By Andy Ford
An orange tide is lapping at the feet of the Tory grandees in the English shires. No-one spoke about it much at the time, except the Liberal Democrats of course, but the Lib Dems did post a few good results in the local elections in May. It is this rather than ‘Partygate’, Brexit woes or 170,000 Covid dead that is leading to ever-increasing dissent in the ranks of Tory MPs, and the recent vote of no confidence in Johnson.
The most notable result in the local elections for the Lib Dems was in Somerset where they benefitted from a 21% swing, gaining 14 new councillors, but they also gained 13 in Westmoreland, 7 in North Yorkshire, 6 in South Cambridgeshire, 5 in West Oxfordshire and 4 in Cherwell, North Oxfordshire.
They also gained in traditionally Tory suburbs like St Albans and Bromley but it will the results in the shires, combined with the political earthquake in the North Shropshire by-election where the Lib-Dems overturned a Tory majority of 23,000, that is striking terror into the hearts of the rural Tories.
After all, a safe seat in the shires used to be one of the great gifts the ruling class could give their favoured sons (and a very few daughters). So we have had David Cameron (Witney, Oxfordshire), Theresa May (Maidenhead), John Major (Huntingdonshire); and in the present parliament Jacob Rees-Mogg (North-east Somerset), Matt Hancock (West Suffolk) and Rishi Sunak (Richmond, North Yorkshire). Usually there is almost no point in counting the vote in these seats, the Tory majorities being so enormous. It used to be considered a job for life.
North Shropshire swing to Lib-Dems
After the North Shropshire by-election the rural MPs were consoled by excuses – the old MP resigned because of corruption, the replacement candidate was from Birmingham and not Shropshire, he was Asian and “did not play well” in Oswestry and Wem, and so on – but the May election results are giving the lie to Johnson’s bluster. Now they are thinking, “If it happened in North Shropshire it could happen to ME!”
If the Lib Dems 21% swing in Somerset followed through to a general election, the Tories would lose two of their eight seats in that county and two others would be marginal. And a repeat of North Shropshire would mean that seven of the eight would go, with only Ian Liddell-Grainger in Bridgwater surviving.
The Lib Dems also advanced in the suburbs – Merton, Richmond on Thames, Kingston and Wokingham, as well as St Albans and Bromley – which will also be a worry for Tory strategists. But losing suburban by-elections is par for the course for the Tories in power, right back to Orpington in 1962.
The Lib Dems advances, of course, are not a challenge to the capitalist class or the system itself, but they are very much a threat to individual Tory MPs. We have been here many times before – remember David Steel and “Go back to your constituencies and prepare for power”? – and also ‘Cleggmania’ in 2010 – and each time their surge of self-delusion fizzled out. However their threat in the shires will be playing in the minds of the Tory strategists.
Starmer and Evans: their tactical ‘genius’
The Lib Dems success naturally throws a spotlight on Starmer and Evans with their promises to “rebuild trust with the electorate” and win back the voters. In this they are really not succeeding. Even the much-spun wins in the London boroughs were counterbalanced by losses in other councils like Croydon. In the ‘red wall’ Labour made no real progress, and out in the suburbs, the Chesham and Amersham by election gave Labour its worst result ever (622 votes, just 1.6%). In the North Shropshire by-election, Starmer removed the hard-working local Corbynite, Graeme Currie, as candidate, and imposed a young man whose only qualification was that had been to school in Oswestry (and dressed in the New Labour uniform of blue suit and brown pointy shoes). The result was a 70% reduction in the Labour vote, from 12,495 to just 3,686.
The Starmer and Evans’ line seems to be to give up on the rural vote and forget the suburbs. Although Labour came second in Tiverton and Honiton, they have virtually abandoned it to the Lib-Dems – with a nod and a wink that they expect the Lib-Dems to do the same in Wakefield.
The Labour leadership are aiming to hold on in the cities and to try and win back their ‘natural voters’ in the red wall, the same people they used to confidently assert had “no-one else to vote for”. Yet in trying to win back their ‘natural voters’ the Labour leadership are abandoning anything that clearly distinguishes Labour from the Tories. Their self-proclaimed tactical ‘genius’ will be measured in Wakefield on June 23. Meanwhile, the security or otherwise of rural Tory MPs will be tested the same day in the rural seat of Tiverton and Honiton.
