[Killer Whale]

The Englishman's right to kill children with his car is right up there with his right to make monopoly profits from runaway inflation in the housing market.

[Youngian]

The Uxbridge irony is if Labour had had the Green vote on what is a huge (small g) green policy, they’d have won.

Don’t assume Labour would always gain, it’s partly a dustbin vote.
If the LDs were true to form and campaigned on a nimby anti ULEZ platform, that may have dampened the Tory tally.

[Youngian]

‘Labour lost its deposit in Frome,’ was a Tory take this morning.
That level of tactical voting is a disaster for the Tories.

[Crabcakes]

I also suspect Uxbridge would have been an easy win if bottler Johnson was defending his seat rather than a new face.

[Crabcakes]

Meanwhile, in possibly the most unhinged take of all, Nadine ‘resigned yet?’ Dorries is claiming a wafer thin single issue win in Uxbridge that still saw a massive Labour swing is somehow an endorsement of (of course) Boris Johnson. Because if people really hated him they’d have massively voted against his party in his former seat.

Which they did, coming within 500 votes of delivering a seat that’s been Tory since 1966, but that fact - like all other facts - doesn’t seem to have troubled her.

[Tubby Isaacs]

One thing you keep hearing is "Labour needs to give people something to vote for". Bold, green policy in Uxbridge was something to vote against, that's for sure. Maybe it's harder than it looks.

But Selby and Somerton were incredible results.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I think Uxbridge means the London Mayoral Election is going to be close, even with Susan Hall. It's the perfect rallying issue in the "donut" that put Bozo in. But it ought not to be too much of a factor in the General Election.

[Abernathy]

Well, two cheers on the by election results, with the Tories managing to hang on to Uxbridge and West Ruislip by the skin of their teeth, thanks largely to successfully weaponising an essentially local issue(ULEZ expansion) in a seat that has always been Conservative. On the bright side of the ledger, an absolutely massive swing to Labour to gain Selby and Ainsty and a fine demonstration of the value of tactical voting to deliver the kind of stunning by election win that has become a bit of a Lib Dem speciality.. Both of the latter two results bode rather well for the coming General Election - for Labour, and for the Lib Dems, too.

What are the lessons for Labour? First, the Tories' use of the ULEZ expansion issue to shore up their vote is a useful reminder of what we are up against at the coming general election. The Tories will undoubtedly fight like a cornered rat. Imagine that Starmer had trimmed Labour's policy positions to advocate Brexit reversal, immediately scrapping the two child benefits restriction, and the wholesale nationalisation of the rail, water, and energy utilities. Then substitute any one of those issues, particularly Brexit reversal, for the ULEZ expansion issue, and you can see why Starmer's strategy to deny the Tory election machine that potentially election derailing ammunition is absolutely correct.

Secondly, tactical voting via an informal, tacit agreement between Starmer and Davey mutually (though not actively) to assist the campaign of the candidate best placed to defeat the Tory is an absolute must at the general election. It helped to achieve the landslide result in 1997, and can do something very similar in 2024.

Third, the magnificent Selby & Ainsty result confirms that Labour is still on course to return to government at the election. I hold still to my theory that the electorate has arrived at that "tipping point" at which voters are determinedly intent on evicting the Tory government by whatever means necessary when the election comes. Keir Starmer's achievement has been to position Labour in opposition perfectly to be the principal beneficiary of that tipping point, which is no mean feat in itself, given the Corbyn legacy. As has been noted by many, Labour still needs to "seal the deal" by putting forward an attractive manifesto offer that will provide people with a positive, active reason to vote for a Labour government. With possibly a further 18 months to the election, this is, and always has been, the final phase of Starmer's plan to achieve victory and restore Labour to government. I'm confident that this will materialise precisely as planned.

On the ULEZ expansion issue, I don't see it as something that will obstruct Sadiq Khan's re-election as London Mayor. Labour support in inner city London in particular is just too strong. It is also very unlikely, I think, to be a salient issue at the general election.

[Andy McDandy]

Sunjak claims that the results show what happens when people have experience of Labour in office - in this case it's Khan. Not sure how he deals with people who have experienced living with a Tory MP and are now deserting in droves.

[Andy McDandy]

Also, let's not forget there are more by-elections due (or will be when Nad gets round to remembering to resign). Abers is right - this to me is starting to resemble the chip-chip-chip away at the majority in the later Major years.

[Killer Whale]

Sunjak claims that the results show what happens when people have experience of Labour in office - in this case it's Khan.

7% swing to Labour. Hardly a ringing endorsement for the Government, and hardly a disaster for Khan.

[davidjay]

I wonder if, in some strange way, the happiest man in all this is Boris Johnson- the Tories get their arses kicked everywhere except on his manor.

[Abernathy]

I wonder if, in some strange way, the happiest man in all this is Boris Johnson- the Tories get their arses kicked everywhere except on his manor.

Well, possibly. Except it's no longer "his manor". He abandoned it, in disgrace. Turned tail and fled. And of course it was Johnson himself as London mayor who implemented the ULEZ scheme initially.

[Crabcakes]

I imagine Johnson will be annoyed if anything. He doesn’t and never has given a shit about the people of Uxbridge, but being the petty, vindictive bastard he is he *will* be peeved that Sunak hasn’t had an embarrassing clean sweep of defeats.

Even having the ever-sycophantic Nadine trying to turn it into some sort of endorsement via not being as utterly awful as it could have been won’t do much for him when what he really wanted was an absolute floor pasting so people can start talking about when he comes back again (again).

[Andy McDandy]

Besides, the only reason he chose Hillingdon as his safe seat was because the M40 offered a quick getaway route to Oxfordshire.

[Oboogie]

I wonder if, in some strange way, the happiest man in all this is Boris Johnson- the Tories get their arses kicked everywhere except on his manor.

He might. Or, in his delusion, he maybe be bitter that he didn't stay and fight it instead of bottling it and running away. His ego may be telling him that he could've still been an MP but, then again, I'm sure that's what he wants.

[Yug]

Why would Johnson want to be 'just' an MP. He's had (and fucked up in) the top job. Surely being a run-of-the-mill MP would be a demotion too far for his massive ego to swallow.

[Watchman]

Easy money for doing fuck all, whilst nurturing his more lucrative side-lines

[Philip Marlow]

On the ULEZ expansion issue, I don't see it as something that will obstruct Sadiq Khan's re-election as London Mayor. Labour support in inner city London in particular is just too strong. It is also very unlikely, I think, to be a salient issue at the general election.

If their candidate is any indication, I suspect the tories have pretty much given the election up as a bust.

ULEZ seems like an issue perfectly tailored to low turnout local campaigns at the moment, but that doesn't mean there aren't people who'd like to make more out of it. Beware Tufton Street, as they say (or if they don't, they should).

WARNING: Full article contains anti-ULEZ quotes so stupid they will make your eyeballs bleed.

[Boiler]

The one group ULEZ will hit most is small businesses running non-Euro 6 vans under 3.5t GVW. I can imagine much opposition from that quarter.

The opposition from the outer edges to ULEZ brings back memories of "Fares Fair" and the opposition to that; not quite as crazy as the opposition to the MARTA rail network expansion in Atlanta in the mid-90s, where the posh it's said it'd encourage thieves to travel there, but...