Usual midsession by-election beating, or signs of change?

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IvanV
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Usual midsession by-election beating, or signs of change?

Post by IvanV » Fri Jun 18, 2021 1:29 pm

Conservatives convincingly thumped to lose "safe seat" Chesham & Amersham to the Lib-Dems in a by-election following the death of the sitting MP.

So what is this? One of those one-off bl..dy noses to a governing party? Or a large trend to the Lib-Dems by well educated voters in wealthy areas, who are disgusted by the present government?

There's quite a tradition of extreme results in by-elections, often to give the party in power a bl..dy nose to remind them that things aren't going very well. But such results are quite often, albeit not always, reversed at the succeeding general election.

In the last election the Conservatives had a 16,000 majority. In this one Lib-Dems got an 8,000 majority, and about 57% of the vote. Labour, who came second in 2017 and third in 2019, came 4th behind the Greens, their vote reduced to 600. It was their worst by-election performance ever. As is common, the turn-out was down from the general election.

There was a forewarning. In recent council elections, the Lib Dems took Amersham town council, having won no seats in the previous election. Chiltern District council, which covered a similar area to the constituency, recently ceased to exist. It was joined with 3 other councils into Buckinghamshire Unitary Authority, where the Tories got a comfortable majority. Milton Keynes remains a separate unitary authority.

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Re: Usual midsession by-election beating, or signs of change?

Post by IvanV » Fri Jun 18, 2021 1:32 pm

Whoops, cross-posted with another new thread on the same subject.

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Re: Usual midsession by-election beating, or signs of change?

Post by WFJ » Fri Jun 18, 2021 1:47 pm

IvanV wrote:
Fri Jun 18, 2021 1:29 pm

[...]
In the last election the Conservatives had a 16,000 majority. In this one Lib-Dems got an 8,000 majority, and about 57% of the vote. Labour, who came second in 2017 and third in 2019, came 4th behind the Greens, their vote reduced to 600. It was their worst by-election performance ever. As is common, the turn-out was down from the general election.
[...]
Has the Guardian published Owen Jones's copy and paste opinion article about how this means they should bring back Jeremy Corbyn yet?

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Re: Usual midsession by-election beating, or signs of change?

Post by plodder » Fri Jun 18, 2021 2:15 pm

I think there are three factors. In order of importance:

1) HS2 is likely to be wildly unpopular in the home counties
2) The proposed planning reforms will be wildly unpopular in the home counties
3) Johnson is obviously an incompetent, lying toad.

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Re: Usual midsession by-election beating, or signs of change?

Post by Bird on a Fire » Fri Jun 18, 2021 2:33 pm

plodder wrote:
Fri Jun 18, 2021 2:15 pm
I think there are three factors. In order of importance:

1) HS2 is likely to be wildly unpopular in the home counties
2) The proposed planning reforms will be wildly unpopular in the home counties
3) Johnson is obviously an incompetent, lying toad.
What is the Lib Dem position on...well anything, to be honest, I'd kind of forgotten they exist. This beeb articles says they support HS2 nationally, but were campaigning against it locally, which is clever.

Are they going to become the party for middle-class remainers, now that the Tories are going full-on Trumpalike?

Pretty embarrassing for Labour to lose their deposit. It's almost like putting a new face on a party that doesn't know what it's doing any more is insufficient.
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Re: Usual midsession by-election beating, or signs of change?

Post by monkey » Fri Jun 18, 2021 2:47 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Fri Jun 18, 2021 2:33 pm
plodder wrote:
Fri Jun 18, 2021 2:15 pm
I think there are three factors. In order of importance:

1) HS2 is likely to be wildly unpopular in the home counties
2) The proposed planning reforms will be wildly unpopular in the home counties
3) Johnson is obviously an incompetent, lying toad.
What is the Lib Dem position on...well anything, to be honest, I'd kind of forgotten they exist. This beeb articles says they support HS2 nationally, but were campaigning against it locally, which is clever.

Are they going to become the party for middle-class remainers, now that the Tories are going full-on Trumpalike?

Pretty embarrassing for Labour to lose their deposit. It's almost like putting a new face on a party that doesn't know what it's doing any more is insufficient.
I've read that they got the same number of votes as there are members locally.

I don't think Starmer will survive if they do badly in Bately, and it's a bit late to make it at least seem like you are offering people something.

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Re: Usual midsession by-election beating, or signs of change?

Post by IvanV » Fri Jun 18, 2021 2:56 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Fri Jun 18, 2021 2:33 pm
plodder wrote:
Fri Jun 18, 2021 2:15 pm
I think there are three factors. In order of importance:

1) HS2 is likely to be wildly unpopular in the home counties
2) The proposed planning reforms will be wildly unpopular in the home counties
3) Johnson is obviously an incompetent, lying toad.
What is the Lib Dem position on...well anything, to be honest, I'd kind of forgotten they exist. This beeb articles says they support HS2 nationally, but were campaigning against it locally, which is clever.
The most convincing political criticism I have seen of HS2 is the one that calls it "the rich man's railway", and complains about spending so much public money on something which mainly benefits the better off. Are the citizens of Sevenoaks particularly exercised about HS2 given it goes nowhere near them? Or are they livid about the goverment spending so much taxpayers' money on an item of such niche value?

It runs in tunnel across most of the Chesham and Amersham constituency. Once trains are running, it will only bother a small number of people in the area. The main practical annoyance for them is the temporary annoyance of large building sites and the traffic to serve them, and those are largely already there so its fait accompli now.

So I'm sceptical it is much of an issue any more in Chesham & Amersham. Or Sevenoaks.

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Re: Usual midsession by-election beating, or signs of change?

Post by nekomatic » Fri Jun 18, 2021 3:13 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Fri Jun 18, 2021 2:33 pm
What is the Lib Dem position on...well anything, to be honest, I'd kind of forgotten they exist. This beeb articles says they support HS2 nationally, but were campaigning against it locally
This is basically the Lib Dem position on… well, anything: a fairly sensible national policy on most things, but often saying whatever people want to hear on the ground. In local government anyway.
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Re: Usual midsession by-election beating, or signs of change?

Post by noggins » Fri Jun 18, 2021 3:47 pm

Wow, Batley's got the full set of nutters standing .

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Re: Usual midsession by-election beating, or signs of change?

Post by Woodchopper » Fri Jun 18, 2021 3:57 pm

plodder wrote:
Fri Jun 18, 2021 2:15 pm
I think there are three factors. In order of importance:

1) HS2 is likely to be wildly unpopular in the home counties
2) The proposed planning reforms will be wildly unpopular in the home counties
3) Johnson is obviously an incompetent, lying toad.
On no. 3

One thing that didn't happen in 2019 was a widespread defection by Tory remainers. Part of Johnson's success was that he was able to attract large numbers of leavers from what were formerly Labour safe seats, and managed to keep the support of most of the Tory remainers in the South of England. They disliked the prospect of a Labour government worse than they disliked Johnson.

Many of those voters seem to have deserted him, at least in a single by election, and Labour voters voted tactically to get rid of the Tory candidate.

It'll be interesting to see whether this is part of a wider trend and whether the Tory remainers would still vote for Lib Dem or Labour in a general election.

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Re: Usual midsession by-election beating, or signs of change?

Post by IvanV » Fri Jun 18, 2021 4:10 pm

noggins wrote:
Fri Jun 18, 2021 3:47 pm
Wow, Batley's got the full set of nutters standing .
But not the Heavy Woollens, even though they came third with 12% of the vote in the last election.

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Re: Usual midsession by-election beating, or signs of change?

Post by Martin Y » Fri Jun 18, 2021 6:30 pm

IvanV wrote:
Fri Jun 18, 2021 2:56 pm
It runs in tunnel across most of the Chesham and Amersham constituency. Once trains are running, it will only bother a small number of people in the area. The main practical annoyance for them is the temporary annoyance of large building sites and the traffic to serve them, and those are largely already there so its fait accompli now.

So I'm sceptical it is much of an issue any more in Chesham & Amersham. Or Sevenoaks.
I have the impression locally (it's just a few miles south of us) that quite a few more people are very pissed off by the construction work than were already pissed off about the whole project. I suspect HS2 was the decisive factor this time but will prove to be a one-off protest (unless their new MP turns out to be so good they decide to adopt her).

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Re: Usual midsession by-election beating, or signs of change?

Post by Woodchopper » Fri Jun 18, 2021 7:04 pm

Thread by a Lib Dem. Obviously not disinterested but they seem to support a lot of what had been written here: https://twitter.com/bridgetfox/status/1 ... 11211?s=21

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Re: Usual midsession by-election beating, or signs of change?

Post by jimbob » Mon Jun 21, 2021 11:31 am

The Tories have been working hard to alienate one of their key constituencies - that of business owners. Even a lot of the small-businesses that might have felt unaffected by Brexit are starting to see issues that Johnson and Sunak are ignoring. Labour probably won't benefit in the South East - that's a step too far for most, but Starmer is not scary to them in the same way that Corbyn was, so they might feel safe voting for a Lib Dem.

Remember that the Liberals went from having a PM to being the third party within two general elections. It's quite possible that the Lib Dems will end up taking the mantle of sane conservative party.
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Re: Usual midsession by-election beating, or signs of change?

Post by Woodchopper » Mon Jun 21, 2021 11:46 am

jimbob wrote:
Mon Jun 21, 2021 11:31 am
The Tories have been working hard to alienate one of their key constituencies - that of business owners. Even a lot of the small-businesses that might have felt unaffected by Brexit are starting to see issues that Johnson and Sunak are ignoring. Labour probably won't benefit in the South East - that's a step too far for most, but Starmer is not scary to them in the same way that Corbyn was, so they might feel safe voting for a Lib Dem.
Yes, just among the limited circle of people I know in the South East, some of them despise Johnson but voted for him anyway because they feared and disliked Corbyn even more.
jimbob wrote:
Mon Jun 21, 2021 11:31 am
Remember that the Liberals went from having a PM to being the third party within two general elections. It's quite possible that the Lib Dems will end up taking the mantle of sane conservative party.
I wonder how many seats that would be worth? I guess it would depend upon how many Labour and Green supporters could be convinced to vote tactically. In Chesham and Amersham it was more than enough. The long-term problem will be whether the 'sane Tory party' will be able to be in a coalition with Labour without alienating a large proportion of its voters (like they did in the last coalition with the Tories).

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Re: Usual midsession by-election beating, or signs of change?

Post by philbo » Mon Jun 21, 2021 6:17 pm

Woodchopper wrote:
Mon Jun 21, 2021 11:46 am
jimbob wrote:
Mon Jun 21, 2021 11:31 am
The Tories have been working hard to alienate one of their key constituencies - that of business owners. Even a lot of the small-businesses that might have felt unaffected by Brexit are starting to see issues that Johnson and Sunak are ignoring. Labour probably won't benefit in the South East - that's a step too far for most, but Starmer is not scary to them in the same way that Corbyn was, so they might feel safe voting for a Lib Dem.
Yes, just among the limited circle of people I know in the South East, some of them despise Johnson but voted for him anyway because they feared and disliked Corbyn even more.
That was the overwhelming view of the money people in the company I work for (there was a slightly surreal but kind of understandable "Anyone but Corbyn"/"Anyone but Johnson" split between those whose eyes were on the markets, and the techies)

I think it's massively disappointing that such a huge swing in seat that has only ever had huge Conservative majorities came less out of a sense of the deceit/corruption/incompetence we have seen in the current crew, and more from a "things might happen that will disturb our pleasant life of privilege" (be it HS2, planning, whatever). But not even the tiniest bit surprising: people are hugely shallow beasts when it comes to their voting choices.

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Re: Usual midsession by-election beating, or signs of change?

Post by monkey » Mon Jun 21, 2021 7:37 pm

IvanV wrote:
Fri Jun 18, 2021 4:10 pm
noggins wrote:
Fri Jun 18, 2021 3:47 pm
Wow, Batley's got the full set of nutters standing .
But not the Heavy Woollens, even though they came third with 12% of the vote in the last election.
Just been reading about them. I don't think many of those votes will be going Labour's way.

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Re: Usual midsession by-election beating, or signs of change?

Post by warumich » Mon Jun 21, 2021 9:55 pm

philbo wrote:
Mon Jun 21, 2021 6:17 pm
"things might happen that will disturb our pleasant life of privilege"
The NIMBY concept is very problematic though, as it hides a lot of things under a convenient label that lets you portray others as selfish, when there are (often) real and legitimate concerns. NIMBY is not a term encouraged within academic discussions on planning decisions, at least not when I was still working in the field.

Not everyone in Chesham is living a pleasant life of privilege, and quite likely the ones who are not are going to be most affected by HS2. But I don't know Chesham well, so I will give an example from my own town, which is also in leafy, fabulously wealthy southeast commuter belt blue wall seat. In the south, by the river, we have large football-player type mansions (in our case though it's mostly film industry money). Further up north sit the comfortable commuting middle class (including me) - houses are barely affordable, but still better than the London boroughs we escaped from. Both us and the riverside millionaires need our rubbish collecting, our kids taught and cared for, our lattes served and our Ocado delivered. Some of the people who do these jobs come from neighboring towns further afield, but in reality nowhere around here is going to be really affordable. So many of our essential workers in our town live further north, where the town backs up to the motorway. It's noisy, transport links are shittier and most houses are too small for their families, because even next to the motorway house prices are eye-watering.

Now, our town has also been embroiled in a NIMBY controversy - a new incinerator has been build against the wishes of the local community, but objections were conveniently labelled as yet another rich Surrey commuter town being NIMBIes. But guess where in town the incinerator is? South by the river? In the town centre? Or by the motorway? So when the riverside millionaires objected with the rest of us against the incinerator, they were actually doing so out of solidarity, not to protect their pleasant life of privileged, because they themselves weren't actually going to be affected.

Privilege is way more complicated than a simple you have it or you don't binary. In many respects our town is privileged, but not everybody feels it the same way. There is real poverty here, and the fact that the town is wealthy overall makes things worse in a way because it pushes up the costs of living.
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Re: Usual midsession by-election beating, or signs of change?

Post by IvanV » Tue Jun 22, 2021 10:43 am

warumich wrote:
Mon Jun 21, 2021 9:55 pm
Not everyone in Chesham is living a pleasant life of privilege, and quite likely the ones who are not are going to be most affected by HS2.
In fact it's the other way around. The people affected are mostly the better off. It's driven by topography.

I lived in Chesham for 10 years, and still go there pretty often. You are right to presume that Chesham has a very mixed demographic. I bought an ex-council house, and most the housing around me - including the other half of my semi - was still social housing. I was very aware of the mix, as there was some serious deprivation in some of the houses close by me. But outside of Chesham town itself, the area is much less mixed and has few pockets of deprivation. Chesham town has about a third of the population of the constituency.

Few people in Chesham town itself are directly affected by HS2. It passes 3 miles away from the closest point of the town. The other side of a big long hill. In a tunnel. No works traffic would go through Chesham town either, as it is an unsuitable access route. So it will affect the people of Chesham only to the extent that they may need to travel through the area of the line of route where there are worksites and work traffic.

It is precisely some selected posh parts of the constituency that are most affected by HS2. This is the consequence of topography, since it is a hilly area. HS2 passes through the Misbourne valley because it presents one of the two easy ways through the Chilterns. The other easy way through the Chilterns is already occupied by the West Coast Main Line.

So the locations most directly affected by HS2 in the area have a relatively small population, but are mostly wealthy. And more generally anyone who needs to regularly use the A413 that has many worksite accesses and carries a lot of the works traffic will be annoyed, but only temporarily. But the wealthy people are very good at making a lot of noise about stuff that annoys them.

So, rationally, whilst there is a lot of noise and publicity, the reality is that most people in the area are not much directly affected and only temporarily. So that's why I think that, rationally, it shouldn't have had much effect on election, despite all the hot air.

I think the broader planning point is similar. A large fraction of Chesham and Amersham constituency is designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, which substantially constrains development. The proposed major developments to meet government targets mostly affects a small but wealthy population, who are effective at making a lot of noise about it. Most people in the area rationally shouldn't feel much affected by it.

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Re: Usual midsession by-election beating, or signs of change?

Post by warumich » Tue Jun 22, 2021 2:52 pm

Fair enough, I clearly don't know Chesham as well. My wider point about Nimby accusations I hope is still convincing, i.e. that it often hides a variety of legitimate concerns

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 8199001305
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10 ... 014.933923
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... via%3Dihub
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Re: Usual midsession by-election beating, or signs of change?

Post by philbo » Tue Jun 22, 2021 3:47 pm

While I definitely accept the wider point that NIMBYism is not always as cut-and-dried as it seems (and wouldn't be logical from a most-of-electorate kind of perspective in this case), I think my assumption is that the reporting on the result is at least in part from talking to voters: Graun & Indy => Torygraph & Express are all making out that the underlying cause was of "being overlooked" as the government attempts to woo the Northern constituencies - less specific than HS2/planning, but more of a general feeling that someone else is doing better, therefore I must vote against it; HS2/planning feed into this as a grievance, but wouldn't have changed things massively without that extra narrative.

No vox pops or interviews I've seen/heard/read about quoted pandemic incompetence/corruption/Brexit as reasons for switching sides - I did hear one R4 interview that made me perk up briefly, someone who was saying he was tired of the Tories lying to us, but then it turned out he was Labour and was voting tactically.

I would love to hear that there was a groundswell of the more traditional Conservative voter who was fed up of the lies, the bumbling, and the ever more shambolic Brexit bollocks, but so far that doesn't appear to have caused this non-trivial upheaval.

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Re: Usual midsession by-election beating, or signs of change?

Post by bagpuss » Wed Jun 23, 2021 1:58 pm

IvanV wrote:
Tue Jun 22, 2021 10:43 am
warumich wrote:
Mon Jun 21, 2021 9:55 pm
Not everyone in Chesham is living a pleasant life of privilege, and quite likely the ones who are not are going to be most affected by HS2.
In fact it's the other way around. The people affected are mostly the better off. It's driven by topography.

I lived in Chesham for 10 years, and still go there pretty often. You are right to presume that Chesham has a very mixed demographic. I bought an ex-council house, and most the housing around me - including the other half of my semi - was still social housing. I was very aware of the mix, as there was some serious deprivation in some of the houses close by me. But outside of Chesham town itself, the area is much less mixed and has few pockets of deprivation. Chesham town has about a third of the population of the constituency.

Few people in Chesham town itself are directly affected by HS2. It passes 3 miles away from the closest point of the town. The other side of a big long hill. In a tunnel. No works traffic would go through Chesham town either, as it is an unsuitable access route. So it will affect the people of Chesham only to the extent that they may need to travel through the area of the line of route where there are worksites and work traffic.

It is precisely some selected posh parts of the constituency that are most affected by HS2. This is the consequence of topography, since it is a hilly area. HS2 passes through the Misbourne valley because it presents one of the two easy ways through the Chilterns. The other easy way through the Chilterns is already occupied by the West Coast Main Line.

So the locations most directly affected by HS2 in the area have a relatively small population, but are mostly wealthy. And more generally anyone who needs to regularly use the A413 that has many worksite accesses and carries a lot of the works traffic will be annoyed, but only temporarily. But the wealthy people are very good at making a lot of noise about stuff that annoys them.

So, rationally, whilst there is a lot of noise and publicity, the reality is that most people in the area are not much directly affected and only temporarily. So that's why I think that, rationally, it shouldn't have had much effect on election, despite all the hot air.

I think the broader planning point is similar. A large fraction of Chesham and Amersham constituency is designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, which substantially constrains development. The proposed major developments to meet government targets mostly affects a small but wealthy population, who are effective at making a lot of noise about it. Most people in the area rationally shouldn't feel much affected by it.

Hmmm, I think you need to take into account the fact that many people who live in Chesham & Amersham will have friends and family in surrounding areas, and will also spend much of their time in surrounding areas that ARE going to be much more affected by HS2. Even if their homes and their immediate environment are not affected, they will hear friends and family talking about how it is going to impact them, they will see much in local newspapers and on local social media sites about the impact on the local area, and for longer term residents it will be significantly impacting areas where they grew up and spent much time when they were younger. Great Missenden is being quite badly affected and is only a very few miles away - and there's been a lot of local negative publicity over the last few months due to a wood that inspired Roald Dahl being particularly impacted. The Chilterns Society and BBOWT (local wildlife trust) have been campaigning against HS2 - and also have legitimate complaints about the way the contractors have behaved - and those organisations are well-liked and thought of in the area. People would have to take the BY bit of NIMBY very literally for HS2 NIMBYism not to be relevant in Chesham and Amersham.

Also, don't forget that their previous MP was very strongly against HS2 so even if people haven't thought it through, they may have felt that HS2 was relevant to their constituency, simply because of that.

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Re: Usual midsession by-election beating, or signs of change?

Post by bagpuss » Wed Jun 23, 2021 2:07 pm

bagpuss wrote:
Wed Jun 23, 2021 1:58 pm
IvanV wrote:
Tue Jun 22, 2021 10:43 am
warumich wrote:
Mon Jun 21, 2021 9:55 pm
Not everyone in Chesham is living a pleasant life of privilege, and quite likely the ones who are not are going to be most affected by HS2.
In fact it's the other way around. The people affected are mostly the better off. It's driven by topography.

I lived in Chesham for 10 years, and still go there pretty often. You are right to presume that Chesham has a very mixed demographic. I bought an ex-council house, and most the housing around me - including the other half of my semi - was still social housing. I was very aware of the mix, as there was some serious deprivation in some of the houses close by me. But outside of Chesham town itself, the area is much less mixed and has few pockets of deprivation. Chesham town has about a third of the population of the constituency.

Few people in Chesham town itself are directly affected by HS2. It passes 3 miles away from the closest point of the town. The other side of a big long hill. In a tunnel. No works traffic would go through Chesham town either, as it is an unsuitable access route. So it will affect the people of Chesham only to the extent that they may need to travel through the area of the line of route where there are worksites and work traffic.

It is precisely some selected posh parts of the constituency that are most affected by HS2. This is the consequence of topography, since it is a hilly area. HS2 passes through the Misbourne valley because it presents one of the two easy ways through the Chilterns. The other easy way through the Chilterns is already occupied by the West Coast Main Line.

So the locations most directly affected by HS2 in the area have a relatively small population, but are mostly wealthy. And more generally anyone who needs to regularly use the A413 that has many worksite accesses and carries a lot of the works traffic will be annoyed, but only temporarily. But the wealthy people are very good at making a lot of noise about stuff that annoys them.

So, rationally, whilst there is a lot of noise and publicity, the reality is that most people in the area are not much directly affected and only temporarily. So that's why I think that, rationally, it shouldn't have had much effect on election, despite all the hot air.

I think the broader planning point is similar. A large fraction of Chesham and Amersham constituency is designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, which substantially constrains development. The proposed major developments to meet government targets mostly affects a small but wealthy population, who are effective at making a lot of noise about it. Most people in the area rationally shouldn't feel much affected by it.

Hmmm, I think you need to take into account the fact that many people who live in Chesham & Amersham will have friends and family in surrounding areas, and will also spend much of their time in surrounding areas that ARE going to be much more affected by HS2. Even if their homes and their immediate environment are not affected, they will hear friends and family talking about how it is going to impact them, they will see much in local newspapers and on local social media sites about the impact on the local area, and for longer term residents it will be significantly impacting areas where they grew up and spent much time when they were younger. Great Missenden is being quite badly affected and is only a very few miles away - and there's been a lot of local negative publicity over the last few months due to a wood that inspired Roald Dahl being particularly impacted. The Chilterns Society and BBOWT (local wildlife trust) have been campaigning against HS2 - and also have legitimate complaints about the way the contractors have behaved - and those organisations are well-liked and thought of in the area. People would have to take the BY bit of NIMBY very literally for HS2 NIMBYism not to be relevant in Chesham and Amersham.

Also, don't forget that their previous MP was very strongly against HS2 so even if people haven't thought it through, they may have felt that HS2 was relevant to their constituency, simply because of that.
Actually, scratch some of that, I just thought to check which constituency Gt Missenden was in and it's in Chesham and Amersham. Yes, the line runs through in a tunnel but to say the impact on Gt Missenden is temporary is really not a true representation - ancient woodland is being destroyed. Also, I'm not sure how much of the temporary works (access roads, etc) are truly temporary but even if they are, I wouldn't blame any Gt Miss residents who are feeling and seeing the impact right now - it's pretty in their faces.

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Re: Usual midsession by-election beating, or signs of change?

Post by IvanV » Wed Jun 23, 2021 4:25 pm

bagpuss wrote:
Wed Jun 23, 2021 2:07 pm
Hmmm, I think you need to take into account the fact that many people who live in Chesham & Amersham will have friends and family in surrounding areas, and will also spend much of their time in surrounding areas that ARE going to be much more affected by HS2. Even if their homes and their immediate environment are not affected, they will hear friends and family talking about how it is going to impact them, they will see much in local newspapers and on local social media sites about the impact on the local area, and for longer term residents it will be significantly impacting areas where they grew up and spent much time when they were younger.
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Yes, the line runs through in a tunnel but to say the impact on Gt Missenden is temporary is really not a true representation - ancient woodland is being destroyed. Also, I'm not sure how much of the temporary works (access roads, etc) are truly temporary but even if they are, I wouldn't blame any Gt Miss residents who are feeling and seeing the impact right now - it's pretty in their faces.
The main point you make I acknowledge. It's well made.

Great Missenden was kind of my point about lack of deprivation and relatively low population in the directly affected places. It's the least deprived locality the entire country. The core settlement has just 2000 people. The civil parish is 10,000, but that would include Prestbury and surrounding villages, much of which doesn't have the direct impact suffered by core Gt Missenden.

I was doing some research, for another purpose, a couple of years ago on levels of deprivation at ward level, and it was very noticeable how many of the wards around Gt Missenden, and more broadly village areas around Amersham, are at or near the top of the undeprived table.

Clearly there will need to be permanent access to the ventilation shafts, tunnel portals, etc. But I doubt they will get very much traffic most of the time.

philbo
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Re: Usual midsession by-election beating, or signs of change?

Post by philbo » Wed Jun 23, 2021 5:07 pm

Gt Miss is a lovely part of the world (if one discounts the fictional murder rate :))

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