Why I'm hoping for a Conservative victory in Mid Bedfordshire.

[andrewducker]

I am actually currently hoping for a Conservative victory in the Mid Bedfordshire by-election.

Not because I actually want more Conservative MPs, obviously. But because I want Labour to fail to win a seat *because of the voting method*.

I want Labour members to be *terrified* that if they don't fix the voting method that they're going to hand seats to the Conservatives. And I want them to be having that conversation now, so that by the time we have an actual General Election they're ready to (at the least) do a deal on fixing it.

Comments

[rhythmaning]

For similar though different reasons, I want the SNP to win Rutherglen & Hamilton W - because I want Labour to actually have to stop and come up with some concrete reasons why people should vote for them. "Not Conservative" is no longer enough (especially in Scotland).

[rhythmaning]

Though can I add that Labour actually coming out in favour of constitutional change would be a tremendous result!

[doug]

I respectfully disagree. If the Conservatives were to win the seat, (a) the constituency would have a Conservative MP, at least until the next GE, and since I live literally across the road from it and my kids go to school there, I am Not Keen, (b) the Conservatives would be encouraged which I don't think is a good thing at the moment, and, most importantly (c) I don't for one minute believe that Labour would take it as a sign they should embrace electoral reform, they would take it as a sign that they must tack even further to the right, so they can get the sweeping majority FPTP offers.

[doug]

Also, in general I am very, very down on arguments that things should get worse because they might conceivably get better by an indirect route with a lot of moving parts, few of which are assured.

[andrewducker]

If I thought that things would actually be noticeably worse then I would agree with you.

[calimac]

I believe that that's what communists call "heightening the contradictions."

[mountainkiss]

Yes, I think I agree with this in principle, though will reflect further.

[calimac]

As I understand it, the seat-of-the-pants (is that only an American expression? means improvised & rather disorganized) substitute for PR actually in operation in Conservative-held seats is to check to see which party, Lab or LibDem, is stronger in the seat and then everyone who supports either party then votes for that one.

This worked very well in 1997, when it was first tried on a massive scale, and it's been going on ever since.

My further understanding is that, in Mid Bedfordshire, both Lab and LibDem claim to be the stronger party, and so the method is falling apart.

Do I have the general idea here?

[andrewducker]

Pretty much. Although I'd say that it fell apart in 2010, with the Cameron/Clegg coalition government, which tacked way too far to the right, causing the collapse of 2015. Because you can't be part of the anti-Conservative vote when you've just been in coalition with the Conservatives.

[danieldwilliam]

The Tories also very deliberately and successfully targeted Lib Dem - Tory swing voters in Lib Dem held seats.

[bens_dad]

I am familiar with "seat-of-the-pants" here in the UK.

[danieldwilliam]

I see the logic. I'm not convinced that Labour strategists will come to the same conclusion. I'm also not convinced that losing Mid-Bedfordshire would persuade them to tack to the right if they've lost votes to the Lib Dems.

[andrewducker]

I'm not entirely convinced myself. Or sure that their election strategists will be the people making the decisions directly after the election (although some of them might be).

[danieldwilliam]

I think their election strategists are involved as it's them who will be working out why the lost Mid-Bedfordshire. And they could decide that they lost because the electoral system makes some seats a crapshoot and that they ought to change the electoral system or they could decide they lost because they weren't sufficiently well positioned on a certain issue or metric or were too far to the right, or the left or some other reason.

I don't think they necessarily make the decision about support PR but they will be explaining why the party lost Mid-Bedfordshire.

Assuming that they do.

[andrewducker]

Odds look about 50:50 right now. I'm not putting any money anywhere.
And even less on what Labour strategists might decide to do about it!

[bens_dad]

Nadine Dorries, the out-going MP has been missing in action for a year (not just appearing on TV game shows and failing to resign as promised, but apparently not doing her constituency work) and has been attacked by her own PM. The Conservative candidate is the Police and Crime Commissioner, so has established some sort of track record constituency-wide.

A Mid-Beds win for the Conservatives can be explained by saying that the candidate appealed to conservative voters much better than Dorries. Losing votes to the LibDems can be "explained" by them positioning themselves to the left or to the right of Labour ...

Once the heat of the moment has passed, there will be no need for Labour to defend failing to match the expectations of by-election polls - they are notoriously unreliable.

[andrewducker]

And yet when they failed to take Uxbridge and South Ruislip, on a large swing to Labour, they were suddenly running around screaming about having to abandon ULEZ.

[danieldwilliam]

I think this is probably right.

[bens_dad]

Are you saying this for any reason connected to Mid Beds beyond it being the current by-election ?
By-elections are often strange beasts, but what do you hope Starmer will do if the Tories hold Mid Beds ?

Given that the outgoing MP had almost 60% of the vote at the GE (and that was a reduction from the previous election), I think that Labour will be able to turn a blind eye to losing here as long as they don't do any worse than last time (which was 6.7% worse than the time before).

https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/orderedseats.html predicts that if Labour win Mid-Bedfordshire they will have 439 seats - about a 200 seat majority. Failure to do that is not going to make Starmer do anything before the General Election.