Elections 2024: The Tory day of reckoning
What we've seen so far confirms what we've witnessed for the last couple of years: a wave of electoral annihilation is coming for the Conservative party under Rishi Sunak
It's early yet in the 2024 local elections. We don't know about most councils yet, or the mayoral contests, or the police and crime commissioners, whatever they are. But what we've seen so far confirms what we've witnessed for the last couple of years: a wave of electoral annihilation is coming for the Conservative party under Rishi Sunak. There are interesting wrinkles in the numbers, telling little phenomena that become visible in the right light. But the basic lesson this morning is the same as it ever was: The Tories are fucked, fucked, fucked. They really are utterly fucked.
Labour won the Blackpool South byelection with a 26% swing from the Conservatives. These are silly numbers. We get used to them, but we do really have to keep in mind how dramatic they are. Four of the top five byelection swings ever recorded have happened in the last year. Starmer has now secured five swings of over 20 points - one more than Blair when he was opposition leader.
There'll be a lot of talk of Reform in the byelection. The Tories only beat them into second place by 117 votes. Doubtless, the party will treat this as further evidence that they must chase that vote to the bitter end. This is what is behind the repugnant video released this week by the Home Office of authorities brutalising asylum seekers, as if Children of Men were an instruction manual rather than a warning. It is one of the reasons behind the moral cratering of the government's position. But that plan is flawed on a basic electoral level as much as it is an ethical one.
The combined Tory/Reform Blackpool South vote share is 34.4%. It pales into insignificance next to the 58.9% Labour secured. There is more to be gained for the Tories in the centre than there is on the extreme right, if they would care to recognise that fact. But then politics is always much more about tribal dogma, emotional need and projected mental frameworks than it is dispassionate analysis. They'll ignore this fact even though it is staring them in the face.
Did Reform do well in Blackpool? Yeah, kind of. It's a new best for them. They've got the Tories panicking about even beating them, let alone neutralising them. But they didn't hit 20%. And really they should have. The circumstances, the location - everything about this contest made it perfect for them. Ukip used to perform much better at these things. It was far more adept at turning a polling advantage into byelection success. And of course, it's all downhill from here. A third party with limited resources can do much better in a byelection, where you focus everything on this one small area, than it ever will at a general election. On the basis of what we've seen here, they're likely to get perhaps seven or eight per cent when the country goes to the polls later this year.
There's a temptation to balance out that assessment with a view on the Green threat to Labour on the left. The party is performing well out there. If Labour wins power, we can expect that to continue. They could even secure a toehold in the Commons by winning university town constituencies, upping their one seat to perhaps five or six. But the Green threat to Labour is not comparable to the Reform threat to the Tories. Just 28% of current Greens voted Labour in 2019. But 71% of current reform voters voted Tory in 2019. There's simply no comparison. We're in a period where the progressive vote is largely cohesive and the right vote is splintered. There's considerable evidence, as there was a year ago, of voters looking for the best placed figure to punish the Tories - of the kind of tactical voting which punches a dagger through a party's heart.
There's really just no positive news story to find if you're a Conservative. It doesn't exist. With approximately 600 of the 2,600 council seats accounted for, they've lost around 50% of their seats. Labour's progress is coming from everywhere - the Red Wall, traditional swing seats, normal Tory strongholds. Around 3am they won control of Rushmoor Council in Hampshire, which includes the military town of Aldershot - Tory blue for over a century. Nowhere seems to be off limits.
It has also gained overall control in Hartlepool. Back in 2021, the byelection here saw a Conservative victory, secured on a nearly 16% swing from Labour. That was the moment that I had a real crisis of doubt about the Starmer project. It was acutely painful - the government was responsible for savaging the economy through Brexit, was lying to the country every day, and its inept handling of the covid crisis was costing thousands of lives. And yet they were gaining votes, not losing them. It turns out now that even Starmer himself considered quitting.
We're in a very different position today. The Starmer approach has been vindicated. The triangulation policy developed by Labour strategist Morgan McSweeney to neutralise the Tory threat on crime, defence and the economy appears to be paying off. The swing to Labour is stronger where there are fewer university graduates. It's making larger gains in areas with more people in working class occupations. People online can complain about 'flag shaggers' if they like. The party is doing precisely the things which it needs to be doing to win in the country, rather than on Twitter. It is stitching back together a viable progressive coalition from the ruins of the culture war.
The mayoral votes may be different. But even if they were - even if they all benefit the Tories - it would not neutralise the pattern we're seeing here. Those contests have a complicated electoral dynamic, featuring individuals who can build their own power base, and who have campaigned on name recognition and been as distanced as possible from the national brand. It would change the media narrative, but it would not provide a core empirical reason for improved Conservative confidence.
The basic truth is this: the results so far are largely unchanged from where we were a year ago. In a rather desperate pitch for balance, some people nod to that as a disappointment for Starmer. But maintaining a 20 point lead over the course of a year is not a disappointment. It is victory.
The message is simple: Oblivion is coming. The Conservatives are following a failing strategy without the confidence to change course even where it is patently required. They are plunging ever great depths of depravity on asylum. They are implementing ineffectual tax bribes on the basis of fraudulent promises of departmental spending cuts to come. They are constantly referring to a plan which does not exist, and warning us not to return to a square one which seems far preferable to whichever square it is we’re on now. They have installed a prime minister who does not have the ethical conviction, the intellectual capacity or the presentational ability required of the job. They are fucked and they are fucking us. But the end is coming soon. And sweet Christ in the sky above us, it cannot come soon enough.
I love the taste of Tory defeat in the morning. It's like a fine wine, to be savoured and enjoyed.
In my opinion there is about 10% of the population for whom no policy is right wing enough. It is not hard for a party to stay on the conservatives right flank no matter what policies it pursues. However it seems intent on destroying it self chasing after this mirage of potential voters.