Polly Toynbee: Keir Starmer no longer needs to be so cautious
No expectation management lessens the political shock of two historic losses in the deepest thickets of Torydom. Labour won Selby and Ainsty with a 24% swing, a seat 237th on their target list. Liberal Democrats demolished the Tories in Somerton and Frome.
As the Commons closes for the summer, Tory MPs with erstwhile rock-solid seats creep away to calculate their futures – a lost seat, thankless years on the opposition benches or run away now. There’s no one else to blame for the abominable leaders they chose and the atrocious policies they voted through.
Even the rightwing press couldn’t use the Tories’ Uxbridge and South Ruislip survival to disguise the disaster. The cause of Labour’s loss is particular: London mayor Sadiq Khan’s expansion of the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez), in which polluting cars are charged £12.50 a day to enter. The fact that a green transition is easier for some than others is an issue Labour will have to address.
But, as John Curtice stresses, all auguries are truly terrible for Rishi Sunak. No strategic wizardry can deceive the public the way Get Brexit Done did in 2019, as everyone can see exactly what the Tories “got done”.
If only this zombie government would go now. But flailing prime ministers always hope eternally for a fairy godmother to turn up with something (Callaghan, Major, Brown all did), even though their dog days are excruciatingly miserable.
After an early morning whoop of joy at what these results presage, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves face Labour’s national policy forum this weekend. Reading the byelection runes, many will think it’s in the bag: just weigh the votes. So need Labour really be so cautious? Does caution need to be as cruel as Starmer refusing to commit to abolishing the monstrous two-child benefit limit?
The urge is strong to say (quite rightly) that Tory orthodoxy on tax, spend and borrowing limits is artificial and growth-denying. But the only fairy godmother on Sunak’s horizon would be Labour economic policies the public doesn’t find credible. John McDonnell was not wrong to say better economics are available. But what’s the use of being right and out of power?
People vote in byelections against a government they hate, but in general elections they only ever choose the party they most trust to run the economy.
People need reminding that Labour does so much more in office than the promises of economic stringency they brandish to get there. On tax-and-spend, as the poet TS Eliot wrote of humankind, voters “cannot bear too much reality”.
Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
Owen Jones: Labour still has to show it has the answers to social crises
Labour remains on course to form a government by the beginning of 2025. Yesterday’s byelections – including as they do two utterly devastating Tory defeats – confirm what the national polling tells us. A 24% swing to Labour in Selby should nudge even more Tory MPs to announce their departure from the national political scene, to spare themselves the kind of iconic humiliation suffered by Michael Portillo in the Conservatives’ 1997 landslide defeat.
But Labour’s narrow defeat in Uxbridge and South Ruislip offers a salutary warning. London mayor Sadiq Khan’s policy of extending the ultra-low emission zone was blamed, even though Labour’s candidate (wrongly) opposed it too. But the point was that the Tories had a clear retail offer, and Labour did not. What is the clear message for the party to offer on doorsteps? In a general election, this – rather than just fury with the calamitous failures of Tory rule – will come into sharp relief.
Keir Starmer’s cheerleaders will claim that his junking of his leadership campaign promises – such as nationalisation of utilities, raising taxes on the rich and scrapping tuition fees – is key to explaining the Labour resurgence. The latest sacrificial offering to rightwing orthodoxy – backing a two-child benefit limit that impoverishes hundreds of thousands of children – is presented as necessary fiscal and political rectitude. But the Labour surge is entirely down to the most comprehensive self-destruction of any British government in democratic history: two prime ministers resigning in disgrace, one for illegality, the other for crashing the economy; endless scandals; and the most acute squeeze on living standards on record.
For those who believe Starmermania is fuelling the Tory collapse, the Labour leader’s minus 22 favourability rating with YouGov offers a useful fact check. Labour canvassers report no love for the party’s leadership on the doorstep. But given the scale of the Tories’ self-immolation, this should be enough to carry Labour into government. The focus of political debate should now be whether the opposition has the answers to the burning social crises that don’t so much scar British society as define it. Even Starmer’s most ardent followers must now surely be dazzled by his relentless U-turns and will struggle to answer this basic question.
Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist
Katy Balls: The loss really worrying Tories is the seat that turned yellow
Ahead of polling day, Tories had largely priced in losing all three seats: Somerton and Frome, Selby and Ainsty, and Uxbridge and South Ruislip. “I just want it to be over,” sighed one Conservative MP on the eve of the byelections. In the end, the result is a little less bad than feared. The fact that the Conservatives managed to cling on in Uxbridge – be it by a mere 495 votes – will be seized on as evidence that all is not lost. “It gives us hope,” insists one government aide.
That said, there is still plenty for the Conservatives to be miserable about. They had originally thought Selby – with a majority of more than 20,000 – could be salvagable. Instead, MPs and aides sent campaigning in the North Yorkshire seat quickly reported a frosty reception on the doorstep and downgraded their expectations. The fact that it has long been regarded as a safe seat means there was little in the way of data to guide the campaign. The result was decisive – if the 23.7% swing to Labour was replicated at a general election, Starmer would do better than Blair in 1997.
Yet the loss that is worrying Tory MPs is the the seat that went yellow. Ultimately, MPs hope that a seat like Selby could return to them at the next general election if the economy improves. Byelections are often used to give governments a kicking. But Somerton and Frome was long viewed as the hardest seat to keep hold of. Ed Davey’s party showed this to be correct, demolishing a majority of 19,213 to lead the Tories by 11,008. The circumstances of the byelection – sparked by an MP suspended by his party over allegations of harassment and drug use – contributed to this. But the fear in CCHQ is that it hints at a potential recovery for the Lib Dems in the south-west, where they had a strong presence prior to 2015. A Lib-Dem resurgence here would further narrow any path to reelection.
When it comes to Uxbridge, a debate is already under way as to whether it really suggests the Tories are not doomed. “Voters were having to work out who they hate more: us or Sadiq Khan,” says one London-based Tory. Critics argue it was only down to the single issue of Ulez, which would be hard to repeat in a general election. But Tory strategists see it differently: it was a campaign where voters came face to face with the policies of a Labour politician in power – in this case the London mayor – and they opted, reluctantly, to stick with the Tories. “Ahead of the next election, voters all across the country will be confronted with the reality of what a Labour government would mean,” says one party figure. “This result shows how that can work in our favour.” In government, the results are being taken as evidence that they are down but not out.
Katy Balls is the Spectator’s political editor
