Starmer says ‘phenomenal’ byelection results are ‘redrawing the political map’
Keir Starmer issued this statement overnight about his party’s double by-election win.
These are phenomenal results that show Labour is back in the service of working people and redrawing the political map.
Winning in these Tory strongholds shows that people overwhelmingly want change and they’re ready to put their faith in our changed Labour party to deliver it.
Voters across Mid Bedfordshire, Tamworth and Britain want a Labour government determined to deliver for working people, with a proper plan to rebuild our country.
To those who have given us their trust, and those considering doing so, Labour will spend every day acting in your interests and focused on your priorities. Labour will give Britain its future back.
Key events
Tory chair Greg Hands says, even though his party lost, he can’t see ‘any enthusiasm for Labour’
Greg Hands, the Conservative party chair, is doing an interview round this morning. After results like this, it is always a challenge for a politician from the losing party finding something positive to say, and Hands told Times Radio that there was no enthusiasm amongst the electorate for the Labour party. He said:
I don’t think a single person came to the door to say that despite all the problems people are facing, that Labour and Sir Keir Starmer were the solution to their problems.
So I don’t see any enthusiasm for Labour but clearly there’s been a lot of, if you like, background circumstances in those two by-elections that have also made the job difficult for us.
But clearly we need to reflect on that and we need to continue to deliver against our priorities and make sure that people see that Rishi Sunak is doing a very good job as prime minister.
Photograph: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images
Prof Sir John Curtice told the Today programme that there were two points in this parliament when Tory support rapidly switched to Labour: when the first Partygate revelations came out, and Liz Truss’s mini-budget. He said you could “reasonably argue” that those two events were more important in explaining why Labour is now doing so well than Keir Starmer’s changes to the Labour party. But if Starmer had not changed Labour, then the party might not have benefited to the extent it has, he said.
Curtice ended his interview with a big ‘what if?’
Let us say those Partygate happenings had never happened, or at least we had never heard of them. And as a result Boris Johnson was still in 10 Downing Street today. Would Labour be doing as well in the polls as they are at present?
John Curtice says Labour’s byelection performance equivalent to what was happening before its 1997 landslide victory
Last night, before the byelection results were declared, CCHQ issued a damage limitation briefing to journalists saying it was normal for governments to lose byelections. A party spokesperson said:
These were always going to be challenging by-elections and the rule of thumb is that governments don’t win them. We have seen little to no enthusiasm for Sir Keir Starmer who voters can see stands for nothing and always puts short term political gain first.
But Prof Sir John Curtice, the leading elections expert, told the Today programme that these results could not be dismissed as standard byelection losses. He explained:
The truth is these were not ordinary government losses. The swing in Tamworth, at just below 24%, is the second biggest swing from Conservative to Labour in postwar electoral history. And at just over 20% the swing in Mid Bedfordshire is also in the top 10.
No government has previously lost to the principal opposition party a seat as safe as Tamworth. You have to go back to 1977 and the Ashfield byelection to find an equivalent.
If you want to look at the precedent – what’s the last time that we had swings of this order? The answer is the parliament of 92 to 97. There were four byelection in that in which Labour got swings of over 20% from the Conservatives, and we all now how that ended.
And, by the way, those swings also occured in byelections in which the fall in turnout was often greater than it was in these two byelections.
So the point is we are not looking at ordinary byelection losses. We are looking at exceptional swings, and swings that for the only real precedent is not a very happy one for the Conservatives.
Curtice conceded that Starmer is not as popular as Tony Blair was ahead of the 1997 general election. But he pointed out that the 12 point rise in Labour’s vote in the Mid Bedfordshire byelection matches the 12 point increase in Labour’s vote in the national opinion polls. He went on:
You can argue maybe there isn’t as much enthusiasm for Labour as there is discontent with the conservatives. But, nevertheless, when Labour have been challenged, they still managed to win that challenge.
George Osborne says Tories at risk of ‘armageddon’ at general election on basis of Mid Beds defeat
George Osborne, the former Tory chancellor, says the Tories are at risk of “armageddon” at the general election on the basis of these byelection results.
In our latest episode of Political Currency – available now – @edballs and I discuss why losing both the Tamworth and Mid Beds by-elections is a political earthquake and could mean armageddon for the Tories
In our latest episode of Political Currency – available now – @edballs and I discuss why losing both the Tamworth and Mid Beds by-elections is a political earthquake and could mean armageddon for the Tories https://t.co/w5g1qICaGY
— George Osborne (@George_Osborne) October 20, 2023
In fact, in this tweet, posed this morning, Osborne seems to be rowing back a bit, because he is saying this could mean electoral armageddon. In the latest edition of his Political Currency podcast with Ed Balls, which was released yesterday, before the byelection results were out, Osborne said losing Mid Bedfordshire would mean armageddon for the party. He said:
Tamworth was hard and the MP resigned under a cloud, and this is the kind of seat in the 1980s and early 90s, which Tories did lose. Tory governments lost and then still won general elections. But if they’ve also lost Mid Bedfordshire, Armageddon is coming for the Tory party.
Keir Starmer says Labour is “redrawing the political map”. (See 6.56am.) This graphic, from Election Maps UK, illustrates what he means. It shows what the result of a general election would be if there were an election now with Labour achieving the same swing from the Tories it achieved in the Mid Bedfordshire byelection.
🚨 *JUST FOR FUN ALARM* 🚨
How GB would vote if the Mid Bedfordshire By-Election swing was repeated across the country:
LAB: 480 (+284)
LDM: 104 (+96)
CON: 20 (-356)
SNP: 23 (-25)
PLC: 3 (+1)
GRN: 1 (=)Labour Majority: 310
Changes w/ GE2019 Notional. pic.twitter.com/J1KraiYgZi— Election Maps UK (@ElectionMapsUK) October 20, 2023
In political circles, it is conventional to ignore projections like this on the grounds that byelection swings are exceptional, and that election results tend to be much closer than advance polling suggests. Election Maps has headlined this with a reference to “just a bit of fun”, the phrase that the swingometer guru Peter Snow always used to use on the BBC when presenting projections like this.
But you can apply the “just a bit of fun” disregard too strictly. In 1997 politicians, commentators and the public at large were all staggered by the size of Tony Blair’s majority. All the polling had been pointing to an enormous landslide, but people found it impossible to take seriously (including Tony Blair, who was still worried he might lose on election night, as Kiran Stacey reports in his recent podcast about that campaign, which is well worth a listen).
Starmer says ‘phenomenal’ byelection results are ‘redrawing the political map’
Keir Starmer issued this statement overnight about his party’s double by-election win.
These are phenomenal results that show Labour is back in the service of working people and redrawing the political map.
Winning in these Tory strongholds shows that people overwhelmingly want change and they’re ready to put their faith in our changed Labour party to deliver it.
Voters across Mid Bedfordshire, Tamworth and Britain want a Labour government determined to deliver for working people, with a proper plan to rebuild our country.
To those who have given us their trust, and those considering doing so, Labour will spend every day acting in your interests and focused on your priorities. Labour will give Britain its future back.
Mid Bedfordshire byelection results in full
And here are the Mid Bedfordshire results in full, again from PA Media.
Lab gain from C
Alistair Strathern (Lab) 13,872 (34.07%, +12.39%)
Festus Akinbusoye (C) 12,680 (31.14%, -28.65%)
Emma Holland-Lindsay (LD) 9,420 (23.13%, +10.51%)
Gareth Mackey (Ind) 1,865 (4.58%, +3.33%)
Dave Holland (Reform) 1,487 (3.65%)
Cade Sibley (Green) 732 (1.80%, -2.03%)
Ann Kelly (Loony) 249 (0.61%, -0.22%)
Antonio Vitiello (Eng Dem) 107 (0.26%)
Sid Cordle (CPA) 101 (0.25%)
Alan Victor (True) 93 (0.23%)
Alberto Thomas (Heritage) 63 (0.15%)
Emperor of India Prince Ankit Love (ND) 27 (0.07%)
Chris Rooney (Mainstream) 24 (0.06%)
Lab maj 1,192 (2.93%)
20.52% swing C to Lab
Electorate 92,578; Turnout 40,720 (43.98%, -29.73%)
2019: C maj 24,664 (38.11%) – Turnout 64,717 (73.71%)
Dorries (C) 38,692 (59.79%); Meades (Lab) 14,028 (21.68%); McGann (LD) 8,171 (12.63%); Ellis (Green) 2,478 (3.83%); Victor (Ind) 812 (1.25%); Kelly (Loony) 536 (0.83%)
Tamworth byelection results in full
Here are the full results from Tamworth, from PA Media.
Lab gain from C
Sarah Edwards (Lab) 11,719 (45.80%, +22.12%)
Andy Cooper (C) 10,403 (40.66%, -25.66%)
Ian Cooper (Reform) 1,373 (5.37%)
Ashlea Simon (Britain 1st) 580 (2.27%)
Robert Bilcliff (UKIP) 436 (1.70%)
Sue Howarth (Green) 417 (1.63%, -0.40%)
Sunny Virk (LD) 417 (1.63%, -3.64%)
Howling Laud Hope (Loony) 155 (0.61%)
Peter Longman (ND) 86 (0.34%)
Lab maj 1,316 (5.14%)
23.89% swing C to Lab
Electorate 71,321; Turnout 25,586 (35.87%, -28.47%)
2019 result: C maj 19,634 (42.63%) – Turnout 46,056 (64.34%) Pincher (C) 30,542 (66.31%); Bain (Lab Co-op) 10,908 (23.68%); Wheway (LD) 2,426 (5.27%); Tilley (Green) 935 (2.03%); Bilcliff (UKIP) 814 (1.77%); Wright (Ind) 431 (0.94%)
Labour hails ‘biggest byelection shock in history’, taking Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire from Tories
Good morning. The word “historic” is overused by journalists, but even the most curmudgeonly subeditor is not going to object to it being allowed out of the cupboard this morning after Labour two byelection gains in what the party described as “the biggest byelection shock in history”.
The results came within an hour of each other. Shortly before 3am, Labour won Tamworth, the previously safe Tory seat in Staffordshire where the byelection was caused by the resignation of the former deputy chief whip over a groping scandal that contributed to the downfall of Boris Johnson. Labour won with a swing of 23.9 percentage points, the second largest swing the party has achieved in a byelection since 1945.
And less than an hour later it won Mid Bedfordshire, the seat previously held by Nadine Dorries (who resigned in a huff because she did not get a peerage in Johnson’s resignation honours). The swing here was “only” 20.5 points, but Dorries had a majority of 24,664 and, in numerical terms, this is the largest majority ever overturned in a byelection.
The victory in Mid Bedfordshire is particularly sweet for Labour because the Liberal Democrats were fighting the seat hard (Tamworth was in effect just a simple Labour-Tory contest), and there had been speculation that, with the opposition vote split, the Tories might hold the seat.
Peter Kyle, the shadow science secretary who ran the campaign in Mid Bedfordshire, said:
This is a huge night. Make no bones about it, this is a political earthquake that has unfolded here.
This is the biggest by-election shock in history, it is a political earthquake and it is one that is sending an unignorable message to Westminster and to Rishi Sunak that this country deserves better.
Here is Sammy Gecsoyler’s story about the Tamworth result.
And here is Kevin Rawlinson’s story about Mid Bedfordshire.
I will be covering all the reaction to the results as the day goes on.
And this morning Rishi Sunak is continuing his tour of the Middle East with a visit to Egypt. I will be covering that too.
Comments will go on at 7am. But if you want to contact me, do try the “send us a message” feature. You’ll see it just below the byline – on the left of the screen, if you are reading on a laptop or a desktop. This is for people who want to message me directly. I find it very useful when people message to point out errors (even typos – no mistake is too small to correct). Often I find your questions very interesting, too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either in the comments below the line; privately (if you leave an email address and that seems more appropriate); or in the main blog, if I think it is a topic of wide interest.
