Runcorn has got a bit lost in the election speculation, but it’s telling us more than you think

Runcorn is a gateway to perception and enlightenment.

Alright that’s a bit purple, but in all the ‘hot-takes’ and projections about the local elections, before the result, and the speculations that will inevitably follow, it seems the Runcorn by-election has been missing.

I go back to my start – overlooking might be a mistake. There are lessons, in this campaign that has passed most people by, and they may not be as obvious as some might think.

Runcorn itself wasn’t ‘obvious’ for much of its long but quiet history. Founded by  Æthelflæd of Mercia in 915 AD it was a fortification to guard against Viking invasion at a narrowing of the River Mersey. Seven centuries later and all it warrants from a seventeenth century observer is “nothing but a fair parish church, a parsonage and a few scattered tenements”.

Liverpool, Manchester, shipping and the Mersey change all in the nineteenth century but it’s interesting that between 1971-81 its population doubles to around sixty thousand.

It is also the resting place, and site of a memorial statue to ‘Todger’ Jones.

Thomas Jones VC won his medal in the First World War with several acts of the kind of gallantry that is both astonishing and a little bit scary. What with defending from Vikings and capturing 102 Germans single handedly in 1916 there might be said to be something of a martial spirit in the air of Runcorn, or Rumcoven as it has been called in the past.

It was there at 2am on October 26^th last year in Frodsham.

This was when Labour’s Mike Amesbury transformed from MP into a very ‘rum cove’ and, having spent longer than he should in a local hostelry, decided to show very little compassion to his fellow constituent and thumped Paul Fellowes to the ground. Amesbury had claimed he felt “threatened” but video footage emerged that told a different story. Amesbury was suspended by Labour, plead guilty in court, had to eventually resign and was given ten weeks in prison but the sentence was suspended for 2 years. Either way in Runcorn he’s been reduced from bigwig to bystander.

That’s how we got here.

Now Labour are defending the seat with a different ‘champion’ Karen Shore, and without the doorstep rallying cries of the Prime Minister who has decided not to campaign in his first by-election since winning a huge if thin national majority. It may well be a sign he worries he’s going to lose the seat, but mor that he carries with him a lot of baggage, as the Telegraph reported:

“Sir Keir is entering the by-election with the lowest approval ratings on record for any incumbent prime minister’s first contest. He currently has a net approval of -29 percentage points. Tony Blair, on the other hand, faced his first such challenge with a net approval rating of +59 per cent.”

As political defences go Sir Keir is a bit like ‘brave brave’ Sir Robin in Monty Python’s Holy Grail. Leaving Karen to shore up the vote.

Here then is one of the lessons from Runcorn. Immigration, however you may feel about it, is still right at the top of people’s agendas. Karen Shore recently launched a petition to close the local ‘asylum hotel’, which some had pointed out was a complete reversal of her former views when in local Government she’d said she ‘warmly welcomed’ asylum seekers to the area.

There’s a desire for better housing in the area and locals feel others are jumping the acomadation queue. This issue of hotels, housing and asylum really will become a big headache for Labour because their solutions are a sleight of hand, and do nothing whatever to solve the problem, just hide it.

Labours current immigration farce – having said they’d cut asylum hotel usage in a year it’s now gone up and will be here for four years. Numbers crossing the channel are up, and most asylum applications are granted – is emblematic of the two big party’s woes. Conservatives roasted for using hotels in the first place, Labour claiming to make it better and making it worse – their candidate seeing an electoral sliver of hope from attacking hotel usage in her patch, when it would have been unthinkable before. Immigration is the issue that won’t go away.

Neither main party benefits, while asylum seekers do. Many voters, whether right or wrong, don’t like it.

Then, to turn it all around, there is maths. Labour, for all their problems may hold the seat. The numbers are in their favour. Runcorn was won at the general election with just shy of 50 per cent of the vote, the second party, Reform, got 18 per cent. It’s quite possible that Labour win again, the mountain too high to climb for Nigel Farage. Starmer may not enter the fray but he could still be the winner. Lesson again, is that maths plays a simpler, bigger role than we realise.

It’s a fact even with only slightly less dire personal ratings than Starmer, Rishi Sunak delivered leaflets for a by-election he almost certainly knew he’d lose. But there’s no comfort in Runcorn for the Conservatives. Back in late January James Ford argued on this site, the Tories should not even contest it.

It was less a sign they could never win, though they really couldn’t this time, but more the dynamics of the newly created seat. It was made of up of two. One had been safe Labour, the other had been a marginal that had swapped about. The Tories are, if we are honest, going through the motions. Their real party focus is trying to ensure a bad night for the Conservatives on Thursday doesn’t become a catastrophic night for Kemi Badenoch.

The lesson here is whether or not you think Kemi Badenoch has changed the party or is going to change the party, it’s still the reputation of the 2024 version of the party, in government, that is the major drag anchor. How, and if she can, cut that free will I suspect be a recurring theme over the next week. You’ll see passionate defences from allies that she can.

Of course the beneficiaries of all of this are Reform UK. Still getting the ‘none of the above’ voter benefit. Their candidate is a former Tory, and as Farage has said he wants experience.

When I say former Tory, Sarah Pochin has been in and out of the party like the hockey cokey, as the BBC reported:

“Sarah Pochin was a councillor for the Cheshire East authority from 2015 until 2023, and was mayor of the council from 2021 to 2022. She was first elected as a councillor for the Conservatives, before being expelled by the party in 2020, after a row over her nomination as mayor. She later joined the authority’s Independent group, but was suspended for rejoining the national Conservative party, ahead of the leadership election.”

The defection angle was somewhat obscured by the Rupert Lowe affair, but if Reform win Runcorn, and local council seats in the numbers they are suggesting, particularly at Conservative expense, well then some might start to think, again, if it’s time to swap rosettes. At the very least you’ll expect increased chatter about ‘deals’. Nigel Farage is said to believe they won’t win.

I’d take what any party leader says about by-elections with a hefty pinch of salt. Farage can lose, well, and still have a good night. It might however expose what their electoral threat really is.

Finally Runcorn will supply someone to Westminster. Most of the characters who might win on Thursday will remain in local focus only. Runcorn’s victor will be far far more visible. If it’s Sarah Pochin, Reform will have their first female MP, and that will also be useful to them. The ‘lads brigade’ image is not one they entirely love – even if sometimes it looks like it. Labour will send another person to the back benches to be noticeable only when asking “if the Prime Minister agrees with me?”

The Farage crowd like to gather on a Thursday night, to share a bit of down time. This Thursday, might be quite a celebration.

For the Conservatives it might be a night of sober reflection and planned defence. Runcorn understands defence, it’s why it’s where it is.