Time was when a by-election was a national event. Vincent Hanna would be despatched to provide on-the-spot coverage, Newsnight would have a journalist in the constituency pretty much full-time and even Nationwide would make regular visits to take the political temperature in cheery voxpops. But not any more. These days by-elections are minor sideshows that burst briefly into public consciousness the morning after the count when the Lib Dems smash a stack of yellow bricks, rather than a totemic indicator that the national zeitgeist has shifted. You show the average millennial the Dunny-on-the-Wold episode of Blackadder 3 and they'll just stare at you.
Well there's a by-election coming up next month, indeed there are three, indeed there ought to be four but one's been delayed because the MP hasn't officially resigned yet. Say what you like about thwarted novelists but they sure know how to plot a cliffhanger for maximum dramatic effect. And one of these by-elections is a proper rarity because it's in London for once and you don't get many of those, other than Old Bexley and Sidcup in 2021, Lewisham East in 2018, Richmond Park and Tooting in 2016, Croydon North in 2012 and Feltham and Heston in 2011, not many at all.
The big London by-election will be in Uxbridge and South Ruislip on 20th July. It's been caused because the man who won the seat last time, simultaneously achieving the largest Tory majority in the Commons since Margaret Thatcher, resigned like a coward before his term was up rather than face the consequences of the 90-day suspension proposed by a Commons Privileges Committee report. No other victorious Prime Minister has quit their seat so soon after a big win since David Cameron, and he hadn't been accused of being a shameless barefaced liar.
Boris Johnson's ignominious departure puts the spotlight firmly on the northwest London constituency he parachuted into while still playing out his last year as Mayor of London. Uxbridge and South Ruislip has been Conservative-held ever since it was created, which admittedly is only four general elections ago, but even if you look at the previous constituencies of Uxbridge and Ruislip-Northwood it's been full-on true blue since 1970. This ought to be a safe Tory seat except in truly exceptional circumstances, such as for example the charismatic leadership of Harold Wilson or the sense of national shame brought about by having elected a discredited tousle-haired truthbending sleazebag.
A total of seventeen candidates have put themselves forward for the upcoming byelection because nothing quite brings the nutters out of the woodwork like the possibility of recapturing a charlatan's empire in a constituency located conveniently close to Westminster.
Prime candidates
Danny Beales* (Labour)
Steve Tuckwell* (Conservative)
Blaise Baquiche (Liberal Democrats)
Left-ish
Sarah Green* (Green)
Richard Hamilton (Rejoin EU)
Right-ish
Piers Corbyn (Let London Live)
Laurence Fox (Reclaim)
Steve Gardner* (SDP)
Ed Gemmell (Climate)
Rebecca Jane (UKIP)
Independents/Nutters
Cameron Bell* Enomfon Ntefon*
Count Binface Howling Laud Hope
Kingsley Anti-Ulez 77 Joseph
No-Ulez Leo Phaure*
Only the asterisked candidates live in the constituency, the rest are chancing it.
At the last election Boris got 53% of the vote, Labour got 38% and everyone else was pretty much nowhere. That's pretty much ballpark for how the main parties have fared in the constituency over the last decade, but these are not normal times and Labour's huge national poll lead should translate into a much tighter contest, even an expectation that the man with the red rosette will walk it. He's Danny Beales, a 34-year-old Ruislip-raised redhead who until very very recently was a councillor in Camden. I didn't see him in Uxbridge town centre yesterday but I did see a small army of Labour campaigners preparing to launch themselves at the electorate.
You could tell it was a professional campaign from the size of the collateral piled up outside Pret A Manger - seven large plastic boxes brimful with clipboards and folders plus a few ripped-open boxes of campaign leaflets. They were red clipboards and red folders too, with a very generic 'Vote Labour' label on the back, as if stashed away at Head Office ready for just such a purpose as this. What's more the folders were ring binders with hole-punched printed pages inside, just as might have graced a campaign forty years ago, almost as if New Labour never happened. Multiple party members were mustering to collect their allotted haul, all upbeat and duly stickered, but I wasn't around long enough to see anybody actually using them, only sneaking off for a pre-canvass lunch.
Just one party was attempting to press the flesh with the electorate in the High Street yesterday lunchtime and that was UKIP. They'd set up a table beside the gold pillarbox and bedecked the phone boxes behind with mini-banners. I'm pretty sure the bloke leading this one-man operation wasn't their candidate because her name's Rebecca Jane, but he had come dressed in a maroon shirt which matched the cloth on the table. "Who Speaks Up For Britain?" asked the leaflets spread out in front of him, which is a good question to ask of a party that's had seven leaders in seven years. I didn't see anyone take a badge, indeed I couldn't tell if any of those going over were supporters or just there to harangue, but as the only party to have attempted engagement at least UKIP were giving the political process a go.
I didn't see any Conservatives in Uxbridge town centre attempting to save the seat, but maybe they were elsewhere focused on doorknocking rather than busy shoppers. It's also a big constituency so they could have been anywhere, indeed as I was walking down the canal towpath in far-off Yiewsley I came across this double-sided leaflet.
Ah, it's that by-election staple, the suspect campaign missive. One side claims a Labour vote risks unacceptable building targets and Green Belt desecration, the other that the Conservatives will prevent local sprawl and preserve the countryside. It is of course a Conservative communication as you can tell if you read the smallprint at the bottom, the hope being that you won't until you've clicked through to KeepTheGreenBelt.co.uk. This isn't a real website, the URL instead feeding through to a Conservative campaign page where the content further conflates the idea that housing targets are somehow inextricably tied to Green Belt survival.
As a discerning consumer of the news you may be aware that what Sir Keir Starmer actually proposed was "giving councils and residents the power to build on certain areas of green belt land if they wish", not a general bulldozering, which is precisely the "local people deciding on housing needs" policy claimed by the Tories. Voters who pay scant regard to news and truth may be much easier to persuade. Also note that all these newspaper headlines are cut off halfway through, and if you go searching you'll find what they actually say is this.
In conclusion, even if you don't live in Uxbridge and South Ruislip rest assured that all the usual by-election stuff is happening, be that earnest canvassers, over-optimistic also-rans or dubious printed claims. With four weeks to go there's still plenty of time for the campaign to ramp up, evolve further and maybe even merit a couple of minutes in the national media. Who knows, the people of Hillingdon may choose to stick with Boris's party or they may swing his 7000 majority the other way and send a gesture to the government and its disgraced former leader. Imagine the hubris of throwing away your seat because a lifetime of lies finally caught up with you, taking your party down with it, and perhaps Uxbridge and South Ruislip will be a portent of far greater change coming to a ballot box near you soon.
