9 December 2021
A Shattering Defeat
Old Bexley and Sidcup
by J.R. Thomas
Major shock and horror last Friday in the media as our national press and commentariat absorbed the loss of the Bexley by-election. Wailing and shrieking broke out in the corridors of Broadcasting House, and as for the environs of Kings Cross, commuters fled as a stream of tears emerged from the Guardian building and flooded York Way. Yes, the Conservatives had held Old Bexley and Sidcup and there was to be no consoling those who were looking for a repeat of the Amersham result, where a safe Tory seat fell to the Lib-Dems. What on earth went wrong?
Bexley is very different to Amersham. One big difference for a start; no HS2 railway line clawing its ugly way across the constituency. Bexley is classic middle-class south London (Kent edge) commuter belt with a lot of its inhabitants working in middle management in the City and central London. There is no great disaffection here with local conditions, and the Conservative candidate was a young local councillor, Louie French, a south London boy, indeed raised in the constituency. He worked hard, seemed popular on the doorsteps, and benefitted from much goodwill for his predecessor, the much too early deceased and very able James Brokenshire. French got a lot of big Tory noises down from Westminster – 40 minutes on the train – to speak good words for him. Possibly the only black cloud was a memory of the former occupant of the seat, the Great Grouch himself, Ted Heath, but the locals seemed to like him too. They must just be nice people in Old Bexley.
Now, you know our methods on the Shaw Sheet. Before opening the champagne or going, weeping, into a darkened room, it does no harm at all to actually look at the voting figures. In Old Bexley, and we do not forget Sidcup, the figures are very interesting indeed, bringing good cheer and bad news. Not least, we should perhaps say, for Richard Tice and his Reform Party who scored a mere 1.600 votes, but at least saved their deposit. Mr Tice is a nice chap and those lovely electors perhaps recognised that, but they let wallop to the Lib-Dems who scored 647 and will not get their money back. There were a lot of candidates and we are not going to give free publicity to them all, but cannot help but mention the Rejoin EU Party – 151 votes. Oh dear. Maybe next time, sir, but then again, probably not. The votes that mattered here were Conservative and Labour, and here lies the nub of what so upsets the anti-Tory brigade (most of the media for a start, or it oft feels like it). Mr French got just over 11,000 votes and his Labour protagonist, Daniel Francis, 6,700. Mr Francis also was a suitable choice as a candidate, no parachuting in unsuitable highfliers here by either party, He too was raised in Bexley, has lived here all his life, led the Labour group on the local council, and, if he has ever met Jeremy Corbyn, was not admitting it.
The turnout was astonishingly low, even for a November by-election, 21,700 out of 64,000. In the 2019 election, 46,000 turned out. Mr French had a percentage of the poll of 51%, Mr Francis of 31% and all the rest 18% (6% going to Mr Tice). In 2019 James Brokenshire had 65% and Labour, in second place, 24%.
What might this mean? A swing to Labour on the face of it and we would hypothesise that many 2019 Lib-Dem voters voted Labour this time. Not much sign of any enthusiasm for Remain in 2019 and none at all this time – not an issue, those sent to annoy voters on their doorsteps reported. But not much of a swing. The Conservatives won a clear victory, an outright majority of votes cast, and if not many could be bothered to vote, that applied to both the Conservative and Labour electors. They just did not seem to care very much. Which might be good (everybody is relaxed about things) or bad (electors very disillusioned with democracy and the process).
Normally disillusionment feeds through to a protest vote; historically that has been the function of the Lib-Dems in by-elections. Given the collapse of the Lib-Dem strategy – about anything – they were unlikely to do well this time but there were plenty of other candidates here to vote for, just to annoy those in Westminster. But not a blip. So on balance and given Keir Starmer is also a fairly local lad and Labour ought to have found some kindred support in the area, we think that maybe Boris might be cautiously cheered by the result.
But the nightmare before Christmas is not over yet; the big one is yet to come, next Thursday 16th. Shropshire North is the place and things are not looking good. This seat has just been vacated by Owen Paterson, local boy, farmers son, Brexiteer, a former senior minister, very devoted to farming interests and not terribly green. A classic hardworking rural Tory MP and very popular locally. Sadly, this all went wrong; Paterson resigned from David Cameron’s cabinet, without really saying why but it is thought over Brexit. Since then he has been an effective back bench irritant but was last year hauled up in front of the Commissioner for Parliamentary Standards and censured for not declaring conflicts of interest in relation to lobbying. Paterson said he had broken no rules and produced witness statements. The Commissioner declined to call his witnesses and advocated a 30 day suspension from the Commons. The Prime Minister and a number of back benchers thought this to be overkill (the Commissioner has a history of not been kind to Tories in front of her) and vowed to fight the proposal. But Boris swerved, as Boris does, and threw Mr Paterson in the canal. Mr Paterson, outraged, resigned his seat and to the best of your correspondent’s knowledge has spoken not a word on the subject since.
Many of Mr Paterson’s constituents think their popular local chap has had his life destroyed by the Westminster machine (we should also say Mr Paterson’s wife killed herself last year after becoming aware of the allegations against her husband). Are they going to vote Tory in next week’s byelection? What do you think? The question is, will the local Tories stay at home or will they protest vote; on that conundrum sits the fate of a safe Tory seat (not quite so safe as Old Bexley, but safe enough). There are fourteen candidates, the usual bunch of no-hopers (sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but in this fight you are), a strong local Labour candidate and an impressive local Lib-Dem – though she did not do very well in 2019 when she stood in the same constituency. Oh yes, and the Conservative of course. Given the upset locally and a number of suitable local candidates the Conservatives have weirdly chosen a barrister from Birmingham who has never lived in the seat and has been searching his diary for occasions when he might have driven through.
Boris paid a hastily arranged visit to the constituency last Friday with a worried look on his face. We wonder who he thinks is not going to win?
