Good morning from Debunking Tamworth. We see from our site traffic this morning (that has suddenly spiked), that our dear readers are perhaps looking for some commentary on last night’s by-election results. We did call the election a loss for the Conservatives some time ago, the national picture would always affect this, and our special swing voters and stay at home specialists (aren’t we all since the pandemic?) played their hands as we expected. We are a debunking site, so let’s look at this result from that angle.
No one won this election, particularly not those who stayed at home. A lot of effort was put in by both sides in the essentially two horse race to discredit the other. None of it had any real effect and no one cared where Sarah Edwards lived. The Tory majority of 19k was not overturned, it just evaporated, gosh only 25k voted in total compared to the 62% 43k of the 1996 by-election. Labour only gained around 800 more votes than they have previously. In short, both parties may as well have stayed at home and done absolutely nothing and probably would have had the same result. In an Interview after her win Edwards said “I think what it actually demonstrates is Conservative voters have voted Labour – I have spoken to many of them,”. This is a fairly delusional comment to make given the stark figures. This is not 1996, where that actually did appear to happen.
Voters who stay at home, and don’t bother to vote are not proving anything but their complete lack of interest in their country and democracy generally, they are wrapped up in their own lives to perhaps an unhealthy extent and feel they will leave this voting stuff to everyone else. They had a chance to send a real message that they were not happy with either of the main parties by going to vote for someone else completely or even spoiling their ballots. People often say “We need a change” but cannot be bothered to actually vote for that change, they probably in fact have no idea what that change really is, it just sounds good to say. Apathy has become an excuse not to bother voting because it’s the easiest thing for a majority of people to do (especially in bad weather). It’s exactly the same as bitterly complaining about the government or council and never going out to vote. What we have from these results is Labour and the press excitedly claiming a historic victory, when in fact it is nothing of the sort.
All parties need to look at why they cannot foster loyalty with people who traditionally vote for them. We in fact think fighting on the centre ground has done more harm than good. Quite simply both main parties look the same trying to appeal to the kind of people, who are absolutely clueless (and will likely always be) about what those parties really stand for when the fight is over and they establish a government and revert to type. We don’t need a stark polarisation of views to extreme left or right, what we do need is knowing what these parties really stand for and not being afraid to say it. Let’s face it, the minority who do vote at least realise that the two main big parties have experience of running a country and essentially only trust either one of them to do it, which is why thankfully and hopefully the likes of Britain First will never get a look in (You remember how Hitler came to power don’t you?). On the public’s side, more people need to get themselves an education on what these parties stand for and get off their backsides to vote instead of leaving it to a paltry 35% to make the decisions that affect everyone’s lives.
Cancel culture and desperately not trying to offend anyone have also ruined politics in this country, with reasonable things people want and need to hear left unsaid because of the perceived political and personal cost to individuals standing for election of doing so, and those in charge at the top being afraid to stand up and have a real and honest opinion. Let’s take the debacle over Andy Coopers diagram, we actually think most people who weren’t trying to sensationalise and pretend it said something it did not, would have agreed with the sentiment of it, especially Tory voters. Would it have hurt the Tory party to own it and agree that those who claim they cannot feed their kids whilst spending money on expensive mobile contracts and beauty treatments etc are in the wrong? No, instead they threw Cooper to the wolves and let him try and defend it on his own. Yesterday’s vote was a bad day for Tamworth, and a sign of things to come for the country.
