Hartlepool by-election

[littlebabyjesus]

ok so I now know what 'MILF' means.

I admit I wasn't expecting that when I googled it. How is that even a thing?

 

[The39thStep]

hes a doctor and nhs and covid

 

[DownwardDog]

This idiot standing says nothing about lack of better-candidate availability

It does say a lot about the stitch-up level though, given that there's surely got to be a sound or at least fairly together, not all that Remainey LP candidate living in Hartlepool itself .....

Starmer became leader on a 'competence' ticket

There's almost nothing left of the local LP. The Brownites were purged during Corbyn's Corduroy Revolution and four Labour councillors, including the former council leader, jumped ship to join Scargill's Socialist Meme Party.

 

[hitmouse]

Not just a remain ultra but a full on PV guy. Almost certainly has a subscription to the New European.

First read that as being a full-on powerviolence guy. Almost certainly has an extensive collection of split EPs that came out on Slap-A-Ham.

 

[killer b]

Looks more like a Stereophonics kind of dude to me.

 

[ska invita]

live footage from the stump

 

[strung out]

ok so I now know what 'MILF' means.

I admit I wasn't expecting that when I googled it. How is that even a thing?

I'm surprised that anyone in this day and age doesn't know what a MILF is to be honest.

 

[andysays]

I'm surprised that anyone in this day and age doesn't know what a MILF is to be honest.

Yeah, it's like claiming you've never come across 'frothy coffee'

 

[steeplejack]

The NIP may struggle to garner a vote of more than 6-700 but their twitter game is strong, fair play.

This by-election has already been rich in entertainment and I'm afraid the Labour candidate looks as disastrous a choice as Bobby Gillespie's father was in Govan in 1988 (genuinely one of the worst candidates I've ever seen, the poor fellow simply wasn't up to it and lost nearly 30% of a rock solid Labour vote in three weeks, with the SNPs Jim Sillars the victor).

This Williams' candidature already has that air of "from the start nothing went right for Labour" about it. Interedsting points made by folk about how dysfunctional the local CLP is and how pisspoor the "talent" available to the party.

 

[killer b]

The NIP may struggle to garner a vote of more than 6-700 but their twitter game is strong, fair play.

I think they're going to do well. Not winning well, but more than a few hundred votes. They've got a lot of energy and ideas and a fair wind behind them, and a strong twitter game can be leveraged these days to create an impact way beyond twitter itself.

 

[steeplejack]

We’ll see. I just think the minor party / loon candidates will struggle to cut through and will be squeezed heftily. Can see the Liberals losing their deposit.

To be clear I see NIP as a minor party rather than a loon groupuscule like Galloway’s chancers.

 

[killer b]

Maybe, I dunno - I'm not sure the big parties will be able to squeeze this too hard, it's not a high stakes election. No-one can look at the current westminster maths and think this is really a crucial by-election for either party - whatever happens, the Tories will still have a large majority, and Labour will still be in the shit. The people of Hartlepool will feel free to not bother voting at all (most of them) or vote for whichever party they like the look of. For many of them that'll still be Labour or the Tories, but I'm expecting to see action elsewhere - and it's not clear to me that any of the other parties have much to excite people.

 

[Knotted]

It's an ideal time for a protest vote really.

 

[MickiQ]

I think they're going to do well. Not winning well, but more than a few hundred votes. They've got a lot of energy and ideas and a fair wind behind them, and a strong twitter game can be leveraged these days to create an impact way beyond twitter itself.

A vote for either Labour or the Tories is a effectively a wasted vote since it doesn't matter which one wins nothing will change so that may tempt folks to be adventurous for their votes. Historically this used to be the LibDems big moment but they still haven't been forgiven for the Coalition.
I don't live in Hartlepool but if I did I would definitely put my cross next to NIP for the LOL's if nothing else.

 

[kebabking]

The NIP may struggle to garner a vote of more than 6-700 but their twitter game is strong, fair play.

This by-election has already been rich in entertainment and I'm afraid the Labour candidate looks as disastrous a choice as Bobby Gillespie's father was in Govan in 1988 (genuinely one of the worst candidates I've ever seen, the poor fellow simply wasn't up to it and lost nearly 30% of a rock solid Labour vote in three weeks, with the SNPs Jim Sillars the victor).

This Williams' candidature already has that air of "from the start nothing went right for Labour" about it. Interedsting points made by folk about how dysfunctional the local CLP is and how pisspoor the "talent" available to the party.

Having been involved in a couple of CLP candidate selection processes (and I know this one was a stitch-up/parachute job), I remain in prostrated awe at the LP's ability take a line up of a dozen potentials including 6 or 7 really bright, accomplished, politically able, local candidates and almost without exception pick an absolute drooling fucknuckle with the social skills of a syphallitic goat and the look of a sex offender.

 

[steeplejack]

Actually an unexpectedly high NIP vote would be hilarious and I'd also be tempted to vote for them if I lived in the town. Hartlepool does have a history of volatility. However it's not clear what resources they have on the ground or even how campaigning will be possible, meaningfully, during pandemic restrictions. Maybe that will play in their favour. Were I the Labour agent I'd be tempted to lock Williams in an electricity cupboard for the duration and nuke any internet activity from the last decade from outer space.

anyway that's enough white noise from me on this for the afternoon

 

[Wilf]

Shouldn't have been difficult for Labour to find a leave voting candidate without a history of free gift tweets.... but no.

Statement of the obvious but this is exactly the kind of seat where you should be able to see some kind of reconnection with working class voters and an increased Labour majority. There won't be and the Tories could easily win it. Trouble is, even if Labour lose and Sir Keith departed (he won't), there would still be no ready made strategy in place to get that reconnection. Labour really are fucked, there's no set of forces or actors in the party who can transform it into what it needs to be.

 

[killer b]

Shouldn't have been difficult for Labour to find a leave voting candidate

I don't think a leave-voting candidate was necessary, just perhaps someone without a track record for ardent remainerism that was still banging the drum a year and a half ago.

 

[brogdale]

I know it's a Guardian article (& therefore a bit like looking at funny people in far away places)...but this piece does contain some interesting, local reflections on the electorally positive impact (for the Tories) of their Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen:

“At one point Labour could’ve sent Donald Duck and he would’ve got in here but not now,” said Diane Stephens, a lifelong Labour voter and manager of the Heugh Battery Museum. The “phenomenal” success of the region’s young Conservative mayor, Ben Houchen, coupled with the implosion of Hartlepool’s Labour party, has left Stephens considering voting Tory for the first time. “Perish the thought,” she said in mock outrage. “My father would turn in his grave. I honestly don’t know.”

&

Even diehard Labour members praise Houchen, the Tees Valley mayor, for bringing tidal waves of cash to an area in desperate need of reinvention. Houchen’s freeport initiative, backed by the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, led him to declare this month’s budget as “the day Teesside, Darlington and Hartlepool was reborn as an industrial powerhouse”.

Tribal loyalties have become less clearcut. “I’m not a Tory and I never will be; however, he’s just brought this freeport. The good that that is going to do to my little town – it’s fabulous,” said Paddy Brown, who resigned as leader of the local Labour group only three months ago, over what he described as the “toxicity” of the party.

“I would not be allowed to say that if I was in the Labour party. Tory or not, well done,” he said, adding that the Conservatives would “walk home” if Houchen contested the byelection. “If we’re being honest, if the Brexit party hadn’t have stood last time we’d have a Tory MP by now,” he added.

 

[brogdale]

From the same article, (above); this gem...about the RefUKers

 

[The39thStep]

I know it's a Guardian article (& therefore a bit like looking at funny people in far away places)...but this piece does contain some interesting, local reflections on the electorally positive impact (for the Tories) of their Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen:



&

I posted on this on the freeport thread but dint get any significant response. This is why, I assume is Matt Goodwin is floating the 'Brexit may be in the past, emerging new issues are levelling up in the North' line

 

[brogdale]

I posted on this on the freeport thread but dint get any significant response. This is why, I assume is Matt Goodwin is floating the 'Brexit may be in the past, emerging new issues are levelling up in the North' line

Yeah, this from the former Leader of the Labour Group kind of says it all, really...

“If we’re being honest, if the Brexit party hadn’t have stood last time we’d have a Tory MP by now.”

 

[PR1Berske]

I'm a bit of a by-election nerd. Most of the time, even in safe seats, and with very very rare exceptions, every by-election tells a story. They are always gems of history and politics, real life and real-time opinion polls, with some of them being of genuine national importance.

For various reasons, Westminster by-elections have become increasingly rare. There has been 600 days (give or take) since the most recent one and that will grow between now and the Hartlepool by-election. They're simply not the snapshot in time they used to be. In some ways, activists are missing out on how to do "door to door" politics by the rapidly developing scarcity.

 

[Pickman's model]

once again the labour party's abject lack of politics is going to see them thrashed. what is so excellent about their candidate that it's so important to return him to the commons? as far as i know jim murphy's no longer allowed anywhere near the (scottish) labour party, and he at least had a modicum of ability in comparison to the nefandous candidate labour have foisted on hartlepool

 

[Knotted]

From the same article, (above); this gem...about the RefUKers

View attachment 259378

Surely even if they're fielding a ridiculous remainiac, Labour shouldn't be afraid of losing more votes to Refuk than the Tories will.

 

[Rimbaud]

I'm a bit of a by-election nerd. Most of the time, even in safe seats, and with very very rare exceptions, every by-election tells a story. They are always gems of history and politics, real life and real-time opinion polls, with some of them being of genuine national importance.

For various reasons, Westminster by-elections have become increasingly rare. There has been 600 days (give or take) since the most recent one and that will grow between now and the Hartlepool by-election. They're simply not the snapshot in time they used to be. In some ways, activists are missing out on how to do "door to door" politics by the rapidly developing scarcity.

May be wishful thinking on my part, but the Corbyn era army of door to door activists almost won them the 2017 election against the odds.

The NIP are basically all ex-Momentum activists and they aren't clueless when it comes to canvassing.

The pandemic makes it harder, but there's a good month and a half to go until the by-election and I know there are a lot of very capable and experienced Momentum-veteran activists in the North East.

It seems to me that their social media strategy is aimed at getting sufficient numbers of these on board to take a good ground game to Hartlepool.

If this plan works, they might do quite well. I certainly don't see them winning though, but then Hartlepool has form for humourous protest votes so... Stranger things have happened.

 

[brogdale]

Going well, so far for NooNooLab...

 

[PR1Berske]

"Reform UK should...win the by-election in Hartlepool and let's wait and see. And to answer your question Ian I am actively considering whether I should stand or er whether our other some of our other er....Reform UK erm....er....er.....erm....supporters or people should stand so that's under consideration at the moment. So let's wait and see."

 

[brogdale]

Feeling so sorry for the good folk of Hartlepool...they're gonna have such a shower of cunts schlepping around their areas over the next few months.

 

[Pickman's model]

Feeling so sorry for the good folk of Hartlepool...they're gonna have such a shower of cunts schlepping around their areas over the next few months.

Hang the candidates and let the monkeys go free