :D

Stunning victory for the Lib Dems wow! :clap: I thought it would be much much closer than that and expected the Tories to hang on after the Covid stuff this week and Labour making an effort with campaigning.

Mid-term blip. Nothing more. Ages to go until the next GE election, which is what really matters. Am not unduly worried as Starmer is unelectable.

 

A mid term blip :lol: It's an ultra safe seat that's voted Conservative for nearly 200 years. Serious alarm bells should be ringing with the Tories!

Mid-term blip. Nothing more. Ages to go until the next GE election, which is what really matters. Am not unduly worried as Starmer is unelectable.

 

I think it’s much more than a mid term blip. This was supposed to be a safe seat which has been Tory for years. Yes, a general election is at least two years away but at the very least it will put enormous pressure on Johnson’s leadership. The tories will never hold onto their massive majority by next election neither as many voted for them solely due to Brexit.

A mid term blip :lol: It's an ultra safe seat that's voted Conservative for nearly 200 years. Serious alarm bells should be ringing with the Tories!

 

Incidentally, the only time this seat has ever not been Tory since Great Reform, it was once very briefly lost in a by-election to the Liberals, in 1904 (it was called Oswestry at the time but it was basically the same area). Election of 1906, the Tories got it back, but countrywide there was a huge Liberal landslide. Curious.

 

More seriously, this is very reputationally badly timed for the PM. It boosts the Lib Dems hopefully back into a position of greater media relevancy, which will itself beget a little bit of success, it makes Johnson look absolutely terrible as both the cause of the by-election and the current crisis are of his own making, there's basically nothing that can reset it before the Christmas break and the 1922, if they wish to, have plenty of time to make a move. Not that I think that's the most likely thing to happen, but he's now very vulnerable, and though this seat will likely return to the Tories next election, there's a lot of Con-Lib marginals out there that now look very vulnerable under general election conditions. Including places like Dominic Raab's Esher and Walton...

I mean it’ll probably bounce right back to them at the next GE but yeah this is a nice wound in the interim.

 

Everything that helps to undermine the Tories and continue their infighting spiral helps

Excellent news - normally on By Election nights, I have a quick peak at the result when I wake up to use the loo at 4am. Sometimes like Hartlepool that can lead to feeling dread but this was excellent news.

 

I am delighted at the tactical voting too - almost too much as yet again shows no real love for Starmer and his cynical, calculated leadership style. Ed Davey on the understand with virtually no coverage whatsoever tends to impress with his more authentic kinder brand of politics.

 

Mid term blip - maybe for the Conservatives but certainly not for Johnson. Apparently the imbecilic Peppa Pig and the lockdown parties came up on doorsteps. He is a laughing stock and is a marked man but hopefully he doesn't go quietly and causes damage to the brand.

Oh and what was pleasing about this vote was that there wasn't a lurch to the hard/far right despite there being plenty of options for people to do. Reform (what the short lived extremely successful Farage's ex Brexit party merged into) got 3.7% of the vote, the original UKIP, who are presumably even more extreme nowadays, only got 1% of the vote plus ultra tosser Laurence Fox's outfit, Reclaim only got 1% of the vote. For a leave seat that's pretty impressive.

Mid-term blip. Nothing more. Ages to go until the next GE election, which is what really matters. Am not unduly worried as Starmer is unelectable.

Unelectable, based on what?

Truly glorious 🥰

One really interesting thing that should worry the Tories is that a lot of Con-Lib Dem switchers were talking about the cuts in services. Those of us in Labour areas who were hit harder during the coalition and ever since have been moaning about this ever since, but it looks as though Con voters might finally be appreciating the Lib Dems moderating I fluence in the coalition now we've had nearly 7 years of outright Tory rule.

 

If that's genuinely the case it's a breakthrough. A Lib Dem Tory coalition is marginally better for the left than outright Tory rule. The issue the Lon Dems are going to have with this new base is it makes very hard any coalition with Labour.

Happy the Lib Dems won. Hopefully it means the Lib Dems will be able to make good gains in the next general election and take a number of seats from the Conservatives.

 

 

Raab and Redwood would be the very top of my list in Lib Dem/Tory marginals. Evil men.