7 Comments

• Yeovil Yokel 27th Jun '19 - 10:22am

  Thanks, Paul, it’s good to have a firm by-election date at last, donation to follow shortly.
  Some of you may remember the influential music series on the BBC in the 1970’s called The Old Grey Whistle Test – is Paul the Whispering Bob Harris of the Lib Dems?

• ROBERT RENOLD 27th Jun '19 - 12:29pm

  I’m surprised the tories have opted for an early by-election. Must be desparate to get their number of MPs up but must know there is a big risk we will win and reduce their majority. Or is Theresa setting up a trap for Boris to lose the by-election in his first week as PM? Even if there is an immediate vote of no confidence the by-election will go ahead during the 14 days while an alternative govt is under construction

• Nick Collins 27th Jun '19 - 1:13pm

  Theresa May is probably more interested in the first day of the First Test against Australia on 1 August.

• Paul Walter 27th Jun '19 - 1:22pm

  Thank you Yeovil Yokel.

  I worked with Bob Harris on Radio 210 in Reading in the early eighties. He was/is a great broadcasting hero of mine. I may have subconsciously adopted his manner of speaking but I certainly thank you the great compliment!

• James Pugh 27th Jun '19 - 1:34pm

  Isn’t there a side strategy that George Street HQ could be pursuing in relation to this by election? Namely inducing 2 current Conservative MPs to leave the Conservative Party (either joining the Liberal Democrats or probably more likely sitting as Independent/Pro-European Conservatives). This way if Brecon and Radnor can be won by the Liberal Democrats on the 1st of August, then it actually leads to the collapse of the Westminster government.

  There must be at least 2 hard Europhile Conservative MPs who are either certainly facing deselection (such as Dominic Grieve) or are looking to retire anyway (such as Ken Clarke) who could be induced to strategically leave the Conservatives “for the good of the country” knowing it could be the best way to stop Brexit (the current Parliament just isn’t going to offer a vote on the Brexit Deal, but a new parliament might)

• Paul Barker 27th Jun '19 - 2:28pm

  Theres an interesting new Poll from the firm who did best in predicting the European Elections, the big change is a collapse in the Brexit Party vote, down to 12%. Its hard not to see that as a direct result of the Tory leadership campaign – a solid fortnight of Tories competing to be the most Brexity & very little Farage on the telly.
  However accurate this is it does suggest the fragility of the Brexit vote.
  Could the Tory HQ have seen private Polling also suggesting a Brexit collapse, that might explain their sudden decision to call the By-election after all.

• Michael 1 27th Jun '19 - 3:14pm

  @James Pugh

  While 2 Tory MPs reduce the Tories (& Dup) to under half the voting MPs if we win b&r, the difficulty is lining up *all* the others on the other side. Many such as Change UK and Indies wouldn’t want a general election and many others are not fans of Corbyn.

  @Paul Barker.

  It has to be said the BXP rating by Mori has to be taken with a great deal of caution as it is way out of line with the others. Yougov today for example gives them 22%. It may of course be right but at best one can only say at the moment is that BXP are down a few points and the Tories up a few points which is of course to be expected with the Tory leadership contest etc

  There is a potential warning for us in b&r in that of course it is more of a threat if either BXP or the Tories unite the leaver vote than if They are very evenly split.