That’s what it is. Three seats that were Tory at the last election. But how will they do tonight? Selby and Ainsty (No, me neither) Somerton and (Chris) Frome Uxbridge and Ruislip (Fwah, fwah, I was hounded out by the Kangaroo Court of Tory Brexit-supporting Remainers, Fwah!) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66125581
The Tories will hang on by their fingertips in one seat and it will be hailed as a massive vindication of their current performance and policies.......
Very true - the Uxbridge vote in Ruislip has been turned into a protest vote for the [Carefully_chosen_words]hard of thinking[/Carefully_chosen_words] against expansion of the ULEZ which 90% of the nation's vehicles aren't liable for.
According to Iain Dale of LBC, if Labour doesn't achieve a majority of at least 5,000 in Uxbridge it will be disaster for them
And disaster it is! Sir Roland Bufton-Tufton holds Uxbridge for the Tories. A hammer blow for Sir Kid Starver and a real shame after he spent the past week being extra-extra Tory.
You have to remember that these people looked at Johnson and thought, yeah, he looks like the type of man I want to represent me. In all seriousness, I think this shows where Labour can be vulnerable. Local seats where Labour hold some power (in this case London Mayor) where some of the pain that the electorate are going through can be directed away from central government to the Labour party. In this case it was ULEZ but I'm sure specific issues will be found in Welsh seats and Labour council controlled areas that the local Tories will fixate on and distract away from Sunak and his 5 pledges. I wonder how many of those Tory voters that have been enraged by ULEZ are actually impacted by it. Not many is my guess. You have to concede it was very good tactics by the Tories.
There was plenty of anti ULEZ non Tory support. Even the incredibly weak Labour candidate tried to tap into it late into his campaign. I've a feeling Labour knew it was on a knife edge and didn't want it to blow up if a more electable high profile candidate failed. Disappointed Binface didn't get more but the closeness of the result shows there's a decent protest against the Tories.
One of the most condescending posts I've read recently. I expect better of you. An MP is chosen to represent their constituent's views. A bi-election with little effect on overall government control is a perfect way to register protest when the results of limited consultation were dismissed because they gave Khan the "wrong" result. Blaming the result on bad thinking is short sighted. Look at why more people didn't vote for Labour given the absolute **** show the Tories are at the moment. The problem is Labour policy which as far as I can decide isn't very pro ULEZ isn't up to what it could be. Binface for mayor
And yet insufficiently Tory for Uxbridge and Ruislip. Therein lies Labour’s dilemma, the root of its apparent lack of ambition. The ULEZ issue also shows that Labour cannot afford to hitch itself to extra taxes on ordinary people. Greens and Lib Dems in the area who didn’t vote with Labour can also note they got a Tory, again.
Agreed, I'd also add that a vote against a party is a vote against their policy or their candidate. If Labour don't get enough votes then Labour policy or candidate isn't right for the majority. When the protest votes against the Tories go to the independents then it should tell Labour that they need to engage with the electorate and find out what they want, or convince the electorate that their policy is indeed the right way to go. Dismissing the electorate that don't chose you is deflecting away from the failure of obtaining their vote.
The result would have been different if the Greens alone had voted Labour. Their principles may have cost them action on London’s air. Anyone else, like Lib Dems who consider themselves anti-Tory, but can’t vote Labour, has only themselves to blame for the outcome.
The ULEZ issue is a good example of Labour's pisspoor messaging. This is a scheme scheme concocted under the Tory (Boris) London mayoralty, enabled by laws passed by the Tory government in Parliament, which has to operate in line with guidance issued by Tory ministers' government departments and which is being expanded in London largely because the TfL budget was destroyed by Covid and the Tory government put strings on bailing it out which specifically included the requirement to expand the ULEZ. Yet a Tory candidate wins from a position of opposing it. Bonkers. Labour really needs to get wise to this stuff and start pointing it out.
Probably all true. But the Labour mayor chose to use the power, chose to ignore the results of the required but inadequate consultation, chose to run roughshod over the legislation (possibly pending judicial review shortly), chose to purchase the equipment before even starting the consultation and continues to chose to try and justify it based on incorrect data and an ill judged & thought out reason. TFL has pissed its money up the wall. That's Boris', Khan's and succesive government's fault. If TFL needs more money then raising it from the poorest in Khan's area and the poorest outside Khan's area is not fair, sensible or even may I add very Labourish. Khan needs to fess up, say he needs money and look to introduce road pricing which affects all that use the roads fairly according to how much they use the roads. Charging a quid to everyone that uses the roads is better than charging 12 quid to the poorest that use the roads and I'm against road pricing. He also needs to drive efficiencies in public transport to ensure it becomes more cost effective.
All very true but you forgot to add that the previous mayor to Khan (I forget who it was) actually rowed/rolled back on London's environmental obligations to protect its workers/inhabitants. Don't forget that the London mayoral position is *just* a glorified transport commissioner/minister (and WWC showed just how vital this was for London). Khan's box of tricks for dealing with the capital's appalling air quality is limited.
You have a touching faith in the ability of Labour’s messaging to be reported accurately and amplified. But as Meister says, the Mayor hitched his wagon to it. I’m not sure how shouting it’s the Tories would have then worked and Lord knows, I like shouting it’s the Tories.
To be fair, I'd agree Khan deserves pelters for this too. I just think it's bonkers the government and the media have managed to twist this so it's coming across as solely a Labour obsession. We previously had EU regulators mandating action to reduce exhaust pipe emissions and when we left those powers returned to Westminster and they've carried on using them to force local authorities to make changes. It's happening outside of London too. There's a scheme where my outlaws live in Coventry (another Labour area) where they've had to rip up and remodel parts of their city centre road network because they told by central government if they didn't do it, they'd be forced to introduce a chargeable clean air zone (a ULEZ to use the London brand name). It's all documented here: https://www.coventry.gov.uk/pollution-1/air-quality/2, including a letter from a government minister. This stuff's unpopular but necessary to reduce the number of avoidable deaths from local air pollution. Yet you can better your bottom dollar come general election time in Coventry there will Tory candidates bemoaning the local Labour administration and MPs for causing havoc in the city centre with interminable roadworks etc.
I think it could have been effective locally but ultimately the message would be the slightly less snappy it's not just us, we all agree this is the right thing to do. And it's not just us pulling all the strings.
The new Mandalorian series looks really shyte: https://twitter.com/bbcnickrobinson/status/1682477991073394690
I'd imagine that any 25 year old who stands for Parliament will almost certainly have a long list of personality disorders.
Quite bizarre that after the Tories' thumping in Yorkshire and Somerset the talk is all about ulez. Democracy is overrated
Is it though? If it wasn't for ULEZ I wager Labour would have taken the ape's constituency as well. The ULEZ extension appears less popular than the Tories. ULEZ as a Tory concept and applied to central London was sensible. Where air quality needed improving and public transport was sufficient. Khan's extension to the outer suburbs where air quality is less of an issue and in some areas public transport inadequate, less so. Can't even necessarily call it a Labour policy. SKS appears to not like it due to it being a vote loser but then we can't be sure because he won't actually answer the question. I admire Khan as a politician. Couldn't disagree with him more but as a politician he's streets ahead of Wishy Washy or Kid Starver.
