There might be a by-election in Hertsmere in the new year. Reform UK is the first to have noticed

Boom. First out the gate. Reform UK is distributing leaflets in Hertsmere in anticipation of a by-election in the new year. Candidate Darren Selkus’s letter to electors says:

If the rumours prove true and Oliver Dowden is granted a peerage in the New Year Honours, it would trigger a by-election right here in Hertsmere. With Labour still in power and the Conservatives in opposition, this presents a unique opportunity for a free vote – a vote for real change, a vote for Reform.

We haven’t heard the rumours Selkus cites, but we have been speculating for a while that Dowden might not relish the prospect of a whole electoral term in opposition.

Front of an election leaflet sent to homes in the Hertsmere constituency by the Reform Party in December 2024. The text reads: '30 years of decline. We are all worse off. When you get the chance, make it count. Vote Reform UK. Invest for a better future tomorrow - for you, your family and Country. Britain is borken. Britain needs reform'. An AI-generated image of London with a red double-decker bus and the Elizabeth Tower in the background.

So, it’s relevant that the Tories have spent the last 14 years packing the red benches; enobling, well, practically anyone, as far as we can tell. The long list of peers they’ve advanced includes the millionaire PPE entrepreneur, the son of a former KGB agent (spending his dad’s money freely in London and in Umbria), the mysterious ‘adviser’ no one can remember and the ‘chief of staff’ who worked for Liz Truss for less than a month. They’ve done this at a greater rate than any government in modern history (we’ve just learnt that these are called malverisation appointments). And it’s not just peers: Conservative governments since 2010 have given ten times more knighthoods and damehoods to MPs in 14 years than Labour did in 13. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to call this out-of-control patronage. They have no shame.

Chart shows number of new peers in the UK House of Lords since 2000 — Peer explosion

So will Sir Oliver – who scored his knighthood in the final hours of the Sunak government (and picked it up this week at Windsor Castle) – move along the corridor to the Lords in the new year? We’re not so sure. He’s still a young man and the private sector must beckon (although, of course, he might not have much choice in the matter and there’s nothing to stop a peer of the realm from moonlighting at, say, a Mayfair hedge fund).

The operator

Reform Party Head and shoulders selfie of Parliamentary candidate Darren Selkus, against a hedge — Darren Selkus (his social media profile image)

We’re quite impressed by military veteran Darren Selkus. He’s an operator. His communication with electors is savvy (and he says that, if elected, he’ll give his MP’s salary to charity, something that at least one of the party’s new MPs is already doing). He suspects he can increase Reform’s vote share at a by-election because voters have greater freedom when they know they’re not selecting the next government (in his letter he calls it a ‘free vote’).

Line chart comparing the vote share of populist right parties against that of the winning party in the Hertsmere Parliamentary constituency since 1983. Data here: https://bit.ly/3SDN2JT — Vote share won by parties of the populist right in Hertsmere since 1983

We know this to be true in by-elections – turnout is lower and minority parties can gain share. It’s an intriguing equation. Can an insurgent party have an impact in a home counties seat like ours, between general elections, when the Tories are so firmly embedded? At the July election Selkus won 6,584 votes (just short of 14% of the vote) – more than UKIP at their 2015 high-point and the largest vote for the populist right in the history of the constituency. He must be absolutely beside himself at the prospect of closing the gap at the right-hand end of the chart a bit.

Politician Nigel Farage raises a glass of wine in a sarcastic toast. — Cheers (CC image by Steve Bowbrick)

His party’s leader is, by a mile, the most successful British politician of the 21st Century. His relaxed manner, his defiance of silly parliamentary norms and his sure-footed disregard for electoral law have secured for his party a solid and pretty defensible 15% of the national vote. It remains to be seen if a shamelessly, almost defiantly, upper-class character like Farage can get past this percentage while striding around the country in those mustard-yellow cords, though.

More to the point, while the whole hierarchy o...