Birmingham Erdington
Expectations for a night which has so-far flown under the radar.
I’d like to first take the opportunity I have via this newsletter to share some ways in which journalist colleagues can be supported in Ukraine. The situation there is beyond terrible, but so many individuals are bravely facing danger to bring us news and reports from the front-line.
These of course include foreign (to Ukraine) journalists, such as the fantastic and bold work being done by over 50 UK journalists currently out there, but also the Ukrainian nationals who are using their knowledge, access, and sources to share with the world what is happening to their country.
While the efforts of journalists is but one part of the Ukrainian response to war which needs support and aid, it is the one I have personally been totally drawn to throughout the past week.
These are people who risk so much, so that we all in the rest of the world can know and follow what is happening. Just the other day, we saw Putin’s missiles attack Ukraine’s media infrastructure, killing at least five people at the Kyiv Television Tower.
As well as signing up to things like the Kyiv Independent’s Telegram channel, please consider donating here to keep Ukraine’s media going, and support the crucial work of documenting and reporting what is happening on the ground of an active war zone.
The by-election bus rolls into town
With everything that’s going on, you might be forgiven for forgetting that there’s a parliamentary by-election going on tonight in a Labour-held, Leave-voting seat which the Conservatives would require just a 5% swing to take.
Yes, the Birmingham Erdington by-election (caused by the sad death of popular MP Jack Dromey) is upon us.
In 2019, Labour defended the seat but saw their majority cut from 20% down to 10%. Meanwhile, nearby constituencies including Birmingham Northfield, West Bromwich East, West Bromwich West, and Dudley North all fell to the Conservatives as part of their march to victory across the Midlands and North.
But Birmingham Erdington, with reported 2016 Leave vote of around 62%, is getting nowhere near the excitement and coverage as previous Labour defences of Leave seats in by-elections this parliament - including Batley and Spen and Hartlepool.
And for good reason.
Not only in the first instance is there the matter of the Russian invasion of Ukraine dominating the headlines, but all signs point to what should be a comfortable hold for Starmer’s party tonight. And here they are:
1. Labour’s position now is much improved from both 2021 and 2019
When Labour were defending each of Batley and Spen and Hartlepool – the summer and spring of 2021 respectively – the Conservatives had around a 10 point polling lead. Not only that, but Boris Johnson had anything between a 10 to 15 point lead in YouGov’s ‘best prime minister’ tracker.
These days, it is Labour who are ahead – and have been for quite some time. In fact, if anyone was counting, we’ve now had 85 straight days of Labour poling leads. Meanwhile, Starmer has also been well ahead of Johnson on ‘best prime minister’ since the turn of the year.
Now of course, national voting intention is not a great indicator of by-election performance, nor vice-versa. Just ask the Liberal Democrats, who throughout their history have taken seats on by-election swings in the double digits without needing to (or then going on to) top the national polls.
But it does give us a sense of how well the respective parties are doing with the ‘median voter’. Not every constituency is as staked with median voters as others (think: safe seats vs swing seats), but it should matter more in marginal constituencies, with Labour and the Conservatives fighting it out at the top, than those in which on particular party has a wide voter base and subsequently built up a strong majority.
Birmingham Erdington has never been a ‘swing seat’, but has been relatively tight between Labour and the Conservatives since 2015. As such, national polling is probably a more useful indicator here than say Chesham and Amersham or North Shropshire.
And right now, Labour’s position in the polls is much stronger than in both the first half of 2021 (when they were last defending seats) and 2019 (when they won Birmingham Erdington). These are the two most relevant bench markers we have for predicting what might happen tonight, and Labour are up on both.
2. The lack of a residual Brexit Party (or comparable other) vote to squeeze
One key factor in explaining how the Conservatives romped home in the Hartlepool by-election was the presence of a massive residual Brexit Party vote from the 2019 General Election which they were subsequently (it seemed, from the aggregate swings) able to gobble up.
Party Chairman Richard Tice won 26% of the vote there a little over three years ago, and with him (and the Brexit Party) out of the picture, the Conservatives were seemingly able to mobilise pretty much all of that behind them as they took the constituency on 16-point swing.
In Batley and Spen, while there was no large Brexit Party vote to speak of, some commentators (wrongly) suggested that the ‘Heavy Woollen District Independents’ vote from 2019 would act in the same way, propelling the Conservatives to a similar victory there.
Birmingham Erdington has neither a large residual Brexit Party nor tangentially related Independents group vote to get people excited in the same way. Wendy Garacarz only managed to muster 4% of the vote for the then-Farage’s Party in 2019, and no independents stood at all.
The ‘vote squeeze’ option simply isn’t there for the Conservatives this time around.
3. Last year, Labour had already recovered in nearby constituencies it lost in 2019
The ‘Red Wall MRP’ which I ran for YouGov last year showed Labour had already at that stage made a pretty decent recovery across constituencies it lost to the Conservatives in the North and Midlands.
No fewer than 32 of such seats, according to the model, may well have gone back into the Labour column if an election were held in early October 2021.
That included nearby (to Birmingham Erdington) West Bromwich West and Birmingham Northfield. Both were won by the Conservatives in 2019 with majorities of 11% and 4% respectively.
As well, while there weren’t any signs of a Labour recovery in West Bromwich East, the MRP suggested that Starmer’s party had closed the gap to their Conservative rivals in Dudley North back to just over 10 points (down from just over 30 in 2019).
There was little to suggest back then that the Conservatives were building on their 2019 gains in and around Birmingham and the West Midlands – and their position nationally has only declined since then.
No signs here then that the Conservatives should be expecting to make ground in Birmingham Erdington.
4. The fundamentals point Red
I often go on about by-election fundamentals, and for good reason – they’re generally pretty accurate at predicting results. The most fundamental-of-fundamentals is that governing parties do not tend to do well in by-elections.
What made Hartlepool such a blow to Labour was partly down to exactly this – they had been humbled by a party who had been in power for over 10 years.
More recent contests – think Chesham and Amersham and North Shropshire – have seen the by-election record card return to form. I don’t expect Birmingham Erdington to provide any deviation from that tonight.
BUT! Politics is a strange old game, after all…