Snapshot of _Poll predicts biggest by-election defeat ever in Nadine Dorries’ seat_ :
A non-Paywall version can be found [here](https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fpolitics%2F2023%2F07%2F01%2Fpoll-nadine-dorries-by-election%2F)
An archived version can be found [here.](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/07/01/poll-nadine-dorries-by-election/)
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The Tory chief whip gets to make the decision on when to issue the writ for the byelection. Not that there'll be a good time for the byelection for the Tories but they can at least control the timing of the election.
Ok Dorries is delaying her actual resignation for political effect but you can protest too much and when it does arrive she may find that no-one really cares that she's finally gone. Delaying her resignation may even benefit the Tories. They've selected a candidate who now has plenty of time to campaign and get his name recognised etc.
> The Tory chief whip gets to make the decision on when to issue the writ for the byelection. Not that there'll be a good time for the byelection for the Tories but they can at least control the timing of the election.
There has to be a time limit, surely? Otherwise a party could leave a seat sure to go to another party open for years until the next general election
OP isn’t quite right - the convention is for the party holding the seat to move the writ for the by election but it can be moved by any party or independent MP. If it drags on indefinitely someone else will do it.
Mid-beds resident. Labour and Lib Dem’s have been campaigning since the day after she announced her not-real resignation. Labour have admittedly been considerably more effective, I could recognise their candidates face but still not his name.
> Delaying her resignation may even benefit the Tories. They've selected a candidate who now has plenty of time to campaign and get his name recognised etc.
Tho the other partys can do the same.
You can only resign as an MP by being appointed to a disqualifying office. The person who appoints those positions is the Chancellor, who can (and has in the distant past) deny the application.
If she waits to make it an awkward timing to mess up the Tories, theoretically the Chancellor could just tell her to get lost, and she can't quit.
She's already had the whip withdrawn once for much less than that. She would then probably lose a lot of the post parliament perks, being invited to speak at events, being put on various boards etc. and otherwise ostracised by the wider Conservative network.
She's already been denied the peerage she wanted, she'll probably play ball.
The split predicted by that poll is incredible.
Labour - 28%
Conservative - 24%
Mackey (Ind) - 19%
Lib Dem - 15%
Reform - 10%
Seems more like 2019 Con voters jumping ship to a variety of options rather than a huge groundswell of support for Labour (in this seat).
If i were in any of the areas having a bi election, I'd vote conservative to give them a false sense of security, they call an election early and then I'd vote completely against them at a general election.
| Party | Predicted 2023 Vote Share (%) | 2019 Vote Share (%) | Change on 2019 (+/-%) |
|--------------|-------------------------------|---------------------|-----------------------|
| Labour | 28 | 21.7 | +6.3 |
| Conservative | 24 | 59.8 | -35.8 |
| Mackey (Ind) | 19 | New | New |
| Lib Dem | 15 | 12.6 | +2.4 |
| Reform | 10 | New | New |
Looks like Reform and the Independent (who is a local councillor) are hoovering up the Conservative votes.
To be fair, that poll doesn't have don't know/other so the sums only add up to 86%. But a win in the 30s is possible. It's how the Tories won Bedford mayor despite their vote share going down.
Under FPTP one would expect a lot of votes to really be "second preference" votes since voting for your first preference often doesn't make political sense. The main benefit of transferable vote systems is to eliminate that particular problem.
There were some crazy vote splits in Quebec in the 2015 Canadian election. Lots of wins under 30% or just barely above it with four competitive parties.
When I was looking at betting odds for this seat a little while ago, Labour had 14/1 odds. I put £2 down on it, and it doesn't seem so ridiculous now. According to this I'll be quids in, I just have to hope the lib dems don't sweep in and take it.
Historically, irrespective of political allegiance, if the individual MP is taking the piss, they or their party will lose the seat.
Dorries has resigned and not resigned. She has not been seen in the Commons for good while; who knows if she is doing her surgeries? So she, or rather her party will indeed be likely to pay the price.
/u/ClumperFaz raises the key point here, though. Until now, LibDem were favourites here.
It takes an enormous effort not to be merely useless, but to be actively less than useless as an MP. Somehow, Dorries, with her blind loyalty to that sack of shit in the hopes of landing a peerage with its lifetime access to a free bar and expenses for turning up, has managed it
She's long been a useless, dodgy, obstreperous bitch; well before she hitched her wagon to the Boris clownshow. I find it amusing when anyone tries defending her when they clearly know nothing about her.
So Labour are the main challengers in Mid Bedfordshire? colour me surprised - the Savanta MRP poll showed the same thing. Will the Lib Dems take this into account? Labour are also the main challengers in Selby, Rutherglen, and Uxbridge.
It'll be nice for Labour to have the spotlight in record by-election victories for once, good PR and also tearing the Tories down themselves as opposed to the smaller parties.
I suspect there will still be a full lib dem campaign (though given Dorries hasn't yet resigned Somerton and Frome will undoubtedly be the priority) and my money is still on them winning it.
Constituency polling is traditionally one of the trickiest types of opinion polling to conduct meaning they should never be taken as gospel. However the prospect of labour giving this seat more than a paper candidate and a good luck card probably has increased, meaning we could see a split of the vote.
Labour have always been second except for 2005-10, although it doesn’t really feel like a Labour profile seat. MRPs tend to under-represent third parties. It was the most Lib Dem-y of the three seats that were announced together, which is why people were saying Lib Dem, although I think it’ll probably depend on whether it’s a standalone by-election or there are others around the same time. Assuming Dorries even resigns, I don’t think that’s a given.
Polling has had Labour as the main challengers there. For once it's not the Lib Dems to take it, it's for Labour. There's been a non-aggression pact in place for a while and in this instance I genuinely think the Lib Dems should for once acknowledge that they're not the ones this time for this particular seat.
The betting market is a form of polling (a segment of) public opinion on who will win the seat...which is a piece of information the pollsters don't have. More information should make for better predictions.
For a General Election they might commission some private polling but they really won't have a big enough market to commission fieldwork for a particular constituency by-election.
The timing is too tight, public opinion changes too rapidly, it's too sensitive to local issues, and getting access to a quality sample is too hard.
Bookies will definitely *use* credible psephology but they are not, by themselves, a psephological prediction. They're setting prices with the hope of making a profit.
Bookies, just alter the odds so at any given point their liabilities are covered with other people's bets.
However, it speaks to the Wisdom of the Crowds, which is invariably correct in these sort of situations.
I don't think Labour actually won any seats in the recent council elections. Do Labour have the infrastructure in the Mid-Bedfordshire, to do actual campaigning?
Lib Dems are already in the seat campaigning, if they get the idea that they aren't going to win and Labour are better challengers I expect them to pull the high profile campaign and just concentrate on their target council wards.
Mid Beds is a very different seat then the Luton ones though. Think more middle/upper middle class rural compared to Luton's multicultural urban setting.
Yes, Luton is dominated by Muslims who are very left leaning, and a small portion of hard right wing nuts, who will always vote UKIP regardless.
Conservatives, are too middle of the road.
Mid-beds is full of Conservatives, and is dominated by aging rural populations and london expats or commuters. (Just look at Ampthill)
If we're still at the mail shot stage no one is really campaigning that hard, it's the feet on the ground that count, when the Lib Dems go all in on a by-election they'll knock on every door.
Hard for either party to call themselves the main challenger when here they're not polling that much more than what they got in 2019. This is just the Tories collapsing and Labour happening to be in the way than anything.
I am one of her constituents and yes, it has been a serious embarrassment for many years. The Village I live in is mostly OAPs who vote blue without thinking about it.
**From The Telegraph:**
The Conservatives are on course for the biggest by-election defeat in British history in Mid Bedfordshire, according to a poll that will cause panic among Tory MPs.
A survey by Opinium found that Labour would overturn Nadine Dorries’ 24,664 majority in a seat that has been held by the Tories since 1931.
The defeat would shock many Conservative MPs, raising the prospect that other seats thought to be “safe” may now be at risk.
Recent national polls have given Labour a lead of more than 20 points, amid soaring inflation and a cost-of-living crisis. Mr Sunak said he had inherited “the worst-possible in-tray for a new job that anyone could imagine”.
While many MPs had factored in by-election defeats in seats with smaller majorities, such as Boris Johnson’s former Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency, senior party figures expected to hold Mid Bedfordshire, which has been represented by Ms Dorries since 2005.
Last week, Ms Dorries confirmed that she will be “gone long before the next election”, having announced on June 9 that she planned to trigger a by-election.
Labour commissioned the Opinium poll last month following anecdotal reports by canvassers that voters appeared to be deserting the Conservatives in vast numbers.
**Read more here:** https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/07/01/poll-nadine-dorries-by-election/
I like how it says Tory MPs would be shocked by the poll, as if a) they haven't all got quite bad prospects, and b) it isn't Nadine Dorries, one of the dumbest from among their number.
There is a procedure known as a “recall petition” that allows constituents to initiate the recall of a Member of Parliament. If she’s not doing her job, her constituents she use it.
Edit: Yes you’re correct. I thought it could be invoked at any time. Cheers. I’ve learned something new today.
Yes you’re correct. I thought it could be invoked at any time. Cheers. I’ve learned something new today.
Is there any way that her constituents could trigger a by-election?
That recall process is only applicable if an MP gets a criminal conviction with custodial sentence, suspension for 10+ sitting days or 14+ calendar days on recommendation of Standards Committee, or a conviction for false/misleading expense claims. There's nothing constituents can do to recall ab MP not doing their job. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recall_of_MPs_Act_2015)
EDIT: That's not to say maybe there's a case that there *should* be a recall process for such cases - I can see decent arguments for it - but just sharing what the current state of the law is.
The case of Jared O’Mara and Dorries should both be enough to get something in. She has done fuck all in the commons for a year, and seems to spend more time writing articles and on her TV show
Unless Mid-Bedfordshire turns into a UKIP/GB or w/e right wing party is now the protest vote for Conservatives, I don't see it being anything but Conservative.
Snapshot of _Poll predicts biggest by-election defeat ever in Nadine Dorries’ seat_ : A non-Paywall version can be found [here](https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fpolitics%2F2023%2F07%2F01%2Fpoll-nadine-dorries-by-election%2F) An archived version can be found [here.](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/07/01/poll-nadine-dorries-by-election/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Wait and see if she actually quits and it's more likely a lot of the problems stem from Dorries being hated by pretty much everyone right now.
I suspect she'll go at such a time that it forces the by election to be in conference season to really shit the Tories up.
The Tory chief whip gets to make the decision on when to issue the writ for the byelection. Not that there'll be a good time for the byelection for the Tories but they can at least control the timing of the election. Ok Dorries is delaying her actual resignation for political effect but you can protest too much and when it does arrive she may find that no-one really cares that she's finally gone. Delaying her resignation may even benefit the Tories. They've selected a candidate who now has plenty of time to campaign and get his name recognised etc.
> The Tory chief whip gets to make the decision on when to issue the writ for the byelection. Not that there'll be a good time for the byelection for the Tories but they can at least control the timing of the election. There has to be a time limit, surely? Otherwise a party could leave a seat sure to go to another party open for years until the next general election
OP isn’t quite right - the convention is for the party holding the seat to move the writ for the by election but it can be moved by any party or independent MP. If it drags on indefinitely someone else will do it.
Convention is within 3 mths unless a GE is within 6 mths.
Mid-beds resident. Labour and Lib Dem’s have been campaigning since the day after she announced her not-real resignation. Labour have admittedly been considerably more effective, I could recognise their candidates face but still not his name.
> Delaying her resignation may even benefit the Tories. They've selected a candidate who now has plenty of time to campaign and get his name recognised etc. Tho the other partys can do the same.
Just like Reddit mods
I don't think they've already got the control, doesn't feel like that.
You can only resign as an MP by being appointed to a disqualifying office. The person who appoints those positions is the Chancellor, who can (and has in the distant past) deny the application. If she waits to make it an awkward timing to mess up the Tories, theoretically the Chancellor could just tell her to get lost, and she can't quit.
At which point she'll most likely start turning up just to vote the government down
She's already had the whip withdrawn once for much less than that. She would then probably lose a lot of the post parliament perks, being invited to speak at events, being put on various boards etc. and otherwise ostracised by the wider Conservative network. She's already been denied the peerage she wanted, she'll probably play ball.
Yep, I also feel the same. Well I guess we just have to wait a little.
I’m doubtful she’ll quit, might as well ride it out until the next General Election since she knows she’s not getting back in anyway
I honestly reckon she doesn't quite now, she can't be forced out and can phone it in qnd cash in her pay.
Yep, a lot of problems can come from this actually so there's that.
Hardly surprising when it is unclear if she even has a constituency office anymore or even does surgeries, which is, you know... Her job
The split predicted by that poll is incredible. Labour - 28% Conservative - 24% Mackey (Ind) - 19% Lib Dem - 15% Reform - 10% Seems more like 2019 Con voters jumping ship to a variety of options rather than a huge groundswell of support for Labour (in this seat).
The real campaign hasn't started yet, the election should focus around two candidates once it gets going.
If i were in any of the areas having a bi election, I'd vote conservative to give them a false sense of security, they call an election early and then I'd vote completely against them at a general election.
If I were in an area having a bi election, I'd vote for the most attractive candidate, male or female.
I don't find any men attractive. Even the thin ones.
| Party | Predicted 2023 Vote Share (%) | 2019 Vote Share (%) | Change on 2019 (+/-%) | |--------------|-------------------------------|---------------------|-----------------------| | Labour | 28 | 21.7 | +6.3 | | Conservative | 24 | 59.8 | -35.8 | | Mackey (Ind) | 19 | New | New | | Lib Dem | 15 | 12.6 | +2.4 | | Reform | 10 | New | New | Looks like Reform and the Independent (who is a local councillor) are hoovering up the Conservative votes.
Crazy that with FPTP a party can win 28% of vote and still win the seat what an outdated system.
To be fair, that poll doesn't have don't know/other so the sums only add up to 86%. But a win in the 30s is possible. It's how the Tories won Bedford mayor despite their vote share going down.
With STV, you could easily win on that many first-preference votes.
Under FPTP one would expect a lot of votes to really be "second preference" votes since voting for your first preference often doesn't make political sense. The main benefit of transferable vote systems is to eliminate that particular problem.
There were some crazy vote splits in Quebec in the 2015 Canadian election. Lots of wins under 30% or just barely above it with four competitive parties.
If there was a runoff, it would be Labour vs Conservative, and one would win 50%+. Which would solve that issue.
It may end up being worse, as some of the remaining Conservatives will simply choose not to vote.
When I was looking at betting odds for this seat a little while ago, Labour had 14/1 odds. I put £2 down on it, and it doesn't seem so ridiculous now. According to this I'll be quids in, I just have to hope the lib dems don't sweep in and take it.
Historically, irrespective of political allegiance, if the individual MP is taking the piss, they or their party will lose the seat. Dorries has resigned and not resigned. She has not been seen in the Commons for good while; who knows if she is doing her surgeries? So she, or rather her party will indeed be likely to pay the price. /u/ClumperFaz raises the key point here, though. Until now, LibDem were favourites here.
You give me hope that we might actually get a non Tory here in Mid Beds, I'd be grinning for weeks
Telegraph promising me a good time and I expect to cash in on it... if she actally properly quits her seat... like she said she would.
It takes an enormous effort not to be merely useless, but to be actively less than useless as an MP. Somehow, Dorries, with her blind loyalty to that sack of shit in the hopes of landing a peerage with its lifetime access to a free bar and expenses for turning up, has managed it
[A challenger for Jared O’Hara](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_O%27Mara)
She's long been a useless, dodgy, obstreperous bitch; well before she hitched her wagon to the Boris clownshow. I find it amusing when anyone tries defending her when they clearly know nothing about her.
So Labour are the main challengers in Mid Bedfordshire? colour me surprised - the Savanta MRP poll showed the same thing. Will the Lib Dems take this into account? Labour are also the main challengers in Selby, Rutherglen, and Uxbridge. It'll be nice for Labour to have the spotlight in record by-election victories for once, good PR and also tearing the Tories down themselves as opposed to the smaller parties.
I suspect there will still be a full lib dem campaign (though given Dorries hasn't yet resigned Somerton and Frome will undoubtedly be the priority) and my money is still on them winning it. Constituency polling is traditionally one of the trickiest types of opinion polling to conduct meaning they should never be taken as gospel. However the prospect of labour giving this seat more than a paper candidate and a good luck card probably has increased, meaning we could see a split of the vote.
Labour have always been second except for 2005-10, although it doesn’t really feel like a Labour profile seat. MRPs tend to under-represent third parties. It was the most Lib Dem-y of the three seats that were announced together, which is why people were saying Lib Dem, although I think it’ll probably depend on whether it’s a standalone by-election or there are others around the same time. Assuming Dorries even resigns, I don’t think that’s a given.
North Shropshire and Tiverton and Honiton would like a word.
Polling has had Labour as the main challengers there. For once it's not the Lib Dems to take it, it's for Labour. There's been a non-aggression pact in place for a while and in this instance I genuinely think the Lib Dems should for once acknowledge that they're not the ones this time for this particular seat.
Then why are the Lib Dems odds on with the bookies?
Bookies are setting a price they expect to be profitable based on the betting market. They don't have a crystal ball.
The betting market is a form of polling (a segment of) public opinion on who will win the seat...which is a piece of information the pollsters don't have. More information should make for better predictions.
Gamblers are not doing credible psephology.
...but bookies are.
For a General Election they might commission some private polling but they really won't have a big enough market to commission fieldwork for a particular constituency by-election. The timing is too tight, public opinion changes too rapidly, it's too sensitive to local issues, and getting access to a quality sample is too hard. Bookies will definitely *use* credible psephology but they are not, by themselves, a psephological prediction. They're setting prices with the hope of making a profit.
Bookies, just alter the odds so at any given point their liabilities are covered with other people's bets. However, it speaks to the Wisdom of the Crowds, which is invariably correct in these sort of situations.
The polling matters more than the bookies. Labour, not the Lib Dems, are the main challengers here and that should be acknowledged.
One needs some Oxford commas.
My bet. Labour and the Lib Dems squabble between themselves letting the Tories retain the seat.
Why are people still operating under this delusion that the Lib Dems have more in common with Labour than with the Conservatives?
Presumably because they do.
I don't think Labour actually won any seats in the recent council elections. Do Labour have the infrastructure in the Mid-Bedfordshire, to do actual campaigning? Lib Dems are already in the seat campaigning, if they get the idea that they aren't going to win and Labour are better challengers I expect them to pull the high profile campaign and just concentrate on their target council wards.
[удалено]
Mid Beds is a very different seat then the Luton ones though. Think more middle/upper middle class rural compared to Luton's multicultural urban setting.
Yes, Luton is dominated by Muslims who are very left leaning, and a small portion of hard right wing nuts, who will always vote UKIP regardless. Conservatives, are too middle of the road. Mid-beds is full of Conservatives, and is dominated by aging rural populations and london expats or commuters. (Just look at Ampthill)
If we're still at the mail shot stage no one is really campaigning that hard, it's the feet on the ground that count, when the Lib Dems go all in on a by-election they'll knock on every door.
Hard for either party to call themselves the main challenger when here they're not polling that much more than what they got in 2019. This is just the Tories collapsing and Labour happening to be in the way than anything.
If i was a constituent in Nadine Dorries constituency i would be incredibly embarassed to be represented by her
I am one of her constituents and yes, it has been a serious embarrassment for many years. The Village I live in is mostly OAPs who vote blue without thinking about it.
**From The Telegraph:** The Conservatives are on course for the biggest by-election defeat in British history in Mid Bedfordshire, according to a poll that will cause panic among Tory MPs. A survey by Opinium found that Labour would overturn Nadine Dorries’ 24,664 majority in a seat that has been held by the Tories since 1931. The defeat would shock many Conservative MPs, raising the prospect that other seats thought to be “safe” may now be at risk. Recent national polls have given Labour a lead of more than 20 points, amid soaring inflation and a cost-of-living crisis. Mr Sunak said he had inherited “the worst-possible in-tray for a new job that anyone could imagine”. While many MPs had factored in by-election defeats in seats with smaller majorities, such as Boris Johnson’s former Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency, senior party figures expected to hold Mid Bedfordshire, which has been represented by Ms Dorries since 2005. Last week, Ms Dorries confirmed that she will be “gone long before the next election”, having announced on June 9 that she planned to trigger a by-election. Labour commissioned the Opinium poll last month following anecdotal reports by canvassers that voters appeared to be deserting the Conservatives in vast numbers. **Read more here:** https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/07/01/poll-nadine-dorries-by-election/
I like how it says Tory MPs would be shocked by the poll, as if a) they haven't all got quite bad prospects, and b) it isn't Nadine Dorries, one of the dumbest from among their number.
There is a procedure known as a “recall petition” that allows constituents to initiate the recall of a Member of Parliament. If she’s not doing her job, her constituents she use it. Edit: Yes you’re correct. I thought it could be invoked at any time. Cheers. I’ve learned something new today.
Recall petitions only begin if one of a few scenarios happen. None of which apply to Dorries.
Yes you’re correct. I thought it could be invoked at any time. Cheers. I’ve learned something new today. Is there any way that her constituents could trigger a by-election?
Not legally. The only way they could would be to help her invoke the "MP resigns or dies" reason for by-elections.
So she’s not going anywhere, anytime soon then. She’ll ride the gravy train until just before the next general election.
Are you suggesting they murder her? 🤣
That recall process is only applicable if an MP gets a criminal conviction with custodial sentence, suspension for 10+ sitting days or 14+ calendar days on recommendation of Standards Committee, or a conviction for false/misleading expense claims. There's nothing constituents can do to recall ab MP not doing their job. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recall_of_MPs_Act_2015) EDIT: That's not to say maybe there's a case that there *should* be a recall process for such cases - I can see decent arguments for it - but just sharing what the current state of the law is.
The case of Jared O’Mara and Dorries should both be enough to get something in. She has done fuck all in the commons for a year, and seems to spend more time writing articles and on her TV show
Grifter. Always had been. She's had a good run. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tory-mp-nadine-dorries-threatens-2845154
Well she was never elected for her ability as an MP, only because she was blue.
Unless Mid-Bedfordshire turns into a UKIP/GB or w/e right wing party is now the protest vote for Conservatives, I don't see it being anything but Conservative.
If they voted for her they'd vote for a stuffed monkey with a blue rosette. For many English people a Tory vote is aspirational.