Labour wins a landslide and the Borough of Barnet turns red!

 Before I wrote this blog, I re-read the blog I wrote after Boris Johnson won a hefty majority in 2019. How things have changed. At the time, it seemed like Labour was damaged beyond repair. It seemed like the Tories would be in power for another decade. Boris Johnson's popularity was at it's height and locally it seemed to me that Labour was finished. The anti semitism in the Labour party had seemingly done for Labour locally. The election had been rather toxic locally and the Hendon Labour candidate David Pinto-Duschinsky had been given a proper duffing up by voters at the ballot box and  a very hard time at the local hustings. In Finchley, the Lib Dems parachuted in Luciana Berger and would have won had Labour not run a hard kamikaze campaign. In Chipping Barnet, Theresa Villiers got a nasty scare and the Lib Dems returned the favour for Finchley, keeping the Tories in. I despaired.

Since then, things have changed beyond all recognition. Boris gave way to Truss, who was outlasted by the lettuce. Rishi Sunak came in and gave us all an object lesson why being clever does not necessarily mean you have any common sense. I wanted to say some nice things about Sunak's time as Prime Minister, out of fairness and balance, but I genuinely cannot think of anything positive that he's done in that time. Imagine spending your life building a political career, reaching the pinnacle and then achieving nothing apart from the virtual destruction of your party. At a stretch, you could say that he's undone some of the economic damage that Liz Truss inflicted on the UK. The UK isn't seen as quite the basket case it was when he took over. Should we congratulate him for undoing the chaos his own party inflicted on us?

Anyway, enough of the past. Lets have a look at last night. On Tuesday, I gave my predictions for the local seats.

My prediction is as follows

Hendon - Labour by 5,000 votes

Finchley - Labour by 3,000 votes

Chipping Barnet by 2,500 votes. 

So how did I do? Lets start with Hendon. I got the result right but the margin rather wrong. 

The turnout was 55.4%

Here are the results in order of the candidate's surnames.

• BAILEY, Gabrielle Louise     Green Party     Votes: 2,667
• ENDERBY, Clareine     Liberal Democrats     Votes: 1,966
• GIBSON, Jane     Social Democratic Party     Votes: 139
• JOGIA, Ameet     Conservatives     Votes: 15,840
• PALEKAR, Imtiaz     Workers Party     Votes: 1,518
• PEARL, Joshua Leon     Reform UK     Votes: 3,038
• PINTO-DUSCHINSKY, David (ELECTED)     Labour Party     Votes: 15,855
• REND, Ben     Rejoin EU     Votes: 233

Labour's David Pinto-Duschinsky won by a mere 15 votes after three recounts. I am amazed by this result. Just about no one I know who previously voted Conservative was doing so this time. Last time out Matthew Offord won by 4,000 votes. 

OFFORD, MatthewCon        26,878    48.8%

PINTO-DUSCHINSKY, David    Lab    22,648    41.1%

ENDERBY, Clareine    LD    4,628    8.4%

VINCENT-KIRBY, Portia    Green    921    1.7% 

Turnout 66%

The first thing to note is an 11% drop in turnout. The Tories have shed 11,000 votes since 2019, which is massive. It appears that 3,000 of those went to Reform, and 8,000 simply stayed at home. As for Labour, David Pinto-Duschinsky has shed 7,000 votes. It seems that all of them simply stayed at home. As you will see from my predictions, I did not anticipate this. I assumed that he would get around 22,000 votes and Jogia would get 17,000 when I was doing my sums. I can understand why local Tories would be so fed up, I thought there would be more excitement for Labour given the prospect of winning. I have to surmise that the tory strategy of talking up the risks of a supermajority, to some extent, worked.

In our political system, if you win by one vote, you win. As he goes home for a bit of rest, Pinto-Duschinsky will not really care too much about the margin. He has the gig for five years and he has time to make a name for himself. Ameet Jogia, the Conservative may feel he 'did well' coming so close. I think this would be a huge mistake if the Tories think that. He's shed over 11,000 votes. I thought his campaign was awful. I have no doubt that, on these numbers, Matthew Offord would have won, had he not legged it. He had a very strong personal vote, mostly amongst our most conservative religious groups. I would have expected Offord to have got 2-3,000 more votes than Jogia, just through alliances he's built up over the years. Jogia's campaign strategy was appalling. Making a campaign against McDonlads in Mill Hill was plain idiotic. If he'd highlighted Labours plans to allow green belt development as a central plank, I have no doubt, he'd have got more than the 16 extra votes he needed to win. It is clear that Hendon is a very Conservative leaning seat and that Jogia threw it away, rather than doing well to keep it so tight.  I spoke to one of my friends from Mill Hill Synagogue yesterday. I asked how the hustings there went. He said "They hated all of them". When the local Tories do their post mortem, I'd suggest that they see this as a missed open goal, rather than a great performance.

As to the other parties. Reform clearly nicked enough votes to let Labour in. I am not exactly sure that their supporters will be too chuffed, although it must be said that the Green/Lib Dem vote is bigger than Reform, so both sides could claim that they've suffered from this effect. 

The Turnout was 63%

• DEANE, Alex     Conservatives     Votes: 17,276
• DONNELLY, Brendan Patrick     Rejoin EU     Votes: 486
• HOYLE, Sarah     Liberal Democrats     Votes: 3,375
• MURPHY, Katharine Margaret     Party Of Women     Votes: 318
• PARSONS, Steve     Green Party     Votes: 3,107
• PEZZULLI, Bepi     Reform UK     Votes: 2,598
• SACKMAN, Sarah (ELECTED)     Labour Party     Votes: 21,857
• SHAD, Michael     Independent     Votes: 272

Sarah Sackman comfortably beat my prediction of 3,000, winning by 4,500. More heartening for Sarah was that even if every Reform voter went back to the Tories, she'd still have won. It was great to see both the Lib Dems and Greens beating Reform. I consider Sarah to be a friend and am delighted. I suspect that she'll get a top job at some point in this parliament. In truth, this seat went exactly as I expected it to.

As you can see from the results last time, Freer got in due to a split vote. The Lib Dem vote was boosted by anti Corbyn candidate Luciana Berger. This factor disappeared this time. I must note a classy tTwitter post in Finchley from Alex Deane, the Tory. this is how you do it ( I note no such tweet in Hendon or Barnet) - Well done Alex

Not the result we’d hoped for but I’m proud to have been the candidate for @Finchleytories. Thanks to everyone who helped the campaign.

Many congratulations to @sarahsackman who will be a great MP for a great part of our city.

— Alex Deane (@ajcdeane) July 5, 2024

 Here are the results from last time

*Mike Freer (C) 24,162 (43.84%, -3.11%)

Luciana Berger (LD) 17,600 (31.94%, +25.33%)

Ross Houston (Lab) 13,347 (24.22%, -19.58%)

The Tories shed around 7,000 votes. This was very much in line with my expectations. I have to say that I am more than happy to see the back of Mike Freer. My personal experience of him was of a very unprincipled, thin skinned and dishonest character. His rather nasty comments about my family when my Mum died in 2008 in the Hendon Times were perhaps the most disgusting thing I've personally experienced (with the exception of his mate Brian Coleman taunting me about my prostate cancer). 

And finally we go to Chipping Barnet. 

Turnout was 65.5%

• DURRANT, Mark James     Liberal Democrats     Votes: 2,614
• FARBEY, David Samuel     Green Party     Votes: 3,442
• HADDOW, Hamish     Reform UK     Votes: 3,986
• HEWISON, Richard     Party: Rejoin EU     Votes: 379
• LAUER, Kay     Independent     Votes: 182
• TOMLINSON, Dan (ELECTED)     Labour Party     Votes: 21,585
• VILLIERS, Theresa Anne     Conservatives     Votes: 18,671

Of the three seats, this had the highest turnout and the biggest Tory vote. I expected this, given that Theresa Villiers was the incumbent and has a bit of a loyal following. My prediction was pretty close. the Reform vote technically could have saved Villiers, had they all voted Tory, but to be honest I suspect most of them were sick of the Tories and would probably have stayed at home. In my estimates, incumbency can give you 1,500-2,500 votes if you do a decent job. If an MP helps someone, they generally are well disposed towards them. Villiers has been active in protecting the green belt and associated with a few local campaigns. It wasn't enough to save her in the current circumstances, but I think she can draw some comfort in outperforming her fellow Barnet Tories.

A few things I note. Firstly, why was the turnout 10% higher in Chipping than in Hendon? I suspect this was actually down to the fact that there was a perception the Tories had a chance. It was in play. I suspect that many in Hendon assumed that the Tories would simply lose and couldn't be bothered to vote. If I was Labour, I'd take a long look at their strategy in Hendon, when the dust settles. My guess is that 15,840 people who voted Tory are the absolute hard core, who would vote for a Donkey if it had a blue rosette. David Pinto-Duschinsky should have polled 18-20,000 this time by my estimates. I do think that locally Labour make a mistake by concentrating on getting their hardcore vote  out, rather than reaching out to those who are there to be persuaded. This nearly cost them.

And finally a few words on the national results. As a Lib Dem, I am delighted with the party's performance. In terms of seats, the best in my lifetime. I am also rather chuffed to see some rather horrible Tories consigned to the dustbin. Top of the list, Jacob Rees-Mogg (who was my brothers MP). I was not surprised that Jeremy Hunt survived. He has often given the impression that he's the last sane and rational Tory left in Parliament. The Lib Dems ran a strong campaign, but it was always going to be harder to unseat someone on the left of the Tories. As I suspected, Reform performed atrociously in terms of seats. It was clear to me after their Nuremberg Rally style event on Sunday, that the party is very badly run as a political machine. No doubt Farage will claim he is the real victor, but he isn't. He's put together an organisation that gets millions of votes, but he is really the only recipient of the benefit. It will be interesting to see how he gets on with 30p Lee as they jostle for attention. Both men seem very vain and narcissistic to me. Is Reform big enough for both of them. I predict that by the end of this Parliament, one will be an Independent (or a Tory). 

And as for the Conservatives? A period of bloodletting will follow. The right will want them to move to the area occupied by Reform. The sensible ones will point out that it is the Lib Dems that did the damage and these voters will not return if the swivel eyed mob take over. 

And finally. Thank God it's all over. Not just the election, but the fourteen years of Tory misrule. I really don't think it will be easy for Sir Keir Starmer. He may well find that by the start of next year, he's got to deal with a Fascist government in France, Donald Trump in the USA and heaven only knows what else. We already have a Fascist in Italy. It could be that he's alone as a liberally minded leader in the G7. I don't envy him.

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