A text update from the party’s Twitter service reports that polling day in Crewe and Nantwich will be 22 May according to the BBC.
Subscribe
-
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
-
Like us on Facebook
-
Subscribe to our feed
-
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Most Read
Search
Op-eds
-
A roadmap to Queer Equality (Tara Foster)
-
A strange but welcome feeling (Jennie Rigg)
-
Fifteen years ago today…… (Caron Lindsay)
-
Mathew on Monday: Pluralism Means More Than a Slogan (Mathew Hulbert)
-
Urgent Call to Action by Lib Dem MPs on Palestine (John Kelly)
Why non-fiction books need their indexes
Changes in status: Local Elections wrap up
What should the Liberal Democrats stand for?
Recent Comments
Ben Wood
It is such sad news. I was lucky to get to know Micheal over the last few years (working on a book project for the John Stuart Mill Institute). He reaffirmed fo...
Ed Sanderson
Very sad news. I remember many a lively evening of erudite discussion in Leeds - Michael was a true intellect - and a genuinely warm soul. My condolences to his...
Jack
This is bang on. What is the point of a liberal party that won't stand up for rights, especially when both government and opposition want to make hay out of div...
Matt (Bristol)
I totally understand this is a key issue for many Lib Dems (and I'm not speaking for Lib Dems myself, I'm an ex-member). But I don't understand how this 'vangua...
John Grout
Fully agree with all of this. I've seen a few MPs' Pride Month posts reference Section 28 abolition and Same-Sex Marriage - we need to start talking about this...
24 Comments
Perhaps if BoJo wins the mayoral election, he’ll already have started trashing the city at that early stage, and people will support the LDs because they’ve got a taste of what Camoron and his mates are really like!
I hope some people have a plan B if Boris does a good job.
Why would you be worrying about Boris doing a good job? He’ll be lucky if he’s allowed to be a ceremonial mayor. It is just possible he think he’s going for the City of London job.
because a lot of people, me included, suggested he’d implode as a candidate. He hasn’t so far and so perhaps a degree of circumspection might be in order if he wins?
Asquith, let me get this right; you hope that Boris will fail in London so that it will portray the Lib Dems in a better light and increase their chances in by-elections?
Nothing like a good dose of schadenfreude to keep the Lib Dem battle-wagon going, eh.
As far as Boris is concerned, in many ways it is a pity that he has reigned himself in so well; I rate the ability to make people laugh very highly, and if you have a talent like that then it seems a pity not to use it. But then, as I imagine Boris would say, being Mayor is no laughing matter. There are, of course those, who wish to pigeonhole him as a comic but I think it would be extremely dangerous to be taken in by this line of thought – anyone who doubts Boris’ phenomenal analytical ability clearly has pretty scant awareness of his written work.
I think BoJo, if elected, will still be having his honeymoon during the by-election in Crewe and Nantwich and possibly in Henley (after all, it almost took two terms before people started to notice what a disaster Ken is as a Mayor), so it might be better to think about some other by-election strategies.
In Henley it could of course be pointed out that Boris abandoned the constituency for London. The Conservatives seem to consider their constituencies as some kind of feudal fiefs, that can be exploited and traded to better ones. And if he doesn’t win, it could be pointed in the next GE, that he isn’t really interested in the constituency, because he was ready to abandon it for London.
passing tory – Boris has “reigned himself in” ???
He’s standing for Mayor, not b****y Monarch!
And why has a thread re Crewe & Nantwich been hijacked by yet more (yawn, yawn) about the London Maoyral Electi … zzzzzzzz
We have to stop looking at winning by-elections as our mail electoral strategy. We are very good at them but we have to get a tad more strategic than that! They would have to be some sort of plague in the HoC to reach our goal of 150 MPS!
I’m all for looking on the bright side but a Henley by-election does not quite make up for my lovely city in the hands of an inexpereinced vanity candidate!!
I suppose the obvious comment on the by-election is that the government is learning to get on with these as fast as possible to prevent any possible momentum by its opponents.
Crewe and Nantwich should be a Tory gain given that to get to a majority the Tories would have to take it in a General Election.
be interesting to see how this bellweather fares on the back of the local elections and recent govt difficulties…..
Hmmm, I can see my comments are banned. Oh well… Good luck for the Lib Dems and their efforts with the free speech.
She’s not even buried.
Yet again Labour actions leave a nasty feeling wafting behind them.
Can feelings waft? OK, a nasty smell.
Sorry if I offended your monarchist instincts, Gwyn. Speeling never was my strong point :-), especially when I am scribbling comments between chunks of work.
Actually I think that Boris Johnson would be rather more suited to being a constitutional monarch than being Mayor of London or a government or Shadow Minister.
He should have stuck to being a backbench MP and prominent journalist, he is very intelligent, but also not focused enough for high office.
So the London Mayoral race comes down to being which of the main candidates is the least worst.
Red Ken certainly is not fit for any kind of office, he is a total disgrace who has welcomed Marxist leaders from South America to share the platform with him and taken an anti-Unionist line siding with people such as Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams, people who have been the mouthpiece of the IRA, in fact in the case of Mr McGuinness a self-acknowledged member of the IRA army council in the past.
If I had a vote in the London Elections I would vote for Gerard Batten and for UKIP in the assembly, not because UKIP are perfect – they aren’t, they are the least worst of a very bad lot of candidates.
Ken Livingstone will almost certainly win this time, but he is on the wane and I doubt that if he does stand next time that Labour will keep him as the candidate.
As for the Crewe & Nantwich by-election, Gwyneth Dunwoody was a very independently minded and well respected MP including by those rather frustrated by her in New Labour and among the Trotskyite wing of the Labour Party and among people in other parties and no party at all – undoubtedly she had a number of votes from those who voted for her and not for Labour, even so though the Conservative record since the 1990s in parliamentary by-elections has been atrocious and the Liberal Democrats are way behind, if the Conservative Party don’t come at least 2nd it will lead to renewed grumbling about David Cameron’s leadership, for an official opposition looking to form a government after the next General Election such an opportunity should see it the favourites to take the seat, but while the Conservatives have been on an upward trend since about 1999 they still look some way off actually forming a government and I expect Labour and Conservative to make net gains at the next General Election with the Liberal Democrats slipping back.
Anonymous: not banned, just caught in the spam trap. Though conspiracy theories about censorship are much more fun 🙂 Now released.
Crewe & Nantwich resisted the Tory tide in 1983, probably a combination of Gwyneth Dunwoody and perceived Tory hostility to the railways.
It is rare that the personality of a Labour candidate makes much difference to Labour performance. But examples do come to mind. For instance, Austin Mitchell holding Grimsby the same night Labour went down in Ashfield. Or Millie Miller in Ilford North, whose many orthodox Jewish supporters refused to transfer to Tessa Jowell, who lived with a man to whom she wasn’t married (very much an issue in 1978).
I have to say the only bad taste I can sense at the moment is the calling of the by-election before the funeral.
passing tory –
my “monarchist instincts” – well I’ve never been accused of having those in the past !!!!!
The running of the country must go on funeral or no funeral, the funeral is a seperate matter – it was right that the by-election should be moved as soon as possible, people can argue about the issues and yet have respect for the funeral.
Does anyone know anything about this report in the Grauniad:
“As for the third-placed Lib Dems, they have already moved to replace Marc Godwin as their local candidate. He is cross about it.”
Are we flying in a celeb…? Do we have any?
“Anonymous: not banned, just caught in the spam trap. Though conspiracy theories about censorship are much more fun 🙂 Now released.”
Really? Funny that all of my recent posts have just caught in the spam trap. What a spam language I must be using. :-/
It may be because your IP address has been used to send a lot of spam recently. This might be nothing to do with your own computer (e.g. spam problem at your ISP), but it could also be caused by your computer having been infected by software that is secretly sending out spam behind your back.
Thank you for letting me know. I ask my friends who know more about such things, what could be done.
Whatamuddleryouare!