The Holborn and St Pancras byelection result on Thursday 8 October, with Labour up and the Greens down, reflects voter preference for Mr Burnham over Mr Starmer. Perhaps this is to be expected in the honeymoon period after a change of leadership and a move to a more upbeat, empathetic style. Labour has been on the way up in opinion polls ever since their miserable local election results in early May and Mr Starmer’s long goodbye.
The new Labour MP Sagal Abdi-Wali is widely seen as a Starmer supporter. Under her leadership Camden London Borough Council shelved proposals to divest from companies identified by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign as complicit in the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. But whatever her personal popularity, the Burnham bounce saw her through.
Turn-out in the byelection was low (under 40%). Of the votes cast, Labour won just over 45% and the Greens won just under 33%. All in all, this result is surely a poor indicator of what is to come. Electorally-speaking, uncertain times lie ahead and there will be sterner tests.
Full details of the byelection campaign and results are available on Wikipedia.
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