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This is a week old but FWIW looks like a mobilised muslim vote will doom Labour but anything can happen when it's time to vote.

Responsibility Deficit Disorder is a medical condition. Symptoms include inability to be corrected when wrong, false sense of superiority, desire to share personal info no else cares about, general hubris. It's a medical issue rather than pure arrogance.

Labour hold it but only just.

Not sure how this will play out now. Firstly the Tories blew this big time. Once again their voter apathy has cost them and whilst they don't really care that much given their huge majority, I still seee this as an opportunity lost.

And whilst Labour have won, on the back of throwing any and everything at the voter turn out, it probably leaves them with as many problems as it solves. Galloway has shown them that their supposed Muslim hardcore vote is not as loyal as they believed and one of their election leaflets showing Johnson holding hands with Modi, must have done a lot of damage with the Hindu community. Probably cost them far more votes, in the country overall, than the ones that secured them their victory. Throw in the fact that the Greens did not stand, and their victory is pyrrhic at best.

With old Galloway throwing in a spanner and probably now looking to stand in any and every by-election to come where a Muslim population plays a part in the electoral reality. That's the damage for Labour and where the long term structural problems threaten to sink it.

The question now is does Starmer turn on the Left who were desperately wanting him, and openly doing so in many cases, to lose? Still a possibility of a leadership challenge in the wings although I suspect it will not pan out now.

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." - 1984 - George Orwell.

A nasty campaign by all accounts.

The Tories still treading water which considering all that has happened is still a fair result for a sitting government.

As for Labour they just limp along, as others had said this doesn't really help or hurt Starmer so perhaps postponing the inevitable.

One more point

Labour ran a divisive campaign that exploited ethnic divisions in the constituency.
They scraped a win,losing 9,000 votes, and have reacted as though they have won the General Election.

Edited by Willo (02 Jul 2021 10.30am)

'Back' is not holding onto a seat in a by-election in which your vote drops by 3000.

'Could have been worse' is perhaps the correct assessment. Starmer gets to keep his job, for now, but the fault lines in Labours electoral coalition have once again been shown up.

A win is a win so you take them where you can but Starmer has not pulled off any kind of win here beyond the most facile kind.

What the Lib Dems did in Chelsham, now that was an impressive feat but this? In my opinion, last night poses far more questions for Labour than it answers.

And when it has to parachute in tear-jerker candidates who did not even meet their own qualification rules prior to their selection and still only scrape a win, then they are still a very damaged political institution.

Question now is does Starmer actually do something about the Left of his own party who were desperate for him to lose?

Personally, I think he has to grow some balls and take serious action. If there is one thing about these two recent by-elections for the Tories it is that it kicks any kind of notion of an election before the later part of 2024 well into touch so Starmer has some breathing space but he has to act swiftly because they are not going to just sit back.

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." - 1984 - George Orwell.

Is George Galloway Labour then?