The recent Wellingborough by-election really highlights some of the glaring issues with modern British politics, which I think are worth highlighting. This result is, despite appearances, a humiliating defeat for the Labour Party. As their new MP Gen Kitchen (yes, apparently this is real a name someone's parents actually gave their child) said:
"I hope Damien is as ecstatic as I am...This shows that people are fed up..."
Kitchen is showing that she is the second-place candidate here; if people vote for you because they are fed up with the person they actually want, that is a failure on your part. Why don't Labour represent something the majority of people actually want to vote for? As Labour leader (half-melted David Coulthard lookalike, Jimmy Saville fan and well-known beer and curry connoisseur) Sir Keir Starmer told the BBC:
"Labour was securing the support of 'Tory switchers' and people who had never voted for the party before." Well Keith, thanks to these wonderful things called results and statistics, we can quantify exactly how many people you're talking about there - 107.
That's right, a measly, pathetic, paltry, trifling and frankly embarrassing 107 people. That's about the same number of stuffed animals, blankets, or other comfort objects that, according to a study by boredpanda.com one-third of adults still sleep with.
The Tories lost nearly twice as many voters as Labour won this by-election with. The Tory vote simply stayed at home, watching old re-runs of Midsomer Murders on ITV3. It seems that people won't vote for this Conservative Party, incompetently run by globalists and back-stabbing gay Mormons (well, if you look at our local MP, Gary Sambrook at least). Representation, not of skin colour, but of people, matters, and whatever Rishi and the rest of those braying ne'er-do-wells in government are doing at the moment, they are not addressing native people's concerns.
The Labour message had about as much cut-through with Conservative voters as a straight razor made of plasticine. The Labour vote was virtually identical to the previous election's number, even with the Tory party in a freefall that would make Felix Baumgartner green with envy.
If the disaffected Tory voters had simply opted to vote for a third party, they would have scored a resounding, earth-shaking win over the other parties. The disaffected Tories represent as many votes as the top three parties won, combined.
Speaking of third-parties, Reform came third with their best result ever by Ben Habib, at nearly 4,000 votes. While this is probably a cause for celebration in the Reform camp, it must surely not be lost on the Reform top brass that this is actually a catastrophe of it's own. Why is it that Reform is making such little headway with the 24,000 disaffected Conservative voters? Why is it they can't persuade more than a few thousand of them to give Reform their protest vote?
It should have been possible for reform to leverage the discontent of Conservative voters to score a resounding victory here, but there seems to be little political acumen in Reform. Reform has many problems, but one of them is not clearly articulating what it is trying to be other than a protest vote. What is Reform's vision for the future of the country? It's hard to say, and one look at the corporate-speak on their website makes them indistinguishable from any of the other parties.
The Kingswood by-election is a similar story: the total collapse of both votes, with Reform unable to gain any ground at all. In 2019, the Tories got 27,712 votes, Labour got 16,492, Lib Dems 3,421. In 2024, the Tories got 8,675, Labour got 11,151, and Reform got 2,578.
What a disastrous result all-round. Again, the Conservatives lost 20,000 voters--an army that wasn't put to any use at all. Labour lost 5,000, and Reform only managed to convert a tiny number to their cause. The same problems as Wellingborough are apparent here: zero interest in the Conservatives, extremely low conversion from Tory to Labour, and a non-threat from Reform. If the Tories could simply get their old voter base out, they would have won both of these by-elections comfortably even if every Reform voter was a defected Tory voter.
By-elections always have a low voter turnout, but even this does not explain the lack of ability for the Westminster political establishment to speak to voters and get them to actually buy into the plan each party is trying to sell. I mean we're not there yet, but we're getting to the point where voter apathy is getting so bad we might as well offer free pizza and ice cream at polling stations, hire clowns and magicians to entertain the voters in line, give out stickers and badges that say "I voted" or "I'm awesome". Give out free puppies and kittens for God's sake. Just bloody do SOMETHING !!
You'd have more chickens turning out and voting for Col. Sanders as the Mayor of Kentucky at this rate.
These by-elections should be viewed as a general humiliation for the entire political class of Britain, who have no idea why they are gaining no ground.
That should take the heat out of Mr Stamer's post-victory curry.
I hope his beer was flat as well.