North Shropshire By-Election: Humiliation for Boris Johnson as Tories lose to Lib Dems

To no one’s surprise, the Conservatives have lost the North Shropshire by-election to the Lib Dems. Another blow to Boris’s authority and another reason it will be hard for him to impose a full lockdown without triggering a leadership challenge. The Telegraph has more.

The Liberal Democrats have pulled off an extraordinary victory in North Shropshire by taking a lifelong Tory seat in the by-election for the first time in 200 years.

In a shock result, the Lib Dem candidate Helen Morgan secured 17,957 votes, leaving the Conservative Neil Shastri-Hurst with 12,032, and giving the Lib Dems a majority of 5,925 after a massive swing of 34%.

The by-election was called after Owen Paterson resigned following sleaze allegations after he was found to have broken lobbying rules for taking around half a million pounds from two companies and seeking to influence government policy.

The North Shropshire seat has returned a Conservative MP since 1830. It will prove a humiliating defeat for the Tories and will be regarded by many as a referendum on Boris Johnson’s leadership.

Mr Paterson had represented the constituency since 1997 and held it in 2019 with a majority of 22,949 with 62.7% of the vote. Labour came second with 22.1% of the vote and the Lib Dems had just 10% of the vote. When Ms. Morgan, a chartered accountant, ran for the seat in 2019 she came third.

The constituency also voted Leave in the 2016 referendum, at odds with the Lib Dems who became synonymous with the Remain vote.

Worth reading in full.

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Cecil B
Cecil B
4 years ago

Good thing to see they fucked off Labour too

Gregoryno6
4 years ago
Reply to  Cecil B

Hoping to see the mainstream parties take a similar thrashing at our federal election next year.

Rowan
Rowan
4 years ago
Reply to  Gregoryno6

And meanwhile the Scots Nats will continue with their wrecking ball policies.

B.F.Finlayson
4 years ago
Reply to  Cecil B

Well, together Tory & Lab form a de-facto Covidian coalition (apartheid supporting, anti-freedom) government, so what else do you expect?

PhantomOfLiberty
PhantomOfLiberty
4 years ago
Reply to  Cecil B

Yes, a nice way to look at it is that the Tories lost 64% of their voters from 2019 and Labour lost 70% of theirs (I think I got that right). According to one measure at leat Labour did even worse.

Rowan
Rowan
4 years ago
Reply to  Cecil B

Not many Labour voters in the shires. Soon not too many anywhere. The leader of the Labour is both a knight and a member of the Rockefeller Trilateral Commission, this is beyond ridiculous.

huxleypiggles
4 years ago

This was not a vote for the Lib Dims, far from it. This was a resounding kicking of the two principle parties.

Despite so called polls many have had enough of the so-called Scamdemic and Bozo and the Tories day to day lies.

Labour got two fingers because bluntly …
they haven’t turned up for work.

Mayo
Mayo
4 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Despite so called polls many have had enough of the so-called Scamdemic and Bozo and the Tories day to day lies.

Then why didn’t they vote for the anti-lockdown parties?

Sorry, this was a vote for more of the same.

artfelix
4 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

Because most people are still locked into the big party system and the anti-lockdown parties lack visibility and direction.

If the rebel Tories from last week were to break away and form a New Conservative type party that was libertarian at heart and was against draconian Covid measure, they would win bigly, enough to hold the balance of power after the next election.

Mayo
Mayo
4 years ago
Reply to  artfelix

Because most people are still locked into the big party system and the anti-lockdown parties lack visibility and direction.

For the past 18 months lockdown sceptics have been looking for alternative party to vote for. These parties will never win power so who gives a toss whether or not they have “visibility and direction”.

For crying out loud we’re heading towards tyranny and you’re concerned that the protest party hasn’t formalised its manifesto.

Will
Will
4 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

Then why didn’t they vote Labour who are in favour of medical apartheid and greater restrictions. The Lib Dems have consistently been in opposition to vaccine passports.

Mark
4 years ago
Reply to  Will

They didn’t vote Labour mostly because LibDems are traditionally seen as the main acceptable alternative to “Conservatives” for “Conservative” voters.

The LibDems have resisted vaxpasses, but been enthusiastic panickers otherwise.

If some “Conservative” voters switched to LibDem over the vaxpass isue, it’s lost in the general “sleaze” and mid-term protest issue.

A vote for one of the genuinely anti-panic parties would have sent a clear and unmistakable anti-lockdown message.

Mark
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark

The other reason why they went to LibDem and not Labour is because the LibDems were the party showing early promise of unseating the incumbent – a classic “third party squeeze”.

Moist Von Lipwig
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark

In essence, with rare exception, the Tories have been the Labour party under Kim Jong Johnson.

Mark
4 years ago

Both are Blairite parties of the left, basically.

Mayo
Mayo
4 years ago
Reply to  Will

If 10%-15% of the vote had gone to Daubney’s party the message would have been clear(er), but even with a low turnout, they picked up less than 1%.

Rowan
Rowan
4 years ago
Reply to  Will

Good point.

Rogerborg
4 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

Correct answer, which has triggered anger among the delusional.

X - In Search of Space
X - In Search of Space
4 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Yes, absolutely. The Lib Dems did not do/win anything – it is simply people voting against, rather than for. If only we had a party worth voting for.

B.F.Finlayson
4 years ago

The Lib Dems did not do/win anything…

How short memories are, given the Lib Dems along with the DUP were the only multi-seat parties to take a united stand against the Tory Health Apartheid sanctions last Tuesday, when 10 of 12 Lib Dem MPs voted against these utterly apalling vaxx passport rules (with not one of their MPs voted for).
People DO notice such things like a dysfunctional government ushering in a segregated state by the back door, and they also notice exactly who is prepared to stand up and be counted. I am not a Lib Dem supporter or voter, but credit where credit is due.

Dobba
4 years ago
Reply to  B.F.Finlayson

Yep – agreed. Whether you’re for or against LibDems (I’m neither – all politicians are self serving scum in my opinion – though I’m sure there are some good ones somewhere) – a shot has been fired across the bow at both the Cons and Labour. This hopefully sends a message to all the others of what happens when you you’re a bunch of life destroying and corrupt bunch of cunts.

I just wish the the consequences of these MP’s losing meant they lost their homes. livelihoods and businesses like so many others will have done the past few years.

James Kreis
4 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

I’m not so sure. I like to think it was because the Liberal Democrats are the only main party to have declared their outright opposition to vaccine passports and vaccine mandates. On that fundamental issue alone, they will secure my vote at the next general election.

B.F.Finlayson
4 years ago
Reply to  James Kreis

Sorry James, didn’t see your comment before posting. I wholly agree with you.

artfelix
4 years ago
Reply to  James Kreis

Me too – despite the fact my local Tory MP is one of the good ones. I’ve told him I would vote for him if he was independent but can’t if he remains Tory.

Laicey
Laicey
4 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Or course MSM says it’s just because of the wallpaper. No mention at all that people might be concerned about a further pointless lockdown that will kick us out of our jobs again, or the building totalitarianism.

I’ve always wondered why the German public didn’t do anything about Hitler, but now the same techniques are being used again I can better understand what happened.

Mark
4 years ago

Reluctant as I generally am to second guess Toby Young and the site admins here on any issue other than free speech btl, this is one piece I do think could have been done better. The only interesting thing about the by-election is whether there was any progress for anti-lockdown parties, but the piece highlighted (from a paywalled site) mentions only the shift of votes amongst the various panicker parties.

A quote including the full results – independents included, or a link to a non-paywalled piece with that information, would have been a lot more interesting.

As it is, this just reports a disappointing reshuffling of votes amongst the problem parties.

The best that can be said for it is that some increase in LibDem support might help persuade “Conservative” Party apparatchiks that they need to back off a bit on vaxpasses, and that a drop in “Conservative” Party support might influence them to pretend a little harder to be somewhat representing occasional conservative positions, briefly.

John Dee
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark

If I were a voter trying to send the government a message, would I put my vote to a tiny party or to a small party that still won’t ever form a government? I suppose it would depend on whether it was a bye-election or a general election. This result looks like a safe (and hopefully effective) shot across the bows for Boris and co.

Mark
4 years ago
Reply to  John Dee

If I were a voter trying to send the government a message, would I put my vote to a tiny party or to a small party that still won’t ever form a government?

Most likely in a by-election like this, as you say, a lot of voters will vote for the alternative likely to defeat the regime party to “send a message”. And that’s most likely why the Labour vote was squeezed so hard.

But in the long run, there’s nothing to gain by shifting votes between the various leftist “progressive” parties, so that’s not particularly interesting for me. The only future that allows for any hope is to build alternatives that are genuinely conservative. From that pov, the only good thing from this by-eection is the huge drop in the “Conservative” Party vote. But the problem is, that’s what parties in government expect anyway, mid-term.

Might at least see off Johnson though, albeit his replacement in the short run is likely to be worse.

Julian
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark

I agree. The number of votes for non-corona-panic parties (Reform, Reclaim. Heritage, Freedom Alliance) was TINY.

B.F.Finlayson
4 years ago
Reply to  Julian

Because these post Brexit rump parties are now irrelevant, moreso after Farage meekly surrendered TPB votes to the Tories in 2019. As such none of these parties can ever again win a fptp election, as the ‘traditional left’ pro-Brexit protest voters won’t touch them with a bargepole.
Overall the left-right paradigm is extinct, politics has had a new shape for many years and the Tories are just as guilty of globalist progressive woke driven green politics as the rest – and have been ever since Dave became leader.
It has taken a long time for many to notice this.

Mayo
Mayo
4 years ago
Reply to  B.F.Finlayson

The ‘Brexit’ parties caused enough of a stir to force a referendum.

Whether or not they actually win power is not really relevant. They take votes from parties who have ambitions of being in power.

The LibDems, Labour….. are more of the same

B.F.Finlayson
4 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

The ‘Brexit’ parties caused enough of a stir to force a referendum.

UKIP attracted traditional Labour anti-EU voters, and started potentially eating into Tory constituencies. Result was a classic Dave miscalculation to secure the 2015 GE, which led (eventually…) to Brexit. The core Brexit voters had been in place for many years before UKIP, and there has been no equivalent issue that might unite left and right until vaxx apartheid.

Whether or not they actually win power is not really relevant. They take votes from parties who have ambitions of being in power.

Except when they choose to become a government proxy, like when Farage decided he would personally gift these votes to the sitting Tory government, whether the TBP supporters agreed or not.

The LibDems, Labour….. are more of the same

Of course they are, so one can pick and choose accordingly in our corrupt organised democracy. This will remain the case until we have a more accountable and democratic system and ditch fptp – but both Lab and Tory (like any organised crime cartel) will never do that, as both their power bases will vanish.

Mark
4 years ago
Reply to  B.F.Finlayson

Except when they choose to become a government proxy, like when Farage decided he would personally gift these votes to the sitting Tory government, whether the TBP supporters agreed or not.

Except what he actually did was to ensure that the party offering a prospect of a referendum on his core issue was likely to beat the party offering him nothing.

Labour’s fault for their political stupidity in backing EU membership, and nothing else.

B.F.Finlayson
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark

Except what he actually did was to ensure that the party offering a prospect of a referendum on his core issue was likely to beat the party offering him nothing. This betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of UK politics. TBP votes could never have stopped a Brexit driven Tory victory, Labour were gutted in 2019 unlike 2017, but it might have trimmed the size of that majority (see my other point about large Tory government majorities) that contributed to the current Covid apartheid situation. At worst it would have meant Johnson was dependent on the DUP and maybe TBP, which would have been no bad thing to secure a better Brexit arrangement than just heating up May’s deal. Either way Farage used TBP support as a block vote to be gifted to Johnson (possibly in return for future favours, position or title?). Worse, he did it at the last possible moment to deliberately prevent any new party getting involved. It was an act of gross betrayal that also (imho) amounted to electoral fraud. If there is a new political movement it will have to encompass all those disaffected voters outside the ‘centricity’ of the Lab/Con Alliance, but thinking political brains aren’t… Read more »

Mark
4 years ago
Reply to  B.F.Finlayson

This betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of UK politics.”

We disagree on that, clearly.

TBP votes could never have stopped a Brexit driven Tory victory

This is hindsight-based reasoning.

The rest follows from that.

B.F.Finlayson
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark

This is hindsight-based reasoning.

Not at all, I and many other commenters on the political blogs stated it at the time – and tried to warn Farage against selling out. It wasn’t political rocket science, look at the pre-GE opinion polls. The UK electorate would never have allowed a democratic referendum result to be ignored/overturned, as Labour was threatening to do.

B.F.Finlayson
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark

Labour’s fault for their political stupidity in backing EU membership, and nothing else.

On this point I have to agree. But deliberate & irreparable damage was done to Labour Brexit policy on or around 28th August 2017 by New Labour’s pre-selected globalist operative Keir Starmer. The following GE was effectively lost at that point – and I said so at the time.

Mark
4 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

Exactly so. If Reclaim had only taken enough votes from the “Conservatives” to have swung the defeat to victory if they had stayed put – just 6,000 votes, amounting to just 16% of the vote, that would have sent shock-waves through the “Conservative” establishment and forced a reconsideration of the entire panic policy as well as other conservatism issues, while this result will be written off as a combination of mid-term protest, the “sleaze” issue that was especially relevant to this by-election, and perhaps the general tiredness of Johnson’s leadership.

A huge wasted opportunity.

Rogerborg
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark

Toby is establishment through-and-through. He has no interest in any actual disruption to troughing as usual.

maggie may
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark

Try googling 12 foot ladder…..

Anti_socialist
4 years ago

Romped it, stomped on the Tories, but what does it mean?

Anti-vax-pass vote v pro-lockdown vote?

Mark
4 years ago
Reply to  Anti_socialist

LibDems have been as pro-panic, as any, only questioning the worst extremes of vaxpass discrimination. So you could try to make a case for some anti-vaxpass voting, but I suspect the”Conservative” hierarchy will put it down mostly to anti-“sleaze” and mid-term protest voting.

Julian
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark

I think they would be right to do so.

B.F.Finlayson
4 years ago
Reply to  Julian

Which is why they are heading for oblivion. The party hierarchies of both Lab and Tory are incapable of smelling the coffee – yet always say “we heard the voters”. Labour, with Corbyn as leader, would have been in power had it embraced Brexit without reservation; but Starmer had been working on the inside ever since he became a MP to derail the brief old Labour swansong. New Labour preferred the Tories to be in power.
Nevertheless, any party cannot take the UK into being an openly apartheid state and not expect some backlash, no matter how many voters remain in complete denial of this betrayal of inalienable rights.

Bellingcat
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark

Agreed, but the Libs have been more for liberty than tyranny (EU) recently they consistently vote against the Covid Ermächtigungsgesetz Act

Anti_socialist
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark

I struggle with the sleaze angle simply because everyone knows the Tories are sleazy & corrupt, how’s that news. Are LibDems any less sleazy, ‘brexit’?

Mark
4 years ago
Reply to  Anti_socialist

Well, a lot of this is perception. Most Tory voters don’t necessarily agree that “the Tories are sleazy and corrupt”, but when there is an actual removal of a sitting MP for “sleaze”, that tends to penetrate through very strongly, especially in that MP’s own constituency. This kind of backlash is not unusual in that context.

B.F.Finlayson
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark

Well, a lot of this is perception.

No it isn’t. So much so that the Tory tendency to frequently be mired in scandal and corruption when in power became a standard examination question many moons ago.
The other chestnut was ‘The only thing worse for a Conservative government than having a small majority is having a large majority – discuss’. We have seen this too at first hand rather too often since December 2019.

Anti_socialist
4 years ago
Reply to  B.F.Finlayson

Ignore him, he always gives dick answers, he thinks it’s grown up.

Mark
4 years ago
Reply to  Anti_socialist

Ignore him, he always gives dick answers, he thinks it’s grown up.”

Slightly odd trigger, there. It’s usually reasonably clear why a regular commenter has abruptly resorted to playground abuse. With RickH, for instance, it’s either when his long term heartache over the utter defeat of his faction of the left by the Blairite faction has been touched on, or one of his culture war taboos is offended against.

In your case, it’s usually when your over-sensitivity to perceived personal criticism is triggered. Hard to see how that applies here, since you asked a reasonable question in response to my comment, and received a reasonable answer.

Mark
4 years ago
Reply to  B.F.Finlayson

No it isn’t. “

You evidently misunderstood my point. When I wrote “a lot of this is perception”, I was not suggesting, as you have clearly interpreted it, that the Tories are not “sleazy and corrupt” (that’s a completely separate issue, albeit one certainly open to debate). What I was saying, as the rest of the post made reasonably clear, was that most Tory voters usually don’t share that perception of the party, most of the time. Which is why it makes a difference when that perception penetrates through to a lot of them, such as when there is a by-election triggered by it.

B.F.Finlayson
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark

You evidently misunderstood my point.

I suspect others will too when read in the context of the exchange.
The point I picked up on was your stand alone reply to AS (who stated ‘..everyone knows the Tories are sleazy & corrupt.’) that ‘Well, a lot of this is perception’.
It seems to me self evident that most Tory voters wouldn’t agree that the party was ‘sleazy and corrupt‘, or they wouldn’t vote Tory. I rather think AS was referring to a wider demographic than Tory voters.

Mark
4 years ago
Reply to  B.F.Finlayson

In a safe Tory seat, it’s the attitudes of Tory voters that matter. Obviously.

It’s the drop from 35,444 Tory voters in 2019 to 12,032 in this by-election that determined the result, that made it even remotely possible for the LibDems to win the seat with their 17,957 votes.

Again, obviously.

B.F.Finlayson
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark

You are digging yourself ever deeper. AS’s comment was ‘everyone knows’ and not ‘all those North Shropshire voters who voted Tory in 2019 know’, as you now try and misrepresent it.
Similarly your previous comment (‘Most Tory voters don’t necessarily agree’) also alluded to a wider cohort than those found in North Shropshire.
To win a GE it’s the attitude of voters overall (especially in the marginal constituencies) that matters.

Mark
4 years ago
Reply to  B.F.Finlayson

Nope, the context was a discussion of this by-election, not a GE, and A-S wrote: “I struggle with the sleaze angle simply because everyone knows the Tories are sleazy & corrupt, how’s that news.

In response I pointed out that it’s the attitude of Tory voters that matters in this context.

It’s not rocket science and you’re perfectly capable of grasping the point.

B.F.Finlayson
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark

… in this context.

Which does not mean ‘in this constituency’ no matter how you try and spin it. AS made a point regarding the general perception of Tory sleaze in the context of a by-election result, I don’t think AS meant just in North Shropshire. And looking at your reply to AS, neither did you!
Besides it’s not just the attitude of Tory voters that count, as people don’t stick to party political groupings when at work and/or socialising.

George L
4 years ago

Yeah.. but if voting changed anything they’d ban it..

Hugh
Hugh
4 years ago
Reply to  George L

Story is that when the unlanded classes got the vote about a century ago (it wasn’t just women who didn’t have the vote you know), they changed the system to first past the post instead of first 2 past the post, precisely so that not too much would change. Plus ca change.

Covidiot
Covidiot
4 years ago

Anti-lockdown vote or anti-sleaze vote?

Really difficult to extrapolate when it looks like there was a significant amount of tactical voting. The truth is probably a mixture of the 2.

I’ve read 2 reports on this now but haven’t seen the turnout – I would imagine it was very low.

Not sure what to read into this, but there’s a hope that it will make the tories think that some of their core vote is leaving them over covid policy. But that could go the other way if they think it’s because they haven’t gone far enough …

I am looking forward to more analysis on this.

Hugh
Hugh
4 years ago
Reply to  Covidiot

All that can be said for certain is it isn’t a mandate for medical apartheid.

Covidiot
Covidiot
4 years ago
Reply to  Covidiot

I think the one thing it does show is that Boris can’t survive Covid – if he goes too far people will vote against him, if he doesn’t go far enough people will vote against him – there is no middle ground, and this is particularly the case for Johnson, who is trying to satisfy the libertarians in his own party, and the covidian public who push for greater and greater measures. At the moment he is satisfying noone. He came in on a tidal wave last GE precisely because he did pick a side and appeared decisive. Take out Brexit and he has nothing to rally around. Covid will finally break him in the not too distant future His best bet now is to pick a side on Covid, he’s either a libertarian or not. If I was him I would go full on anti-restriction and side now with the rebels who will protect him – he’ll take short term flack – a lot of it – and the scaremongering will be ridiculous, but in a few months, as Texas and Florida has shown – he will point to no worse outcomes than our neighbouring countries. Is he intelligent… Read more »

nottingham69
nottingham69
4 years ago
Reply to  Covidiot

Ron Desantis took more flack than probably any politician in history bar Trump but held his ground and now looks set fair to be a significant figure for a long time.

He was brave and right. Bunter has been weak and that will be his demise in the new year.

Covidiot
Covidiot
4 years ago
Reply to  nottingham69

Yes, I think it’s a case of deciding who is going to win the argument in the end.

Because we cannot go on like this forever the natural conclusion is basically what is set out in the Great Barrington Declaration – that is where we’ll end up IMO, it’s just whether we get there in years or months …

So, it is best to back the winning horse, even if it looked knackered in the stables, because our side WILL win this argument in the end

djmo
4 years ago
Reply to  Covidiot

I think he’s probably looking at that calculation and realising that he’s too late to be a Desantis, so there isn’t much left for him to do but double down with the madness and hope that he’ll be rewarded with a cushy job with the NWO WEF.

He could go full-on anti-restriction at this point, but he’s already crossed the Rubicon, and most of us would never trust him. If he’d never understood individual liberty, I could buy a road-to-Damascus revelation, but he knows what he’s doing is evil, and he’s done it anyway. That makes him completely unsuitable for power.

If he knows he’s permanently lost the thinking, good people (and I think he knows enough to know that he has), he has to go all in with somebody else – the unthinking and/or the not good.

Covidiot
Covidiot
4 years ago
Reply to  djmo

I’d agree, he’s fallen into the rabbit hole of trying to please everyone instead of being brave and sticking to one position. He was elected precisely because he appeared strong and decisive over Brexit. No wonder people are disillusioned, but this is Johnson – he rides on the wave of popular sentiment and when it comes down to it all he cares about his advancing his own position.

Now he’s stuck in a corner with nowhere to go because he knows that any decision will not be popular amongst at least 50% of the people he needs to keep his position (voters vs party). So he dithers and gets attacked from both sides.

The one positive for us is that the more immediate danger now is his own party, so he may try and placate them before the public – but he’s paranoid about cases, deaths and his legacy and that may see him in a permanent dither until he’s ousted.

Will be interesting to watch. If he does go, our job is to work out how to get the PM we want, and maybe tory party entryism is a way to achieve that

Mark
4 years ago

Full results

Byelectionresults.jpg
Mark
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark

The only genuinely anti-panic parties I’m aware of were Reclaim, Heritage and Reform. Presumably Freedom as well, if the name means anything.

A total of 1938 votes, 5%. Pretty disappointing. Turnout only 46%.

Julian
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark

Freedom Alliance are very strongly anti-covid narrative, yes. Votes for Reform may have been more some kind of post-Brexit hangover than anti-panic.

Hugh
Hugh
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark

I’m a bit surprised if UKIP are a panicker party. And what about Party Party? Surely they don’t want to be locked down? So that’s up to 6.33% of those who bothered And I don’t think the non-loony Loony candidate wore a mask…. And as for the biggest vote, none of the above?

I’m guessing Rejoin EU want vaccine mandates…

Mark
4 years ago
Reply to  Hugh

UKIP are presumably pretty single issue. I don’t know what their position on the covid panic might be.

milesahead
milesahead
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark

They’ll never get anywhere unless they unite in some fashion – at least agree to not all compete in by-elections. Combined, they’d have overtaken the Greens, which would have bee significant in terms of credibility.

Hugh
Hugh
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark

Bother, I noted the Party Party as 19 before!

Covidiot
Covidiot
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark

What that list shows is that the anti-restriction opposition is ridiculously split. There is no one clear party to rally around – said it before and I’ll say it again, all these disparate individuals and factions need to come together if they are going to gain any traction on this issue. It’s still ridiculously unorganised after all this time and that is a real shame.

Mark
4 years ago
Reply to  Covidiot

Not disagreeing with you that a unified anti-panicker party would be better, but it’s hard to see that making enough of a difference given these numbers. FPTP is brutal for new parties.

TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
4 years ago

and not just Boris either

Starmer raving bonker’s party got fewer votes.

So mostly good news all around

Mayo
Mayo
4 years ago

So mostly good news all around

Really? where?

Martin Daubney received barely 1% of the vote while the Reform party got less than 4%.

This election does not show support for the anti-lockdown movement.

artfelix
4 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

That’s because their parties are irrelevant in a first past the post system. People wanted to defeat the Tories so they voted tactically. I would have too, if it was my seat. Anyone who voted Reform in this particular by-election would have to be politically illiterate.

BorisPants
4 years ago

First the 100 MP’s who voted against Pharma C**k Sucking “Plan B”. Now the loss of North Shropshire by Lib Dems, a Tory seat held for – wait for it – ***200 YEARS*** ! God is answering our prayers !

https://twitter.com/MichaelZFreeman/status/1471786728566497282

MichaelZFreeman on GETTR: “First the 100 MP’s who vo…”

Mayo
Mayo
4 years ago
Reply to  BorisPants

The result is a big disappointment for lockdown sceptics. We can’t pretend otherwise. Reform & Reclaim couldn’t manage 5% between them.

Julian
4 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

Totally agree

iane
iane
4 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

No, quite wrong. New Parties always struggle.

Mayo
Mayo
4 years ago
Reply to  iane

Nonsense – by-elections and elections have been won by both new and single issue parties in the past ,e.g. Martin Bell in 1997 and the SDLP in Crosby in 1981.

There has been no bigger issue than the ‘pandemic’ over the past 2 years. This was a terrible result.

BorisPants
4 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

Rubbish. I see too much moaning on this site. We’ve had the 100 rebels. Even my very middle of the road MP Derek Thomas rebelled ! I’m not even sure he rebelled as a teenager against his own parents ! Yet he rebelled against Johnson at risk of losing his party the next election. 100 MP’s have integrity. That is worth a lot and a MASSIVE statement. Now the loss of this seat THAT HAS BEEN HELD FOR 200 YEARS BY THE TORY’S.

Mayo
Mayo
4 years ago
Reply to  BorisPants

THAT HAS BEEN HELD FOR 200 YEARS BY THE TORY’S.

A completely meaningless statistic. By-elections often throw up ‘shock’ results if the public are unhappy with the government.

The question is what are they unhappy about? I don’t believe it’s because they are opposed to lockdowns. It’s because Boris and friends broke lockdown rules.

RickH
4 years ago

I doubt if much can be read from this, beyond that voters moaned a bit by transferring their tick from Tory to LibDems. My guess is that this had as much to do with Partygate and graft, plus general obvious competence as with the significant Covid issues.

Labour got rewarded for its total irrelevance.

But the earth hasn’t moved.

BorisPants
4 years ago
Reply to  RickH

“Doubt much can be read from this” ? Is anyone paying attention on this site ? That was a seat held for 200 years by the Tory’s according to the BBC !

Anti_socialist
4 years ago
Reply to  BorisPants

Nah, RickH is right, in the long term its a nothing burger. Tories still sleazy, labour still irrelevant, lib dems won a seat because of low turnout & nobody could bring themselves to vote for the other 2, same as it ever was. Tories still around for another 3 years.

RickH
4 years ago
Reply to  BorisPants

This is nothing unusual in the great scheme of things, and given the circumstances. It can happen in an ordinary mid-term.

Lucan Grey
4 years ago
Reply to  RickH

Correct. About 6000 actual votes moved. The other 40 odd thousand stopped at home.

cloud6
4 years ago
Reply to  Lucan Grey

Perhaps the 40 odd thousand were self-isolating, that explains it all!

TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
4 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57NYYVlwbKU

Farage reacts to shock defeat in North Shropshire.

Did we forget the Dingy Dinghy divers

Anti_socialist
4 years ago

But why does he keep calling them conservatives?

smithey
4 years ago

For the first time since this began I am starting to feel a little bit of positivity that we might escape from the clutches of totalitarianism. If in a few weeks time Omnicron has not laid waste to the whole of mankind as Chris Whitty and the doom laden media love to portray then surely even the stupidest of the population will be able to smell the stench of BS.

TreeHugger
4 years ago
Reply to  smithey

No the idiots will think that the magic masks worked and saved them. Sick of the sight of them personally.
Last weekend I was tempted to ask shoppers in Bluewater if they could smell the perfume outside House of Fraser – it was so strong it was making my eyes water. If smells travel through masks what makes them think they stop anything as small as a virus.

artfelix
4 years ago
Reply to  TreeHugger

I’m pretty sure, based on multiple interactions with them, that the majority (perhaps the vast majority) of mask wearers are motivated very little by fear of the virus and largely by fear of being disapproved of.

The fact they wear masks does not necessarily mean they think they work, or that they don’t think lockdown measures are ridiculous. They just don’t want to be the ones to say it. However, they will vote it. We saw exactly the same with Brexit.

JohnK
4 years ago
Reply to  TreeHugger

Maybe because they’re ignorant about basic physics and chemistry, or just behaving as serfs. The question you were tempted to ask is a good starting point – then ask them about the size of the things they can smell, and how large are typical viruses and so on. If they sound a bit clever, move on to heating and air flow etc

Drew63
Drew63
4 years ago
Reply to  smithey

If in a few weeks time Omnicron has not laid waste to the whole of mankind

Never underestimate people’s capacity for stupidity. Covid restrictions seem to operate in a bizarre universe where logic and common sense is upended. Come February 28, 2020, and the streets aren’t clogged with lifeless corpses, the BBC and the Guardian will be telling us it was because of the mask mandates and social distancing.

For a long time, I thought people would eventually catch on to the game of “experts” crying “Wolf!” too many times. That they’d finally tire of watching businesses go bust and millions sinking into depression, alcoholism, and despair. But no.

We’re on an endless conveyor of gloom, panic, tyranny, and misery. And I’d willing bet anyone that come Christmas 2022 we’ll still be playing the same stupid game.

Drew63
Drew63
4 years ago

I’d hesitate before declaring the Tories loss in Shropshire as any sort of “victory” for the anti-lockdown position.

To begin with, a great deal of the antipathy towards Boris Johnson has not to do with the imposition of restrictions, but rather more to do with the perceived hypocrisy he has shown in breaking those restrictions.

IOW, be careful what we wish for.

tom171uk
4 years ago

It’s clearly time to defenestrate Boris but nobody wants the poison chalice. He will remain in place until his successor is able to end the shit show and take the credit. Probably a year or two.

Londo Mollari
4 years ago

erious question. I have had zero jabs, so in order to be considered as fully vaccinated for the purposes of a passport, do I have to have all three? And when the booster runs out of efficacy, will I have to go for all four?
This question has been asked around the interwebs in a jokey manner, but there is a serious issue here. If you have to have all the jabs, does that not suggest a course of treatment rather than vaccination? A course of genetic therapy, and what is the end point?

Boomer Bloke
4 years ago
Reply to  Londo Mollari

Following on from your question, my related question is, what happens to the risks of adverse reaction as you continue to have additional jabs. Do they compound up like interest, are they additive or is there some kind of exponential function for their sequential impact? We should be told.

John001
John001
4 years ago
Reply to  Londo Mollari

To me it seems a bit sinister that only the four GM jabs are available in N. America and Europe, none of the ones made from inactivated virus or similar. Anyone else have thoughts?

Maybe this is the plan if too many people refuse to become GM

https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-researchers-studying-if-lettuce-spinach-can-be-turned-into-covid-vaccines-101632330028954.html

PissedOffDad
4 years ago
Reply to  Londo Mollari

If you think of it in terms of a race, then you haven’t even started, in fact you’ve already been lapped 3 times. Since the plan is jabs ad infinitum then you can never catch up. The end game? Early painful death.
The good news is you still have your natural immunity intact which means you’ll probably get in the medals at some point.

DanClarke
DanClarke
4 years ago

Pfizer shareholders made another $15bn in the last 24 hours. Market cap heading to $350bn.
The cost of a jab to arm for Pfizer is £1 and the NHS pay them £22. The biggest money earner in the history of pharmacy.

Liberty4UK
Liberty4UK
4 years ago
Reply to  DanClarke

Shareholders are living off immoral earnings. I bet they haven’t all declared their conflicts of interest either.

DanClarke
DanClarke
4 years ago
Reply to  Liberty4UK

they should be forced to, especially whitty and his sage mates

Cane Corso
Cane Corso
4 years ago

Libdem MPs largely voted against the tyranny on Tuesday. The people voted for Libdems on Thursday. Ergo, the People are against the tyranny.
Got it, politicians?

peyrole
peyrole
4 years ago

Too complicated chaps. Tories won’t vote Labour, period. Then its a ‘presidential’ mid-term vote. They want Johnson out , nothing more complicated than that. Doubt its much to do with covid at all. More to do with sleeze and his lies finally catching up with him.
Mr Young has not made more of it because he has been a Johnson supporter.
There are no good alternatives, which means a replacement might be worse.

Rogerborg
4 years ago

The Tory box-ticking identity politics candidate flubbed it when he refused to answer the simple question of whether he thought that “Boris Johnson is a man of honesty and integrity” over and over, just repeating his NPC lines “Look, what really matters is… [BEEP BOOP]” This was a referendum on Johnson as an individual, and the only reason that the LibDem puppet won was that they were reported as being best placed to beat the Tory puppet. For Farage Ltd (“Reform UK”), UKIP, Reclaim, Heritage and Freedom Alliance got 2,316 votes between them, not enough to alter the result. That’s the real tragedy here, that the UK voting public are, collectively, bloody cretins who convince ourselves that our votes are being cast in a referendum on whichever Dear Leader we want to follow, or not follow. Please, please, let’s try to get this through our heads: we are not voting for leaders, not even for parties. We are voting for an actual individual who is standing in our constituency. They are the person who will represent us, and that matters. If you don’t vote for the person who you think will actually reflect your views, you have no chance of… Read more »

BS665
BS665
4 years ago

Ha Ha ha ha ha hahahahahahhahahhah……

Newman20
Newman20
4 years ago

I’m certainly not a Tory – in fact I abhor all politicians in equal measure – but this wasn’t a vote for the ‘Illiberal Undemocrats’ but a protest vote against any representative of the Johnson fascist regime.