Talk Elections

Caused by the resignation of Marsha Singh on the 2nd of March 2012.


Bradford West covers the north western third of the Yorkshire city of Bradford, a former centre of the textile industry that once gloried (?) in the nickname of Worstedopolis. It is a working class constituency with a huge Asian population (mostly from Azad Kashmir) and a long and utterly depressing list of social problems. There are some more suburban (and whiter) middle class areas in the west of the constituency, but these don't greatly alter its general tone. Bradford West is, as you would expect, currently a safe Labour constituency (majority of 14pts in 2010) and the by-election is not expected to be all that competitive. Most of the interest is likely to surround the battle to be selected as the Labour candidate.

Attentive readers will have noted the word 'currently'. Bradford West's status as a safe Labour seat dates from 2010 when Singh nearly doubled his majority. This is not a particularly common state of affairs and requires some explanation, meaning that the past must be explained before the present can be described.

The current constituency of Bradford West only really dates from 1974, but the name is much older. Bradford West was the name of ILP leader Fred Jowett's Manningham-based constituency from 1906 until 1918, and also of a largely suburban and generally Tory constituency that existed from 1955 until 1974. Bradford lost a seat in the early 70s and the resulting remap threw together the Labour incumbent for Bradford East (Edward Lyons) and the Conservative incumbent for the old Bradford West (John Wilkinson) triggering a tight contest - an important one given the closeness of the February 1974 election - that was won by Lyons, who went on to more than double his majority in a re-match in October. Lyons, who very much on the Right of the Party, was an attentive constituency MP and greatly increased his majority again in 1979 as Asian voters turned out in unprecedented numbers in reaction to certain comments made by Margaret Thatcher on the issue of immigration. Lyons might have been popular with his constituents, but had a difficult relationship with most Party activists in the city and defected to the SDP in 1981. He was defeated in 1983 (polling 27% of the vote; the SDP ran someone else in 1987 and polled 11%) with Max Madden (formerly the MP for Sowerby) reclaiming the constituency for Labour. It is probably fair to say that Madden was not an especially high profile MP even in his own constituency, but by 1992 Bradford West looked like the rock-solid seat its demographics would suggest it to be. But things took a turn for the surreal before the 1997 election:


Bradford West ended up being one of only two constituencies to record a swing to the Tories in 1997, with the Labour majority falling from 19.4% to 8.5%. The constituency spent the next decade on the list of marginals, though was never truly close. Exactly why this happened is something of an open question, but certain facts can be established with a degree of certainty. The first is that unusual electoral patterns began to manifest themselves in parts of the constituency before the selection farrago was resolved (Toller ward was something like the only Tory gain from Labour in the entire country in 1995). The second is that both things were clearly linked to the existence of biradari (spellings vary) networks (essentially male kinship networks) amongst the Kashmiri community in Bradford. The third is that the selection of a Sikh was perhaps slightly controversial to some people in the constituency. The fourth is that poll rigging has been an issue in Asian communities in Britain since the early 1990s at least, while the fifth is that the extent of this is hard to prove one way or the other.

Normality (or something that looked like it; perhaps not quite the same thing) began to return with a minimum of obvious fuss in 2006 as most Asian wards in the city started swinging towards Labour (despite national conditions) a process that continued with the General Election result in the constituency. At which point it becomes possible to describe the present.

At the core of Bradford West are three inner city wards; City, Manningham and Toller. All three wards are extremely working class and heavily Asian, all three wards now vote heavily Labour. City is slightly different to the others as it includes the University and large numbers of students, but that's just a detail. When people think of Bradford, they're usually just thinking of these three wards. The other wards in the constituency have less in common. Clayton & Fairweather Green is basically a working class residential area and is still pretty white; it's an essentially Labour ward that has sometimes been lost in dreadful years (though not always). The BNP have polled well in the past. Heaton is a bit of an odd duck; it used to be utterly middle class and very Tory, but has changed a great deal in recent years. It had a brief spell as a Green stronghold in local elections, but has been solidly Labour recently. Thornton & Allerton is a slice of middle class white flight suburbia and has normally been a rock solid Tory ward, though the BNP mounted a shockingly close challenge in 2006.

Time for a few random statistics.


2010: Labour 45.3, Con 31.1, LDem 11.7, BNP 3.4, RUC 3.1, Green 2.3, UKIP 2, DN 1.1
2005: Labour 40.1, Con 31.7, LDem 18.2, BNP 6.9, Green 3.1 (notional Lab 39.7, Con 31.4, LDem 19)
2001: Labour 47.9, Con 37.1, Green 6.9, LDem 6.3, UKIP 1.1, AL 0.5
1997: Labour 41.5, Con 33.0, LDem 14.8, SLP 3.4, Ref 2.9, Green 1.9, BNP 1.8, Trot 0.5


1992 Lab 19.4, 1987 Lab 15.2, 1983 Lab 6.8, 1979 Lab 17.2, 1974O 11.3, 1974F 4.6

Will add majorities for previous constituencies in the same area at a later date.


% Muslim - 37.6
% Pakistani - 34.9
% White British - 49.9
% in Managerial Occupations - 10.8 (England figure was 15.2)
% in Professional Occupations - 9.4 (England figure was 11.2)
% in Process, Plant & Material Moving occupations - 12.4 (England figure was 8.4)
% in Elementary Occupations -  16.4 (England figure was 11.8)
% Employed in Manufacturing - 17.6 (England figure was 14.8)
% Socially Rented - 19.5 (about average)
% Born outside EU - 21.9 (much higher than average, obviously)


Unemployment Rate: 9.0
JSA Claimant Count: 7.4
JSA Claiments per Vacancy Available: 7.3
Total Economically Inactive: 41.8


Gross weekly pay for full time workers: £394.6p (national average: £503.1p).


Early days yet, so all is speculation. Well, the name of a certain Manchester councillor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._Afzal_Khan) has been linked with a possible vacancy here for months. The Deputy Leader of Bradford Council (Imran Hussain; represents Toller) is also known to be interested. And by 'interested' I mean that all the Labour councillors in Bradford West have already endorsed him. I think we can be fairly sure that the candidate will be Asian and will be Muslim.

Don't know for other parties.

*The British General Election of 1997, p. 192.

Where "generally" means except 1966.

You're the moderator here; you could have just edited your profile into the opening post. That would keep the discussion in one place.

Labour will probably select their candidate during the next weekend. Deadline to send applications is on Monday.

Ralph Berry (Wibsey ward which is in Bradford South) is also going for the Labour nomination. It has been confirmed on twitter by Labour Peer Glenys Thornton (it's her brother in law, apparently).

I guess who will be selected will depend on who will make the shortlist (decided by the NEC panel put in charge). In normal circumstances you can be pretty sure certain names will make to the final shortlist but if it's the NEC to do the work there can sometimes be some interesting omissions.

George Gallaway is apparently set to announce he will run for Respect.

Here are the 2011 (from the Council website, repeated from the other thread), 2010 (also from the Council website) and 2008 (from Andrew Teale's website) Council election results in the constituency:

City
2011: Lab 64%, Con 28%, Green 5%, LD 3%
2010: Lab 64%, Con 21%, LD 8%, Respect 4%, Green 3%, UKIP 1%
2008: Lab 64%, Con 21%, LD 9%, Green 6%

Clayton & Fairweather Green
2011: Lab 56%, Con 30%, Green 8%, LD 6%
2010: Lab 40%, Con 27%, LD 17%, BNP 11%, Ind 6%
2008: Con 37%, Lab 31%, BNP 21%, LD 9%, UKIP 2%

Heaton
2011: Lab 48%, Con 26%, Green 21%, LD 4%
2010: Lab 37%, Con 30%, Green 17%, LD 11%, Respect 4%
2008: Con 37%, Green 32%, Lab 21%, LD 10%

Manningham
2011: Lab 72%, LD 20%, Green 5%, Con 3%
2010: Lab 60%, LD 28%, Con 8%, Green 5%
2008: Lab 43%, LD 40%, Respect 7%, Con 5%, Green 4%, Norman Scarth 1%

Thornton & Allerton
2011: Con 47%, Lab 38%, Green 12%, LD 3%
2010: Con 39%, Lab 30%, LD 15%, BNP 11%, UKIP 4%
2008: Con 42%, BNP 25%, Lab 20%, LD 11%, Democratic Nationalist 1%

Toller
2011: Lab 81%, Con 12%, Green 5%, LD 2%
2010: Lab 57%, Con 31%, LD 6%, Respect 3%, Green 2%
2008: Con 36%, Lab 36%, LD 24%, Green 5%.  (Con majority was 8.  The Tory councillor elected has since defected to Labour.)

Going further back, it gets weirder; as I said in the other thread, in 2004 (which had all up elections, so each ward elected three councillors) all six wards in the current constituency elected at least one Tory.  (Thornton & Allerton and Clayton & Fairweather Green elected three Tories each; Manningham elected one each of LD, Lab and Con; City and Toller both 2 Con, 1 Lab; Heaton 2 Con, 1 Green.

But that would have made sense. By which I mean that I thought about more complicated things that wouldn't have worked, but missed the obvious answer.

"George Gallaway is apparently set to announce he will run for Respect."


Oh god, really?

He's becoming an electoral novelty act.


I said "becoming".

That happened in 2010. :)

Not this Novelty act.  What platform is he running on?

The proposed boundary review moves this seat further West, moving out of the city centre and taking in Shipley and Cullingworth

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If Galloway runs, he'll push the Liberals into 4th.

Given what happened in the last Yorkshire by-election, the Lib Dems might be quite pleased with that.

On the other hand, if they were beaten by Norman Scarth...

Really? Respect never have neverhad much support in Yorkshire, and GG's almost a liability these days IMHO

any news on Green, Ukip, fash etc candidates?

Interesting, that would make it the only constituency in the country to have both BNP and Green councillors (unless there's somewhere else in West Yorks. that does/will, or possibly Meriden at some point a few years ago)

Meriden definitely did have BNP and Green councillors from 2008 to 2010 - BNP in Chelmsley Wood, Green in Smith's Wood.

Chelmsley Wood ward voted BNP in 2006 and Green in 2011.

ah yes, knew about Chelmsley wood but wasn't sure if they overlapped

\
anyway this should be a good byelection to see how various partyies' votes hold up, but I'm guessing Labour will win at a trot on this one

The proposed new Bradford West is essentially a different constituency to this one. And more of a joke than I realised at first; Toller with Bingley Rural? lol.

Just looking at the notional numbers. 40-34-13, that's the Tories at 40. That alone tells me it's a joke boundary.

Would probably go for Labour in a general tomorrow, mind. It's one of their "must wins" in 2015.

Both true; I find it a bit surprising they never had much success in Bradford, but they didn't: the highest Respect share I can find in a Bradford ward is 11% in Little Horton in 2007.  They didn't even have that many candidates.

However he might not need that much to beat the Lib Dems.  Look at those 2011 results: pathetic everywhere but Manningham, and poor enough there given they were defending it.  I don't think their deposit is safe.

Yeah, the Libs have been down (on average) by about 6% in the by-elections this parliament. Easily far enough to fall to 4th here if Respect get a big name, and i'm assuming that there was a lingering (by that, I mean tiny) anti-war still with the LDs in 2010, left over from 2005.

The writ was moved today

Polling day will be on 29th March - just 15 days from now.

Via UKPollingReport, UKIP have a candidate: one Sonja McNally, who was the Green (!) candidate in Heaton in 2010 and 2011.

we can be a fairly Eurosceptic bunch, with slight Libertarian streaks at times, but seriously?!

Galloway's candidacy confirmed according to Look Leeds North.

UKIP got 2% in 2010, they could possibly hold their deposit (or come close) here. Libs in 5th ;)

LD candidate is Jeanette Sunderland, a Cllr for Idle and Thackley ward which is in Bradford East

The current Dewsbury seat contains wards which had both BNP and Green councillors concurrently - BNP in Dewsbury East and Green in Kirkburton. At the time however they were not in the same seat, Kirkburton at that time being in Wakefield. 
If the boundary proposals are adopted in Watford, that seat would be unique in having county council seats (as well as district council seats) that have elected BNP and Green councillors (South Oxhey and Callowland-Leggatts respectively), but the BNP councillor is no longer BNP and will no longer be a councillor either by the time that seat comes into existence (if it does)

gah, how could I forget Oxhey, I nearly ended up moving there a year ago

Tory candidate is Jackie Whiteley. She stood in Rotherham in 2010 GE and last year she was appointed "Conservative Parliamentary Spokesman for Rotherham" (I suppose waiting for a by-election there that didn't happen)

Interesting; the first white Tory candidate in the constituency since 1992. Yeah, they aren't trying this time.

Or they just looked at what happened to the LD vote when they went from a White to a Muslim and the Greens had the only White candidate in the race. :P

Oxhey or South Oxhey? major difference

When is Labour selecting? I'm sure Andrea mentioned it somewhere but can't find a reference

I think it's on Sunday. So I suppose we should get a shortlist by tonight

Via Andrea on UKPollingReport:

Alan Hope is also supposedly going to stand for the Raving Loonies (he's listed on the Wikipedia page, and mentioned on UKPR).  So at the moment we have Green, UKIP, Respect and Loony in addition to the big three.

Labour List reports that the Labour shortlist (not particularly short) for Bradford West is

Shaukat Ali (there’s more than 1 Shaukat Ali in the Labour Party. I suppose he can be the one who is a Rotherham Cllr)

Ralph Berry (Bradford Cllr for Wibsey ward which is in Bradford West constituency)

Rupa Huq www.rupahuq.wordpress.com/about/

Imran Hussain (Bradford Council’s Deputy Leader; Cllr for Toller ward)

Afzal Khan (Manchester Councillor)

Fadel Takrouri (someone from Arabs for Labour. Should be based in the Midlands. Or at least he was in 2010 when he applied for Stoke Central)

Simon Young www.simonyoung.info/cms2/

Labour List reports that Imran Hussain won the nomination.

http://labourlist.org/2012/03/bradford-west-candidate-selected/

Shocker.

A Labour activist was tweeting (is the verb, right?) from the selection meeting and wrote that Hussain got a standing ovation after his speech. And then during the Q&A someone from the floor implied that he was a rubbish councillor before being shouted down.

With a 7 people shortlisted, I wonder if one of them got 0 votes...

'Tweeting' would indeed be the right verb, as horrific as that (probably) is.

But, yeah, possible. Especially as many were outsiders.

Anyways, what chance of another lost deposit for the LibDems? Worse, what chance of finishing below the Incredible Human Cat?

Wouldn't be shocked if they finished behind Galloway and UKIP, to be fair.

Have nominations closed or are the BNP just not bothering? Such a sign of how much in dire straights they are that they can't find someone (or can't afford to run someone?) in Bradford.

I have looked at forums where BNP members talk and cannot find any suggestion that a candidate has been selected by them

(In contrast, Enis Dalton who was selected for, I think. Barnsley, was paraded around for weeks before hand)

Nominations close on Wednesday

How well is Galloway actually likely to do?  His candidacy seems thoroughly opportunistic (when has he previously shown any interest in Bradford?) but he obviously still has high name recognition and might (I don't know) have some appeal in some parts of the community in the inner city areas.  (If he doesn't, his opportunism looks misjudged, as he could end up with an embarrassingly bad result.)  Third place wouldn't surprise me.

As for the Lib Dems, they ought do do better than in Barnsley -- they have some history here, even if they did do awfully in 2011, and have chosen a Bradford councillor who apparently has some profile in the area -- so I'm minded to think they will keep their deposit, but not by that much.

If there's no BNP or similar candidate, UKIP could do quite well with some of the more racist voters in the west of the constituency.  Third wouldn't surprise me for them either.

According to the website of the England First Party, Neil Craig is to stand as a candidate under the label "Democratic Nationalist Party"

Nominations close this afternoon.

4pm, to be exact.

It looks like the candidates so far mentioned in this thread are the only ones, so there are eight: Hussain (Lab)
Whiteley (Con)
Sunderland (LD)
Galloway (Respect)
Islam (Green)
McNally (UKIP)
Hope (Raving Loony)
Craig (Democratic Nationalists)

(The BBC Yorkshire political reporter, Len Tingle, has a Twitter feed which implies he's seen the official list and mentions the Democratic Nationalist as the 8th.)

We should get confirmation later today.

Bradford Council's Twitter feed is a nonsense and their website.....Jeebus =/

I think you're right, YL, that does seem to be it. Usually anonymous IP addresses are adding numerous candidates to Wikipedia but it seems to be nothing of the sort at the moment.

http://www.bradford.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/A57E2517-0DF3-45A0-88A8-190A85006530/0/StatementofPersonsNominated.pdf (http://www.bradford.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/A57E2517-0DF3-45A0-88A8-190A85006530/0/StatementofPersonsNominated.pdf)

As expected


Interesting points of fact:

Neil Craig is a democratic nationalist who doesn't mind Mr and Mrs Hajdysz singing his nomination papers

George Galloway has an address in the constituency. Who knew?

Imran Hussain has asked 30 people to nominate him, and in so doing as made it easy for any aspiring author stuck for an authentic south Asian name to pick from a wide selection

If you're particularly geeky, the SOPN has a list of polling stations attached

Its a Polish name I assume?  still his list of nominees is a bit more ethnically diverse than that of the Labour and Respect candidates

If anyone's interested, here's the data for all the by-elections so far in this parliament. Of course, freakish results like the massive Lab-Lib tactical vote in Oldham East & Saddleworth mess this up quite a bit.
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An election projection, just for fun, if these results were to happen at a general election (on the proposed boundaries, with notional gains):
Labour - 344 (+113)
Conservatives - 193 (-104)
Liberal Democrats - 40 (-8)
Plaid - 1 (-1)
SNP - 6 (nc)


And, of course:
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Some election material

Labour
Hussain's pledges are "solemn". They include being proud of Bradford, open a constituency office, fight the police cuts, save the NHS, fight the unfair Tory cuts and attract investements. Hussain is "from Bradford West for Bradford West". He played in the local streets, went to the local school. Pictures of him as a child and his family are attached. The handwriting letters in Labour's leaflets is always written by the same person all over the country.
http://www.electionleaflets.org/leaflets/7037/


Lib Dem
They didn't find any figures to put in a barchart: they simply state that the Conservatives can't win here but the LibDems won in Bradford East
Their strong, outspoken, independent local choice's priorities are: fairer taxes for hard working Bradford families; real action to sort out the city centre; more apprenticeships and jobs in Bradford. Ed Balls features in the leaflet under the Labour being dishonest paragraph.
http://www.electionleaflets.org/leaflets/7034/

The Tories are fighting to save people's postal votes and fighting Labour's something for nothing culture and criminals
http://twitpic.com/8xfspd
http://twitpic.com/8wplzl
http://twitpic.com/8xfwwj

This by-election has not been especially high profile.

Not many of the ones in this parliament have been, to be honest.  They've all been fairly predictable; the seat's recent history suggested there was a chance this one might not have been, but it doesn't seem to have worked out that way.  (Egg on my face if George Galloway triumphs next Thursday :) )

It has been a bit of a guided tour around Labour Britain, yeah.

:D Great description.

Wonder if we'll get a Survation poll?

Manchester Central'll be up next. Liberal Democrat gain, yeah?

I'd like to see them make a bar chart out of this result last year

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Someone would care to explain why there is so much jokes about bar charts and LibDems?

The Lib Dem literature ie election leaflets are notorious for using distorted bar charts that aim to make the election look a two-horse race. Like so:
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(This one's a joke).

According to someone on Twitter Ladbrokes have cut the odds for Galloway winning to 10-1.  It would be amusing (though still I suspect unlikely) if he beat the Tories.

Any particular reason? This campaign seems dull as anything. Wouldn't be shocked if he finished a solid second though.

Gamblers are not always the most rational of people.

I'd be very surprised if Galloway made anywhere near that sort of dent.

There's a truly terrible Grauniad article bigging him up for some reason (linky (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/mar/27/george-galloway-bradford-west-byelection?newsfeed=true)). It's one of those special pieces (often seen for by-elections) that you can play a game of spotting ghastly errors with. The ability of British journalists to write about places in Northern England as if they were thousands of miles away is really quite a remarkable thing.

I note that it is by Helen Pidd. I hate Helen Pidd for some reason that I can't quite remember. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/01/talk-survivors-norway-attacks)

Galloway down to 7/1. Surely he won't win, but he'll almost definately push the Liberals into 4th (or 5th, depending on UKIP's showing).

If he actually has some genuine local backing then, yes, he probably will. But this could just as easily be one of those hype things.

Was getting used to having a Survation poll commissioned. :(

She has now realized there has been a Con-LD coalition in the 00s
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/mar/29/bradford-west-byelection-george-galloway?CMP=twt_gu

Galloway's letter for Bradford Muslim voters
http://www.politicshome.com/uk/article/50087/george_the_muslim%3F.html


GG's fanboys are getting excited on twitter. At what time will they start complaining about postal votes? Salma Yaqoob is already finding bisturbing that there're 10,000 postal voters in Bradford West (figure in line with the 2010 GE postal applications in this constituency)
The man himself is just being as modest as usual: "Sun shining, masses on the move. It's the Bradford Spring! Vote George Galloway today"

That's bizarre.  I still hope he beats the Tories though...

William Hill apparently have Galloway at 3-1 to win.  I'd presume this isn't because they know something the rest of us don't, just that he's been hyped up and people have started betting on him.

I posted a comment on the Gruaniad politics liveblog reminding people of a certain article written last Summer by a certain journalist. It was deleted pretty promptly.

Edit: my latest attempt to make the same point:


Let's see if anyone notices.

http://liberalconspiracy.org/2012/03/29/dont-vote-or-support-george-galloway-today/

I have to say I agree with this.

Polls are now closed.

Anything less than a second place for George Galloway will be taken as an almost personal insult. Let the good people of Bradford West be warned!

Postal votes are rumoured to be "50/50".

Labour spin doctors doing some expectations management. There's no way, whatsoever, of anybody knowing that.

This is real....

http://www.twitvid.com/LGVHY

Baffled by that...

But, then again (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO46i6OF90Q).

Rumour going round that it's 1. Labour, 2. Galloway, 3. Tories. Early by-election rumours are what they are, but you all know that.

Sky journo at Bradford West predicting on Twitter
Labour
George
Tories

Although, anyone could've seen that one coming. Personally, i'm predicting a struggle for 4th as well.

LabourList concurring with Sky journo's prediction.

Remember, most of that will have come from talking to activists not from looking at votes stack up. That kind of thing is right more often than it isn't, but if you want to know how most of the false results on Election Night are created...

LIB DEMS GAIN PERRY BARR!

Win or lose, i'm still predicting a swing from the Tories and the Liberals to Labour.

From Twitter:

http://www.politicshome.com/uk/article/50087/george_the_muslim%3F.html

Just lovely.

When will we most likely have a result?

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Media being told 1am.

So... probably more towards 2 or 2:30ish. ::)

Labour List says between 1 and 2am; I suspect that is optimistic.

It's always hard to tell, but ages yet. They've probably not even started to count the votes. As a general rule, you can add a couple of hours on top of whatever the estimated declaration time is.

Turnout very low. Possible low 30s. "Noticably large heaps" of postal votes for Galloway.

Someone on Twitter says the Tories say that it's 60-40 Galloway/Labour on postal votes.  Not the most reliable source.

The massive increase in questionable rumours is the downside of elections in the Twitter Age.

BBC report just now suggests that there isn't really much information yet.  More tweets suggesting Galloway doing well, but what Al said.

Sorry to sound like a complete and utter hack, but if Labour are doing so badly tonight, I can't imagine what the numbers'll be like for the ConDems...

"An MP": George is doing "very well".

From Sky journos.

I suspect some Tories may have voted Galloway in the hope of embarrassing Labour.

A few years ago I'd have been ambivalent, but I am hoping Labour hold it.  That Galloway letter doesn't deserve to be part of a winning campaign, and a Labour embarrassment in a seat like this (even if it could easily be written off as a seat with a history of weird swings) would give the Government a break they don't deserve.

Galloway never ceases to disgust me. As someone descended from Pakistani Muslims, that letter is just downright... disgusting. Vile.

Another tweet dodgy rumour says 1. Respect 2. Labour 3. UKIP 4. Tories.  I suspect this isn't based on a representative sample: remember the constituency is quite diverse.

Apparently counting only started half an hour ago.

I'm very ambiguous. Yeah, George Galloway isn't the best man ever to walk the earth's surface, but in general I'm a great fan of Faustian-Facetious politicians and Galloway still is the man who really gave it to Norm Coleman. But Labour losing here could give the government a break, as YL remarks, and could have some bad effects within the Labour Party. So if Labour could win by a couple of dozens to hundred votes and a score in the low forties (with the ConDem parties being humiliated), that'd be just dandy.

Sky seem to think that Galloway is going to win.

Imran getting thrashed in Toller (his ward) apparently. Apparently George has a 2:1 advantage (WTF!?).

LabourList reminds us the Respect generally does better in postal votes.

Hmph, this is the seat that swung to the Tories in 1997.

Hmmm, seriously debating staying up for this now, even with an early morning tomorrow.

Liberal rumoured for 5th place.

Still Twitter, but suggestions that Labour have conceded.

Sky just now with rumours of Galloway near 50%, winning "three Muslim wards" (presumably City, Manningham, Toller).

BTW, change08, are you a muslim yourself? Or is your Pakistani heritage only part of a larger 'package' ?

BBC saying it's Labour. Rumors saying the Libs have lost their deposit (shocker).

Twitter seems to now have accepted a Galloway win for a fact, but then, some people on twitter also seem to think that he got 75% of the Postal Vote, which sounds very unprobable.

It's been Respect Gain all night, where has the Labour hold stuff come from?

The BBC report was much more cagey than Sky.  I suspect Galloway has indeed won, but there have been past examples of premature media "calls".  I also remember Bob Marshall-Andrews conceding in 2005 (when he won, of course).

Not a muslim myself, but a fair portion of my family are including grandparents and a few aunts and uncles.

Galloway at 50%. Apparently. Tories on 13%. Apparently.

Jon Craig on Sky, harping on about how bad this is for Ed Miliband. Breezes past the fact that he reckons the Tories are on 13%.

A 37% swing would put Respect 32% ahead of Labour.  So we could be looking at something like Respect 53%, Lab 21%, Con 13%, rest 13%.

(Obviously that's assuming that Sky's sources are close to reliable.)

In 2 and a half hours, this has gone from a boring, run of the mill Labour win (like Feltham/Heston) to one of our most historic by-elections.

Some people are making a lot of money on the betting market tonight.

I've been doing other things and stuff seems random and contradictory; can someone write what the latest is know to be?

Anyways, if there's one thing this has confirmed (no matter the actual placings or whatever) is that solid is not actually solid if also significantly Muslim; the capacity to produce huge votes sometimes does not equal serious party loyalty in general and we're wrong to assume otherwise. Of course in the case of this area that was known anyway even if the general direction this time is a surprise.

Pasty tax. Granny tax. 45p tax. Cam Dine with Me. And now the Bradford Spring. Most lulz-worthy week in politics ever?

Known?  Nothing, I think.

Rumoured (and presented as close to fact by Sky News): Galloway winning by a mile.

Some people on twitter already whining about 'the inept leadership'.

Yeah, if it was any other seat, in any other week, I would be too. This one though, I can't pin on Ed Miliband.

Winning with a coalition of minorities and racists who don't know what the Respect Party means, but don't like the sound of "Imran Hussein", surely.

Galloway is on Sky now saying he won "every part" of the seat.

George Galloway talking up leadership coups against Ed. SHUT UP YOU ACTUAL TOOL.

Twitter sez 50.92% turn-out. Hardly a 'victory for political apathy', is it?

50% turnout.

There's really no way that this can be sanely blamed on the Party leadership; if blame can be apportioned it would have to be in the direction of someone at the local level (and quite possibly not in an official Labour Party context). But perhaps that would miss the point: most of the local headlines to do with Galloway related to stuff he's said on the campaign trail about Afghanistan. The Antique Monk suggests that the answer to this is probably related to that. Of course there's another word we could mention (especially given the surprisingly high turnout and the reports about postal votes), but that would be grossly inappropriate in the absence of evidence and wouldn't explain the whole story anyway.*

What's irritating about this (other than the fact that that prick will get to stick the initials 'MP' after his name again; unless he's changed his ways greatly he won't actually do much with his new office) is that this has come at the end of a very good weak for the leadership. Oh well.

*But there have been issues with it in this part of Bradford in the past, for however much that's worth.

Mr Galloway is a notoriously litigious fellow, so I would strongly recommend that no one goes any further than remarks about the raising of eyebrows in the absence of extremely strong evidence or widespread reporting in the media.

Diolch, etc.

Well, this is certainly one to remember whatever happens next.

Probably best if we don't speculate too much on that either in the absence of evidence.

Can I suggest than that could be prevented if Labour did the right thing and took a strance against Afghanistan War after they lost power?

Yeah, but wouldn't the ensueing intraparty civil war  have hurt them a lot in all of those other non-muslim majority constituencies?

The result (given where in the Party the Leader is generally seen to stand; if he was a tad to the Right it wouldn't be quite as much of an issue, probably) would have been a massive Right v Left punchup; the early 1950s and early 1980s all over again (and over the same sort of issue).

This (presumed) result makes sense to me as a Sunderland fan. We're doing rather well (by our standards) in general, and then we lose to fycking Blackburn the other week.

OK, so BW decided to troll the country. Not like Galloway will be doing much with his new seat. Had a no-name won this seat from Lab then it might've been a BFD, but that's not the case.

I don't even think Labour've reached 10,000 votes...

I wish Jon Craig would stop doing the Tory's spinning for them.

Console yourself by remembering that most people will react to this will 'lolwhut?!!?!!'


If there was a massive vote for Galloway in the Muslim areas and if turnout was less than entirely glorious elsewhere, that's quite possible.

EDL tweeting about Bradford West. Now that's too far.

Salma Yaqoob accusing Labour of "patronising and ugly sectarianism". Nice to know that Respect can do irony.

Labour are spinning this as: "Well, we won a general election the last time George won anything."

10,000+ majority for George.

()

My mouth hit the floor.


NB: that's a 10,140 majority (30.9%)

Why does he seem to hate returning officers? IIRC he picked a fight in 2005 at the Bethnal one.

And wtf is he talking about treason?

Did anyone turn out in the suburban part of the constituency? Looks like the Tower Hamlets mayoral election.

Galloway's vote share is the highest for this constituency since at least 1970 (Wikipedia doesn't have the figures from 1955-1966).

37% swing. Record?

Second highest since universal sufferage after Simon Hughes in Bermondsey.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bermondsey_by-election,_1983

Wow that's got to be a black eye moment..

What can this huge upset be attributed to?

1959
56.24% Conservative & National Liberal
43.76% Labour

Swings are kind of meaningless when minor parties are involved.


Galloway's campaign was focused on Afghanistan and related issues and it appears that this was a sort of protest vote over that.

There have been some vague hints about certain other things already, but they would only have had an impact on the margin (rather than the result as such) and it would be better if we avoid mentioning them. (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=150095.msg3247816#msg3247816)

As a minor point of trivia, only two constituencies recorded swings to the Tories in 1997: Bethnal Green & Bow and Bradford West. Both have now been represented (if that's the right word and I'm fairly sure that it is not) by Galloway.

()





Anyone who bet on George at 33/1 is drinking tonight....

Largest increase in share of the vote since Bermondsey

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_by-election_records

Awesome to see the moderate heroes in the Labour Party spanked by Galloway.

Galloway claimed that "I have won a big victory in every part of the constituency, including in areas many people said I should not even compete."  I'm not sure we'll ever know exactly what happened, but I think there must have been a tendency for Tory supporters to vote to embarrass Labour.  Note that huge fall in the Tory share of the vote, even bigger than the Labour fall.  Some of that will be the evaporation of their vote in the inner city, but I don't think that explains them going down to 8%.

Aye, wish I had, just like this time last year when Ireland beat England in the cricket world cup

although I did actually think that could happen, this on the other hand..........!

maybe whoever did can chip in for some pie for the rest of us

I wonder if anyone was crazy enough to predict not just that Galloway would win but that he would break 55%?

So yeah, that election was historic. I guess what we should be considering is why, in a largely forgotten by-election the turnout was so high and the result was so suprising. There are of course a 'variety' of explanations are there not?...

Indeed there are, but as the Honourable Member for Bradford West has a liking for gentlemen who take silk, it would be for the best if further speculation on this matter is kept as cursory as possible.

Where do you think Hussein's vote came from? :D

Anyways, hadn't Hussain been considered a very strong candidate early on in this thread? Hmmm...

Someone's been courting the BNP vote.
()

And the LD barchartophile vote!

Just an aside, haven't all right-of-centre European parties been doing this for a while now?

They always have.

Bit of a nasty surprise to hear this result. One can't draw too much from this of course, but it's certainly going to be well remembered.

Patronising how the Tories always trot out Baroness Warsi in seats with high levels of minorities, int'it?

I should hope Labour start manning the barricades in Hodge Hill, given Byrne's announcement. Although, of course, it's not exactly nailed on that he'll be the candidate for mayor.

I just hope Brum will elect Salma Yaqoob and not George Galloway. 'cause who knows, maybe he'll be continuing his tour of Labour Britain and not stand for reelection in Bradford West?

Channel article on the two bigger swings against Labour (http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-has-george-galloways-win-gone-to-his-head/10056)

Worth pointing out Respect got half the total number of votes in 2010 than they did in 2005.

It'll be Yaqoob in the Hodge Hill by-election. I assume.

This is one of those by-elections which will go down in history. Nobody remembers Monmouth 1991, everyone remembers Crosby 1981. This will be one to go in the history books

The consequences will be very hard for all parties to fathom out. How Labour deals with the loss of a seat like this, under these circumstances, to George Galloway, will perhaps be the most important.

Up there with Bermondsey, yeah.

I think only total anoraks remember Crosby.

With regards to a possible by-election in Hodge Hill, Byrne is not exactly guaranteed the Labour nomination and if there are concerns about a possible repeat of this that would count against him (to put it mildly). He's not very popular with Party members in general, though it might be different in Brum itself.

Yaqoob, though, has supposedly retired from politics on health grounds.

I thought mentioning Bermondsey might be a bit obvious of me, but fair point.

There is now an article by Galloway on the Guardian website which includes the words "winning across every ward in the constituency".  So did he really carry Thornton & Allerton, and if so what was going on there?

There is another article on the site which claims that "Galloway's result represented the first byelection win by an independent since 1973".  Even if you accept that Galloway is an independent, what about Blaenau Gwent 2006 and North Down 1995?  (UKUP were surely more of a one-man band than Respect, and Davies was Independent on the ballot paper.)

Media are of course going to portray this as some Labour strong hold - we've never got more than 55% there. There are far safer Labour seats.

The media obsesses, but the public doesn't care. The public has more important things to worry about at the moment: pasties and petrol.

Brent East, this is not. It's not going to shift the polls or any votes outside of Bradford West.

The few non-politicos who'll notice will just notice that it's George Galloway, the cat guy from Big Brother, and he's crazy.

Well even Brent East didn't change much outside of Brent. Boosted LibDem poll ratings for a month or two and that was about that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkWzf_yqAAU

LOL, only the party that gets 8.4% of the vote can stop the party that got 25.0% of the vote from winning. Please never mind that party that got 55.9%.

George Galloway tweet, reported from another place:

According to Sky News, Galloway has blamed that on a hacker.

"Nice try. Password now changed."

lol

Say what you will about Galloway, but he knows how to run a campaign.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ggGrplL_Hk

Bump, because I really want to hear some take on this. Because "oh dear, George Galloway. You know what I think of George Galloway" and "Postal Votes OMG lulz" are not appropriate responses.

I think it's impossible to know what really happened unless you're from Bradford, which I'm not.  But I can make some observations.

There certainly were comments from some quarters that Hussain was a strong candidate, but parties always claim things like that.  I'm not sure that I saw anyone I'd consider neutral saying it.

I think his status on the Council may have harmed him.  Bradford has fairly major problems at the moment -- in particular there's an infamous "hole" in the city centre where buildings have been demolished to make way for a never-built shopping centre -- and some of the stuff about this by-election, and some of what I've seen on the local news, suggests that some of the dissatisfaction which led to this result was connected to that.  If this is right, then the local elections could be very ...um... interesting.

Then there's the whole biraderi thing.  Some reports suggest that there was a bit of a rebellion in the Asian community against it, and Hussain suffered from that.  (This may be related to the above.)

He seemed like a strong candidate on paper, at least according to the usual theories of what sort of candidates play well in places like this. He also gained his seat on the council on a large swing back in 2006. It's fairly clear that he wasn't actually a good candidate in practice; I noticed about halfway through the campaign that he didn't actually have a website, which is not a good sign these days (but didn't really think anything of it, obviously). It's also fairly clear - and I think we can say this - that there was a degree of personal abuse (much of it connected to a claim that he isn't a proper Muslim and drinks alcohol, etc) directed at him during the campaign.

Other things... there have been all kinds of rumours about key people locally switching their support in the last few days. I don't know how true this is. I do know that there were a lot of old men with beards in some of the Galloway victory photos. It's possible that Hussain may have done something to piss them off, but that's just baseless conjecture.

One problem we do have is that the only national journalist following the campaign when it was actually happening is an unethical piece of sh!t who's copy must be automatically viewed as suspect.

Interesting article on LabourList by a Bradford Labour activist:
http://labourlist.org/2012/04/bradford-west-a-view-from-the-ground/

Great article. Thanks for sharing.

Yes, that's an impression I got from stuff like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNBZHFksRJk&feature=relmfu).

Though have a look here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okKxC4ZNIqw&feature=related
Not only is he just plain bloody right on Afghanistan, and the voters of Bradford West agree with me, have a look at poor Imran Hussein's fumbling to find an answer that doesn't offend anyone, and fail oh so painfully miserably. In the end, it came down to a choice between a pro and an incompetent amateur.
Only if Respect can find a slate of credible candidates.

In retrospect it would have been better to have stitched the shortlist in favour of Afzal Khan (who is, whatever else can be said of him, certainly a pro), but then there might have been other issues had that happened.

One thing I do wonder is how long Galloway had been planning to run here. Marsha Singh has been seriously ill for some time and there had been rumours of a pending by-election here for at least six months.

If he laid the groundwork for this campaign early - and it doesn't sound impossible - then Bradford Labour must be incredible incompetents to not have noticed.

Membership patterns in Bradford are certainly quite strange. Bradford South (which shows some of the signs of a well-organised CLP, at least in terms of electoral performance at various levels) has a very low membership, for example.

Or, rather...

Bradford Labour got burned really badly by biradari stuff from the mid 90s until the 2005-2010 parliament. It's possible that a decision was made that a decision was made that Asian members should look after things in Asian areas.

Some random conjecture based on reading some reports and rumours and making two plus two equal about thirty five: it's possible that Hussein lost votes to Galloway at both ends. He seems to have upset younger Muslims through not turning up to certain events and sounding like a tool at others and there are now quite a few rumours of the usual old guys switchings support in the last week; perhaps this happened precisely because he had already bled those other votes? A desire to maintain/create the appearance of communal cohesion?

Or even just a willingness to listen to their footsoldiers. Cause that's the thing about informal, clientelist voter organization - it can be a two-way street. A "leader" can't afford going against his followers' opinions beyond a certain point. And he also is a part of the community himself.

I would assume Galloway did get the vote of most of the Tory-voting Muslims of 97 and 01.

That would make sense as well.

It's not as if you can draw a clear line between the two, really.

All of which kind of brings us back to the question of "doesn't anybody vote in the suburban parts of the constituency", I suppose.

I demand immediate release of all UK general election results by ward. >:(

Yes, it would be useful. It would also be nice to see what the actual patterns of the postal voters were (and that's part of the same demand, in the end).

I guess one of the problems in not selecting Imran Hussain would have been a sort of civil war within the CLP by his cheerleaders. Going back to the hustings, I read that during the Q&A someone asked a question implying Hussain was a crap Cllr and was apparently literally shut down by his fans (the ones who gave him a standing ovation after his speech at the selection meeting).

However, they had an internal agitation in Ealing Southall when the national party ensured one of the local factions' leader didn't get the nomination and in the end it paid off.

That's what I meant by 'other issues', yeah. Especially as there had been that sort of trouble in this very constituency before.

Frying pan, meet fire.

@comrade : dont despise blackburn : one day, the red rose of lancashire will rule the kingdom again ;)

Well, quite.

Of course now that what's happened has happened... well... if I had my way I'd stick Bradford West CLP under Special Measures and start swinging around with a hammer... er... bad taste in the context of a constituency that includes both Manningham and the suburb in which Sutcliffe lived in, perhaps.

Respect have surged all the way to 1% with YouGov btw! Prime Minister Yaqoob and Foreign Secretary Galloway anyone?

Sorry if this has already been mentioned, but I noticed in an interview that Galloway described Yaqoob as a councillor, although she resigned last year. It wasn't clear (to me at least) why she resigned. Is she back being fully active in the party?

She resigned for health reasons, if I remember well.

I remember that too, but in politics that's a bit like "family reasons" - it might be something really serious, or it might just be an excuse. With my suspicious mind I wondered if she'd been "got at" in some way. I think she'd still leader of the party, so it would appear that she's locally ill and nationally well...

A double role like that is stressful, and it's perfectly rational to lay down one and concentrate on the other. [/thinks of Matthias Platzeck]

Marsha Singh has died.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18875343

RIP.

RIP

Not exactly a surprise, of course. Also, it seems as though the BBC no longer knows what 'majority' means in British political language.