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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The Barnet Eye Election 2024 general election commentary - final edition

Oh how the world had changed. I thought I'd take a little journey back to the final commentary blog I wrote in 2019, before the last General Election. It is fascinating (to me at least)

This whole election has been the most demoralising and disheartening of modern times. In the early Autumn, I had hopes that the fact that the opposition parties and even sane Tories were working together to prevent a hard #Brexit might mean that the national interest might take precedence over tribalism. I had hoped that this experience, demonstrating that working together might deliver results that could not be achieved by digging a hole and standing in it shouting at the world couldn't. I was right, but sadly not in the way I hoped for, or even expected. The party that learned the lesson was the Brexit Party. Sadly it seems that what they wanted to achieve was peerages and plum jobs for themselves, standing down against the Tories. Although this may only account for 3-4% of the vote in some seats, that could be decisive. This should have caused a period of reflection within the other parties. Being fair to the Lib Dems, Greens and Plaid Cymru, they did. Deals were done to stand aside in seats where one of the parties had a realistic chance. Sadly, the Labour party has decided it wants nothing to do with sensible deals and pacts. Their logic is that the Lib Dems got into bed with the Tories in 2010, so they will have nothing to do with them. Ever. Furthermore, they have decided that every single policy of the Tories between 2010-2015 is entirely the fault of Lib Dem Leader Jo Swinson. This message has been tweeted and facebook'd relentlessly. What has always disgusted me about this strategy is that it is totally dishonest. Swinson was a junior member of a junior coalition partner. All parties operate whip systems and if you look at all of the things that many Labour MP's voted for under Blair, there are far worse. Labour took us into an illegal war. Whilst many solely blame Blair, he was chosen by the party and his policies embraced by the Labour NEC. A majority of Labour MP's would have him back tomorrow if it was a choice between him and Jeremy Corbyn. They tried to deselect Corbyn twice. Labour gave us the Iraq war. Labour raised tuition fees. Labour brought privatisation to the health service with PPI. I could go on, but is it really helpful? We are now living in 2019 and we have a massive crisis facing us.

And what happened? Boris won a Landslide and the rest is history. But the world has spun on it's head since then. I see no Labour attacks on Ed Davey in the vitriolic manner of those at Jo Swinson. Jeremy Corbyn is no longer a member of the Labour Party and is standing as an Independent. We've seen what Brexit really means and we are picking up the tab for it. I thought Labour would be out of office for a generation. What Johnson, Truss and Sunak have done to the Tories beggars belief. I can't say I am at all pleased because they have shafted us all in the process. 

The catastrophe is not on any one of them. It is on the whole of Conservative Party. I do not wish for their complete annihilation as that would open the door for Reform, who are Tories on steroids. I do hope that they get genuinely clobbered and are out for at least two terms, to allow sensible people to repopulate the party. It seems an age ago that Cameron was raging against global warming, hugging hoodies and passing legislation for equal marriage. Every iteration of Tory leadership since has drifted further right and this is where it has got them. I especially hope that the Lib Dems clobber them in "Blue Wall" seats. The Tories compeletely tucked up the Lib Dems in coalition, so for me it would pleasing to see the Lib Dems exact revenge at the ballot box. In truth, all of the coalitions best and most progressive policies were courtesy of the Lib Dems. The party made some huge mistakes, but the nine years that followed the coalition have shown us what the Lib Dems prevented. At least when the Tories were free to bugger the economy up, some degree of sanity in public finances had been restored.

Much as I'd love to see Lib Dems win in Barnet, they won't. I am an advocate of tactical voting and the one thing I will say is that wherever you are, vote for whoever will keep the Conservatives out (unless you live in Clacton, where even I would vote Tory to keep Farage out). 

In the London Borough of Barnet that means voting for David Pinto-Duschinsky in Hendon ward, Sarah Sackman in Finchley and Dan Tomlinson in Chipping Barnet. They are the Labour candidates. 

I will say a few words about each.

David Pinto-Duschinsky is a decent man. I know him as he's been around in Barnet Politics for a good few years. He had a terrible time at the hustings in 2019, trying to defend a Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn in an area where a substancial segment of the population hated Corbyn for his views on Israel. David was always calm and dignified in the face of some very harsh abuse. The fact he stuck around says a lot for him. 

Sarah Sackman, I've known since the Save Friern Barnet Library campaign. She is far and away the most capable and competent politician we've seen in the Borough since Thatcher (who I didn't like but you cannot argue with her impact). I suspect that Sarah will one day be a minister. She is everything you'd want an MP to be and if she wins, I will be absolutely delighted. 

I don't really know Dan Tomlinson, but I do know Theresa Villiers and her career is long past it's sell by date. Lets be charitable and say that she deserves to enjoy her retirement. I am sure that Dan Tomlinson will bring new energy to the job and at least try and represent everybody in the constituency properly. I don't think he'll have to work terribly hard to do a better job than his predecessor, should he win.

And remember that nothing is guaranteed in politics. In 2010, when the Tories came in, Labour thought Hendon was a shoe in. Andrew Dismore lost by 103 votes. Don't make the same mistake again.

My prediction is as follows

Hendon - Labour by 5,000 votes

Finchley - Labour by 3,000 votes

Chipping Barnet by 2,500 votes. 

But HEY HO, what do I know, I'll just be glad when it's all over.

Spotlight on Hendon Constituency - Shocking revelation from local Conservative big wig

I met one of our local Conservative bigwigs for a chat about the forthcoming election. Whilst they were more than happy for me to blog this, they did so on the basis of strict anonymity. We had a nice cup of tea and a chat, and they gave me a very interesting, if very disturbing insight into what is going on in the minds of sensible Tories up and down the country. They started by saying "I'm sure all of my colleagues will guess who briefed you, but I'll just deny it". One thing I've learned over the last sixteen years of writing this blog is that the Torys will give you stories in the way that Labour never do. Labour are far more controlled in their interaction with local bloggers. 

So what did they have to say? Well first of all, they told me that the Tories have no hope at all of retaining Hendon. They said that whilst this was mostly down to the national mood, there are three local factors that have scuppered them completely.

1. Incumbent Matthew Offord  has stepped down. Despite having a reputation of not being too busy on the casework, Offord has built a strong personal following amongst several local religious communities, that his views on same sex marriage etc appeal to. They have been very staunch in support of these communities in regional issues that are prime concerns of members of these faith groups. They have bolstered Offords vote a previous elections, taking him from having London's most marginal seat, to having a previously unassailable looking majority. With Offord gone, his replacement Ameet Jogia has been trying to butter up these groups, but seemingly this has not been quite as successful as Offord and many are not really sure where they stand. 

2. Offords replacement Ameet Jogia was not a Barnet councillor previously and was unknown to most people in the constituency. His leaflets painting him as "The Local Candidate" have baffled many, who's response has been "If you are local, why have I never heard of you and why were you a councillor in Harrow?". 

3. Ameet Jogia has been working for No 10, and is close to Rishi Sunak. As Sunak's star has fallen, the expected stardust that was supposed to have rubbed off on Jogia when he was selected has disappeared. The expected visits from Rishi to massed crowds have not materialised 

When I last spoke to my Tory friend, just after the election was called, they were baffled by the timing but still planning to "do their bit". Apparently this has changed and they are not the only Tory who has  decided to stay in and watch the Footy rather than knock on doors (that's a figure of speech BTW). 

We got on to discussing the state of the Conservative party. This is when I got a shocking insight into how local Tories really feel. "Rishi Sunak is destroying the party and the election can't come soon enough" They added "Many of our local supporters are either not voting, voting Reform or even voting Labour". We are not talking about random members of the general public, we are talking about committed Conservative supporters. I asked for a percentage. The response? "Maybe 5% are switching to Labour, 10% to reform and another 15% are simply not bothering to vote" We are talking about people who turn out rain or shine. I suspect many may change their mind on the day as does my confidant, but if you are losing 30% of your absolute core vote, then you really are in trouble. 

What has caused this? There are three main reasons.

1) Many think that the party has simply lost the plot and needs to regroup in opposition. Of the non voters, many are ashamed to say they won't vote, believing in the democratic process, but cannot support another party and cannot support Sunak's Tories. 

2) The betting scandal and the snub to veterans persuaded many wavering Tories that the party has lost the plot and is no longer representing Conservative values.

3) The candidate is appalling. Even staunch Tories such as Brian Coleman have criticised his campaign. Coleman put the boot in recently on Twitter of Jogia's promise to try and abolish ULEZ. Coleman correctly pointed out that this is not in an MP's remit and the matter was decided conclusively at the Mayoral Election. 

Then we got around to my confidant's own vote.  Their position was that they were finding it very hard to commit to voting for Jogia and supporting Sunak. Sunak has nearly destroyed the party. The Parliamentary party looks set to become a rump of MP's in ultra safe seats. Many of these have been around for years, which will prevent any real prospects of the party addressing the issues besetting it and becoming relevant again. Would they be voting Reform? No chance. Like me, they see Farage's support for Putin and saying the way Putin had consolidated power was admirable was simply beyond the pale for someone who was supposed to lead a democratic party. A Lib Dem was a wasted vote in Hendon, in their opinion. The only real reason to vote Tory was to try and keep Reform in their box and keep the Tories as the only choice to beat Labour. If Reform starts to come second in seats, then they may well threaten the Tories position as the party of the Centre Right in the UK. The doorstep conversations on the doorstep with formerly loyal Tories is emphasising this. If Reform comes second in more than a dozen or so seats, this election may well be the beginning of an extinction even for the Tories. 

Now we get to the real dilemma for decent Tories. Do they move to the right to try and win back Reform waverers or do they move to the centre to head off the Yellow peril from the Lib Dems. This decision will be taken after the election, by whoever replaces Sunak. They will be able to see just how dangerous (or not) Reform and The Lib Dems are. 

We got on to the betting scandal. Who would they be betting on, if they were to do such a thing. Their prediction. Labour to get a 4-5000 majority in Hendon, which is nearly 10,000 shifting from Tories to Labour. They predict this will be on a much lower turnout than in 2019. I asked for some sort of evidence to back this up. "Have you seen any evidence of Conservatives doing any real work to win in Hendon". The answer is no. I've had a few rather shoddy leaflets though the door. That is about it.

And my friend, that is just about it. The election no one wants has eight days left. The odds at Paddy Power are as follows:-

Most Seats 

Labour 1/200

Reform UK  66/1

Conservative 80/1

Liberal Democrat 200/1

Greens 500/1

Although this may just mean that Reform supporters gamble more than Tories or Lib Dems, it does rather back up what my friend seemed to be saying. Labour are 1/16 to win at Hendon at BET365