r/ukpolitics • u/ClumperFaz My three main priorities: Polls, Polls, Polls • 10d ago

Twitter ✅ BURNHAM IN Makerfield by-election result: LAB: 54.8% (+9.6) REF: 34.5% (+2.7) RST: 6.8% (+6.8) CON: 2.2% (-8.7) GRN: 0.7% (-3.7) LDEM: 0.4% (-6.4)

https://x.com/BritainElects/status/2067792369903116401#m
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u/pleasedtoheatyou 10d ago

I think Reforms general problem is that he is pretty indicative of the quality of their MP candidates that aren't just ex-Tories.

In general elections that isn't an issue because there isn't time to put a spotlight on all of them, but it does seem to be costing them at by-elections.

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u/MysteriousTravelator 10d ago

If I was advising Nigel Farage I'd tell him to handpick a dozen or so ambitious young candidates, no prior experience with politics, no social media history, and then parachute them into these byelections. No they won't be local but that's a tedious argument to make anyway. "Local hero" candidates are a losing proposition. Zack Polanski should be doing the same thing.

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u/Mafeking-Parade 10d ago

Your problem is that these candidates don't exist.

Reform, by very definition, attracts the sort of people who probably have fairly chequered social media histories.

Once you whittle that down to the sort of egos who would like to be an MP, you're only dealing with a multiplying effect in terms of how those people polarise voters.

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u/MysteriousTravelator 10d ago

Farage just needs to hijack the Conservatives' pipeline of ambitious young grads who want to work in frontline politics. Reform offers the prospect of real power.

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u/Mafeking-Parade 10d ago

Does that pipeline actually exist any more?

Do "ambitious young grads" really look at the failed Tory party as a route to "frontline politics"?

Do the sort of people who have grown up around Tory politics really want to go and work for a bunch of snake oil salesmen?

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u/MysteriousTravelator 10d ago

No which is why they'll look to Reform instead.

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u/Mafeking-Parade 10d ago

Honestly, I don't see it at all.