Talk Elections

Caused by the death of Paul Goggins who had been the Member of Parliament for this seat since its creation in 1997.

A constituency on the border of Greater Manchester and Chester, Wythenshawe & Sale East is probably most notable for having the largest council estate estate in Europe and, of course, Manchester airport. There is quite a bit've middle class suburbia in the Sale end of the constituency.

Result in 2010
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Local elections results from 2012 for the main four parties compared to their results from the locals in 2010
Labour 56.9% (+14.6%)
Tory 22.4% (-2.4%)
Liberal 6.6% (-17.6%)
UKIP 6.3% (+3.3%)

Of the 24 councillors in the constituency, 20 are Labour, 3 are Tories and there's 1 Liberal Democrat.

Should be a Labour hold.

UKIP still haven't chosen their candidate I believe. At 2010, they had an 18-19 year old local guy run and he wants to be their candidate for the by-election. Although I read that Paul Nuttall wants to be their candidate here too.

They won't pick their 2010 candidate, surely and I can't see Paul Nuttall connecting here, especially if Labour go for a local.

Applications for Labour opened Saturday morning and close tomorrow with shortlisting on Wednesday, they're not wasting any time. I think they want a good result here after a pretty poor showing to UKIP in South Shields.

Indeed. Do we know if the by-election will be held before the Euros? If so, a solid result for Labour will give them some good headlines building up to the May elections, same of course, with UKIP.

Leaving it until May wouldn't really make sense. Labour probably wants to get it out the way for some good headlines and to stop any UKIP support building in a long campaign. Maybe early March?

I refuse to go along with the "Free schools are bad, Toby Young runs a free school, therefore Toby Young's articles must be dreck" thinking - but Toby Young deserves a kicking for this:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyyoung/100253989/ukip-can-beat-labour-in-the-wythenshawe-and-sale-east-by-election-and-conservatives-should-support-them/

So, the oldest political party in the world should cede place to a bunch of narcissistic fruitcakes, loonies, racists, protest voters who are never going to vote for one of the mainstream parties (cf. ex-Lib Dem voters), and prats and out-and-out tossers (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-25793358), who mainly want to "destroy" the Tory Party for getting in their way Ted Heath, 1972, and all that.

Yeah, right, sod off Farridge.

...but is effectively an expanded (and therefore less solidly proletarian) Manchester Wythenshawe, a seat held for most of its formal existence by one of my political heroes (the great Alf Morris (http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2012/aug/14/lord-morris-of-manchester)). Until 1974 the constituency crossed the Mersey to include Didsbury (!!!) and the seat was more political balanced: initially a Conservative marginal, Morris gained it for Labour in '64 and it basically turned into a safe seat overnight.


Quite a lot of places have been called the largest council estate in Europe. Wythenshawe is certainly huge though: more a council-built New Town constructed over several decades than a council estate in the conventional sense of the term.

Anyway, Manchester Labour are very well organised.

The BBC are reporting that this will be held on Thursday 13 February, which seems very soon but is not very surprising given the tight Labour selection schedule.

Update 21 Jan: the writ has indeed been moved for that date.

2012 local election results by ward:

Manchester wards
Baguley: Lab 63%, UKIP 12%, Con 11%, TUSC 5%, LD 4%, Green 4%
Brooklands (Manc.): Lab 65%, Con 18%, UKIP 9%, Green 5%, LD 4%
Northenden: Lab 64%, LD 13%, Con 8%, UKIP 8%, Green 7%
Sharston: Lab 70%, UKIP 10%, Con 9%, LD 4%, Green 4%, TUSC 3%
Woodhouse Park: Lab 71%, UKIP 14%, Con 7%, Green 6%, LD 3%

Trafford wards
Brooklands (Traff.): Con 48%, LD 33%, Green 8%, LD 6%, Ind 4%
Priory: Lab 52%, Con 31%, LD 9%, Green 8%
Sale Moor: Lab 49%, Con 37%, Green 7%, LD 6%

Manchester component (i.e. "Wythenshawe") overall: Lab 66%, Con 11%, UKIP 10%, LD 6%, Green 5%, TUSC (two wards only) 1.5%
Trafford component (i.e. "Sale East") overall: Lab 44%, Con 39%, Green 8%, LD 7%, Ind (one ward only) 1.4%

Across the consitituency as a whole I get Lab 58%, Con 22%, LD 7%, Green 6%, UKIP 6%, TUSC 0.9%, Ind 0.5%.  But note that UKIP had no candidates in the Trafford wards.

anyone else fancy a prediction

I'll go for:

Lab 50%  +/- 5% (probably +)
Con 20% +/- 3%
UKIP 20% +/- 3%
LD 10% or possibly less

Don't anticipate the Greens or BNP bothering, 2 or 3% apiece if they do

if TUSC stand again they will increase their vote to a mighty 0.75% and hail it as a great success

I have heard whispers that Class War might run a candidate, two local potential candidates have declined, and Ian Bone may or may not stand

http://labourlist.org/2014/01/wythenshawe-and-sale-east-whos-in-the-running-to-be-labours-candidate/

Though a bit of a howler there: John Battle was a Leeds MP.

And now the shortlist: http://labourlist.org/2014/01/wythenshawe-and-sale-east-the-shortlist/ (still without mentioning Leeds)

UKIP have selected their candidate, someone called John Bickley who apparently used to be a Labour supporter.

UKIP have almost got a Lib-Dem style (or at least back in the day it was) thing going on, where they run as almost an 'old-style' Labour party in Labour seats, and an 'old-style' Conservative Party in Tory ones.

I don't think they've ever run as an 'old style Labour Party' (whatever that would even mean) anywhere. They do have a couple of left-wing cranks in some areas, but that's not the same thing...

Trafford vicar Daniel Critchlow has been chosen for the Conservatives.

I assume he's referring to the sort of voters UKIP are trying to appeal to, rather than actual policies.

In my experience it's a myth that the Lib Dems did that.  Given how much their campaigning focuses on getting tactical votes from supporters of parties who Can't Win Here, appearing to be too much like the party they're trying to beat would be counterproductive.

Eddie O'Sullivan chosen by the BNP here.

Mike Kane to defend for Labour - http://labourlist.org/2014/01/mike-kane-selected-as-labours-candidate-for-wythenshawe-and-sale-east/

I think he could be a social conservative ! :)

Anyone who openly flouts being a "Catholic" on their twitter page probably is. Would be a very appropriate choice to fill Paul Goggins's boots.

According to Christian Socialist blogger and sometime Durham Progress gadfly David Lindsay, he is very much a traditionalist on cultural/moral matters. So yes, he upper left on the political spectrum.

I suspect that Wythenshawe Labour not picking a Catholic would be an indication that the apocalypse is near.

Another question about this by-election is surely whether the Libs will save their deposit? Especially given recent events.

Has a date been set for the by-election? As a precaution I shall be watching BBC North West Tonight from Monday onwards.

I wouldn't necessarily bother.  North West Tonight isn't as good since Gordon Burns left.

The task of trying to save the Lib Dem deposit has gone to Mary di Mauro, who represents Northenden ward (in the constituency) on Manchester City Council (term finishes 2014).  As mentioned above the Lib Dems only got 13% in that ward in 2012, and she's the only Lib Dem councillor left in the constituency.

Meanwhile someone whose real name is presumably not "Captain Chaplington-Smythe" is going to stand for the Official Monster Raving Loony Party under that name.

Tony Woodcock for the Greens. He's the chair of the Manchester branch..

Candidate list now available via http://www.manchester.gov.uk/info/362/elections_and_voting/4981/your_next_election

There are no candidates other than those already mentioned in the thread.  So:

John Bickley (UKIP)
Captain Chaplington-Smythe (OMRLP)
Daniel Critchlow (Con)
Mary di Mauro (Lib Dem)
Mike Kane (Lab)
Eddy O'Sullivan (BNP)
Nigel Woodcock (Green)

The Loony, Lib Dem and Labour candidates have Northenden addresses so presumably live in the constituency; the other four live in other constituencies, though none very far away.

Nice and short ballot paper. They all used to be that size, you know...

Ashcroft's done a poll, usual caveats apply.

LAB 61% (+17)
UKIP 15% (+12)
CON 14% (-12)
LD 5% (-17)

Surely a bit low for UKIP...

This is tomorrow.  Given the weather and the lack of any doubt as to the result, expect a low turnout.

There seems to have been a fair amount of UKIP expectation management, including some rather ridiculous moaning about postal votes.  Some of the flavour can be gleaned from an article on the Telegraph website (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukipwatch/100259223/wythenshawe-and-sale-east-ukip-cant-compete-with-labours-ruthless-operation) about UKIP and the by-election.  So perhaps the Ashcroft poll may be in the right ballpark.

I'll be impressed if Labour really do get 61%, though.

The Holy Word is up.  Incidentally the weather in Greater Manchester is terrible at the moment; a huge storm is blowing through this evening with the type of high winds that damage buildings.  Hopefully this won't affect any polling stations.

http://blog.englishelections.org.uk/2014/02/by-election-preview-wythenshawe-and.html

The weather is better today (well, 30 or so miles east of the constituency, anyway).  I suspect the after-effects of the storm will still depress turnout a bit, though, and it wouldn't have been high anyway.

May the Twitter circus begin.

Liveblog:

labourlist.org/2014/02/wythenshawe-and-sale-east-by-election-liveblog/

Judging by Twitter the last few days, I feel like the call must have gone out to get as many candidates/MPs/Shadow Cabinet down to Manchester as possible. One Nation and all that.

Always happens wi' by-elections.

All rumours pretty meaningless at this stage, of course, but a Labour majority of at least 25% it seems. Very varied turnout rumours.

But it's possible that they've not even really started counting yet.

Turnout is confirmed at a very low (but just above comic) 28%.

Labour reported to be leading by c. 30pts or so. Reports that the LibDems have requested a recount to save their deposit: that they are on 4.99% or so.

Their biggest fall since Manc Central. Some hilarious results heading their way in Manchester and Liverpool next year.

But they'll somehow, miraculously, hold onto their incumbents, right? ;)

Nige' slamming postal votes and the short campaign on Sky.

But what he doesn't understand is that they just don't get how to campaign.

Says he's up for a pint and has been on benders that've been longer than the W&SE campaign.

Jesus.

Result within the next half hour.

LibDems twenty votes short of the magic 5%. Photo of a bundle-check to find said votes if they exist...

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Labour hold

Libs hold onto just 14% of their 2010 votes.

Labour 13261 55.3%
UKIP      4301 17.9%
Con       3479 14.5%
LDem    1176  4.9%
Greenn   748 3.1%
BNP        708 2.9%
MRLP      288 1.2%

Labour maj. 8,960 (37.4%)

Butler Swing of -11.1%

Biggest percentage majority ever for Labour here, including when the seat was just Wythenshawe.

If Labour across the country was as well organised as Manchester Labour, EdM would waltz into Downing Street with about 400 MPs next year.

The overall swing in by-elections in the 2005-2010 Parliament was scarily close to the swing in the general election. Anyone know what it is for this Parliament thus far?

Will the Lib Dems be using deposit insurance next time round?

Looking at this result and at the general tenor of local by-election results that they've been having (at least in those seats where they're not a serious contender) the likely toll of lost deposits is likely to be well into three figures at GB£500 a pop.

Easily. I'd imagine they'll still stand in all GB seats (ex. against the Speaker in Buckingham), they have to at least try and remain credible, but the next election will end up being a massive drain on funds for them through deposits.

If they want to go with their incumbents strategy they keep clinging on to, they'll have to figure out who they can afford to cut loose. I.E, what's the point in spending money to defend Leech in Manc' Withington, sitting on a majority of less than 2,000 in a seat with plenty of students, when there's Hazel Grove, an open seat, just down the road, where they'll need to hold the Tories back.

And even when this sort've worked in Eastleigh, they still lost more vote share than the Tories and went from 47% to 32%. They were very lucky that UKIP threw the kitchen sink at Eastleigh and the Tory candidate was a dud.

Which constituency is likely to see the biggest fall (in terms of percentage of voters from 2010) I wonder? I'm tempted to go with Barnsley East.

Anyway, context is good, so let's have a list of historical majorities for constituencies including Wythenshawe.

Manchester Wythenshawe was created for the 1950 election and as well as the eponymous estate it crossed the Mersey to include the middle class suburbs of Didsbury and Barlow Moor. As Wythenshawe grew, Barlow Moor was removed for the 1955 election and Didsbury for 1974.

1950: Con 12.1, 1951: Con 12.9, 1955: Con 5.7, 1959: Con 2.3, 1964: Labour 8.5, 1966: Labour 17.3, 1970: Labour 10.5, 1974Feb Labour 25.8, 1974Oct Labour 31.6, 1979: Labour 26.6, 1983 Labour 25.2, 1987 Labour 28.2, 1992 Labour 32.1

By this point Wythenshawe's population was falling (in common with the rest of the City of Manchester), and so for 1997 the present constituency was formed. Labour's notional 1992 majority was 14.6.

1997: Labour 33.0, 2001 Labour 36.0, 2005 30.0, 2010 18.6

Of the Lib seats?

Redcar or Withington potentially?

Rochdale?

Patrick Mercer (Newark) has just announced that he's resigning his seat.  The BBC are speculating about Farage standing.

2010 result:
Patrick Mercer (Con) 53.9%
Ian Campbell (Lab) 22.3%
Pauline Jenkins (LD) 20.0%
Tom Irvine (UKIP) 3.8%

Labour won the seat in 1997, but lost it in 2001 in rather unfortunate circumstances, and AIUI the 2010 boundary changes made it harder for them to win.

Moderators: feel free to merge this with the Wythenshawe thread under a new title if you want to keep them together.

I'm going for a Labour gain, but if the Kipper momentum is large enough, this could be fascinating

Constituency map:

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=http://mapit.mysociety.org/area/65696.kml

On current boundaries this ought to be a rock-solid Conservative seat: former versions of Newark included various industrial towns and villages (mostly on or just off the Nottinghamshire coalfield), the last of which were removed at the last boundary review. So now we're left with a prosperous semi-rural constituency based around a large country town.

But these are dire circumstances for a government defence. UKIP have not done well in the area, but they're a generic protest party as much as anything else, so...

Is it too late for a May 22nd election? Anything after any UKIP success on the 22nd could scupper any chance of a Tory hold.

A few weeks after would be stupid, but after summer?

PB.com on the implications of a UKIP win

If Farage does stand here it would be the seventh different constituency he's stood in.  He hasn't stood more than once in the same place.

(If I had to guess, I'd say he won't.)

That site rots the brain. Try to wean yourself off it.

Farage isn't standing.

It's woeful. Subsample heaven.

Farage won't stand because he can't afford to come second. His leadership isn't secure and won't be until the party translates apparent support into genuine, top tier political results. While I expect the UKIP to perhaps best 7-10% on a good day at the GE, I still think it's more likely that Caroline Lucas will be returned in Brighton and for the Lib Dems to hold on in scores of seats they should otherwise loose than for UKIP to return a single MP.

I'm hoping for a narrow Labour gain on c.30% of the vote based on a Tory-UKIP split....

Oh come on, it's not completely impossible and it would be utterly hilarious given what has already been said about this contest...

Polling day is June 5th

The Patriotic Socialist Party is to stand here (they say)

Roger Helmer for UKIP, report The Sunday Times...

Unsurprisingly, the Nottinghamshire-based joke candidate David Bishop of the Church of the Militant Elvis aka Bus Pass Elvis (who recently beat the Lib Dems in a Nottingham council by-election) says he's going to stand.

Also, UKIP have confirmed that Roger Helmer MEP will be their candidate.  He's been an MEP for the East Midlands since 1999, originally as a Tory before defecting to UKIP in 2012.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Helmer#Views makes for interesting reading:

- He once said that in date rape "the victim surely shares a part of the responsibility, if only for establishing reasonable expectations in her boyfriend's mind".

- He said that homophobia "does not exist", the word merely being "a propaganda device designed to denigrate and stigmatise those holding conventional opinions".

- He suggested that the Church of England had "abandoned religious faith entirely and taken up the religion of climate alarmism instead".  As for the Catholic Church, he said "it would be perfectly fair to describe it as systemically paedophile".

I see that this will be a most edifying and enlightening campaign.

Why Helmer? What possible reason could there be to pick him? I mean, UKIP have a chance (a small one, but nonetheless, a chance) of winning this election, and yet they commit to a non-local candidate, who, at the same time, doesn't really seem to have much going for him. Don't get it.

He has his own resources as MEP and his views won't be as much of a hindrance in Newark as they are among internet progressives.

UKIP could end up eating itself over picking Helmer. He's not the best communicator in the world and as we've seen has opinions that you don't even hear down the pub anymore. The Tories haven't won a by-election in government since 1989, their chances here look better than they did when the by-election was called.

Doubtless not, but views like that are hardly mainstream in places like Newark either. Its a large country town, not one of those weird little places out in the Fens.

Obviously if you wanted it to hurt electorally you'd have to do something other than jump up and down and scream bigot. Not disputing that...

Slightly tangentially, MEPs have historically made less than brilliant by-election candidates. 'Issues' tend to come with being based in Brussels...

It is a peculiar choice for UKIP: not so much getting them out of the pub so much as having them leaping over the bar to slurp mild straight from the taps...

As the old joke goes though, the only difference between a UKIP supporter and a BNP supporter is a few too many pints.

Bear in mind that they did elect Patrick Mercer.

Now that is a fair point.

David Watts for the LibDems
Dick Rogers for Common Good

According to Wikipedia, they once got 313% of the vote in a Birmingham council election.  The rest of their electoral record is less impressive...

Nick The Flying Brick Delves for the OMRLP

So Labour are only going to run a skeleton campaign for this one (cash-strapped), and running a 25 year old student politician type as candidate. This is probably going to step up to be a Tory vs. Helmer affair.

Ugh, imagine if we had a two round voting system and had to choose between Helmer and the government.

Who thinks the Lib Dems will save their deposit? (The answer is no, they won't.)

Well, Southwell elected LD councillors in 2011 (last local elections), so it might be possible.

If Labour don't campaign, Lib Dems will probably get more than 5%.

We will..

I'd either hold my nose and vote for the Government (if the Government candidate was a Lib Dem or relatively sane sort of Tory) or spoil my ballot.


One danger for the Lib Dems, deposit-wise, is that if this becomes perceived as a Con/UKIP contest (which seems likely) then the more Coalition-tolerant part of their 2010 vote may be squeezed by the Tories.

I think on balance I'd expect them to hold it -- they had over 20% here in 2010, and while that was true in Wythenshawe & Sale East too, Newark isn't very like Wythenshawe -- but I wouldn't be that surprised if they didn't.

Green Party to stand here - https://mobile.twitter.com/davegaz/status/465927462032244736

That's exactly what I was thinking. The left wing of the Lib Dems base have long gone, and the Tory seems like a sort of agreeable careerist who could grab right leaning Liberals. Obviously he could be a Hutchings style loon, but the only real known quantity at the moment is Helmer, who LD's certainly want out of parliament.

I suppose the one benefit is the Liberal candidate is actually local and hasn't been parachuted in, so he could have a local following.

From the Newark Advertiser

Official list

   Paul BAGGALEY (Independent)   
   David BISHOP   (Bus Pass Elvis)   
   Nick The Flying BRICK    (Monster Raving Loony)
   Andy HAYES      (Independent)
   Roger HELMER   (UK Independence Party (   UKIP))
   Robert JENRICK   (Conservative)
   David KIRWAN   (Green)
   Michael PAYNE   (Labour)
        Dick RODGERS    (Stop Commercial Banks Owning Britian's Money)
   David WATTS   (Liberal Democrat)
   Lee WOODS.        (Patriotic Socialist)

So what would folks put UKIP's odds at in Newark?

Survation poll for the Scum: Con 36, UKIP 28, Labour 27, LDem 5

Take with appropriately vast quantities of salt.

That's better for Labour than I was expecting.  (Salt taken, mind.)

By-election polls in this parliament have had a bit of a habit of underestimating UKIP, but the timing of this poll might mean otherwise.

Anything but a Tory hold will start alarm bells on the backbenchers, surely. This is a safe seat...

It would be the first Tory hold in a by-election while in government since 1989. Actually holding it is more out of the ordinary.

And look what happened to them after their last string of by-election defenses when they were last in government...

If you look a bit further back it starts to look like it was the 1989-97 period which was out of the ordinary, and also the safe seats which were lost in by-elections in that period were generally lost to a certain party with a yellow bird logo which for some reason isn't doing very well at the moment.

Imagine a crackpot like Helmer becoming UKIP's highest elected representative though.

Nigel will also look silly if they win, having decided not to stand.

And another poll, this time done for Lord Ashcroft: Con 42, UKIP 27, Labour 20, LDem 6

That's terrible news for Ed Milliband

Okay, so sarcasm it is. Couldn't really detect it regarding the Scottish Tories and devo max.

Small note, on Thursday, UKIP will finally overtake the LibDems for number of votes cast in by-elections over the course of this parliament.

Gosh, the Lib Dems really annoy Labour people. One would almost think that Cameron invented the Lib Dems to distract them from the Tories.

Well, when they spend a generation attacking Labour as too right-wing, then put Cameron in number 10 in exchange for nothing more than some nice ministerial limos and then go onto break more promises than most people have had hot dinners, despite professing during the campaign that they "believe it's time for promises to be kept"... they'll annoy Labour people just a little bit, yeah.

Wow - amazing how the Lib Dems in the UK sound exactly like the Liberal Party in Canada!! I guess the apple never falls far from the tree.

Results at the last General Election:

Patrick Mercer (Con) 27,590 - 53.9%
Ian Campbell (Lab) 11,438 - 22.8%
Pauline Jenkins (LDem) 10,246 - 20.0%
Tom Irvine (UKIP) 1,954 - 3.8%

Majority 16,152 (31.5%)

Turnout was 71.4%

Nick Clegg is one of the "Orange Book" LibDems. Charles Kennedy wasn't. Nor was Paddy Ashdown before him. Clegg is probably the only LibDem leader in party history that would have gone in with the Tories. Hell, Kennedy openly said he wouldn't have and in 97, in the event of a hung parliament, Ashdown wanted to go into a coalition with Labour.

Now, turnout will be a lot lower in the by-election (obviously) and those that do vote will be much more tempted by smaller parties than in a General Election (obviously).

The Conservatives will presumably be trying to turn out at least half of their 2010 vote; it is hard to lose a by-election these days if you poll c.14k votes. Basically the seat is only vulnerable if they fail to do this. The circumstances of the poll, their less than spectacular candidate and the proximity to the Euro elections don't help, but we'll see.

UKIP polled slightly under two thousand votes in 2010; two thousand votes is terrible in a General Election, but counts for a lot more in a by-election if only as a kernel. Unless turnout is shockingly awful for a place like this, they probably need 10k at minimum to have a chance at winning.

Oh good heavens. Is that what you truly believe? Because it's utter tripe.

Is it? Really, is it?

It was a pretty accurate description of events.  And I say that as one of the many people who (would have) enthusiastically supported the Lib Dems in 2010, and is now ready to watch them crumble next year.

Difficult to think of any politician who fell from grace as quickly as Clegg. Churchillian approval ratings during the campaign, then just about the most unpopular centre party leader on record by the end of that year. Lulz. A similar thing happened to Blair, but it took more like a decade.

He ran on tax cuts and coalition with the most-voted party, so it should have been as clear as crystal that the most likely coalition was with the Tories, regardless of whatever Charles Kennedy said seven years and three leaders before him. As for the big promises of tax cuts, education spending and constitutional reform, they won the first, caved spectacularly on the second and Labour helped the Tories to block the third. Unless Miliband will radically reduce university tuition fees, some of the complaints from Labour should be read opportunistically. The Lib Dem promise-breaking record and polling outcomes are about as good/bad as your typical European small coalition party, though the British electoral system magnifies such low poll figures.

They ran on the promise to talk to the biggest party first, fair enough, but the party had still spent 20 years lambasting Labour as too right-wing and presenting themselves as the 'true' left only to use this support to put Cameron in Number 10 and to keep him there. Minority government was an option and would've been more pleasing to all sides. The hope many had at first was that they'd be a brake on any excessive Tory measures, but, if anything, they've been the accelerator, offering Cameron support on any issue for which it was needed.

Tax "cuts" - They put up VAT despite warning of a "Tory VAT bombshell" and they cut the 50p rate, breaking their promise of "fairer taxes".

Constitution - It was a weak offer on Lords reform anyway which most Libs didn't even like. They also "won" a referendum in the coalition agreement on a voting system that nobody wanted and wouldn't have solved the problems that they themselves wanted addressing.

And Labour has promised a reduction in tuition fees. The LibDem increase didn't achieve what it aimed for and has given a poor, regressive deal to students - a price which is 3x higher than before, for poorer quality and to see swathes of degree programmes shut down. It will also cost the tax payer more through the loss of unpaid loans.

They've spent their time in government, for the most part, running away from their own record to no avail, because there's no point in trying to fool themselves or the public into thinking that they've honoured the faith that over 6 million people entrusted them with at the last election. They're not at 7% in the polls for no reason.

Yes. I find it remarkable that people still can't grasp what coalition government means, or how elections work. That people are getting into emotional fits over a political party agreeing to work with another suggests that more voters than I feared don't listen to what's said before polling day.

Having put many manifesto promises into law, I'm more than happy at the record of LibDems in government. Prissy petulance about TEH EVUL TOREEEZ is laughable claptrap.

There are many threads available to discuss the merits of the Cameron ministry and Nick Clegg, but only one to discuss the Newark by-election. Shoo!

There are many reasons aside from the Coalition to loathe the Lib Dems - Bermondsey, David Ward, Mike Hancock, Cyril Smith, Lord Rennard, ousting a leader due to his alcoholism... Frankly, I wouldn't dislike a Tory majority government anymore than any government in which the Lib Dems are a part.

Let's discuss it then...

In spite of the Survation poll showing Labour only just behind UKIP, it seems to have been perceived as a blue/purple battle.  There are some suggestions that some Labour supporters may even be voting tactically, though I doubt there can be that many (and not all of them in the same direction...).  I expect a Tory hold.

There's a hospital independent (Paul Baggaley, a Newark town councillor) standing; if anyone other than the Lib Dems comes fourth I'd think he's the most likely.

Apparently there's a poll carried out by Loughborough University students showing UKIP narrowly ahead.  Without further details I'd take this with a bigger pinch of salt needed than usual, but we'll see.

If I were a UKIP member, I wouldn't want to win this election. True, I'd want Cameron to sweat; but only to the extent of the blue team winning by a whisker. Because, if UKIP do win attention will be pulled from cuddly telegenic Farage and drawn to the fruitcake. UKIP is a vehicle for Farage's charisma - can that be channelled through a somewhat unreliable proxy? Doubtful.

I think it depends. Reform won a by-election before their breakthrough, and it probably helped them. If UKIP could elect a personable person without any peculiar views, it would be good for their GE prospects. In Reform's case, it gave them four years to hammer the Tories on Quebec/the constitution. A good UKIPer in Westminister would be able to do the same to the British Tories with Europe.

UKIP's candidate here is Roger Helmer who would be a walking disaster as an MP for various reasons.

Two words that I never thought I would see combined without irony...

Looking at the European election results in the area:

The constituency contains parts of three local government areas.  Most is in Newark & Sherwood, but the Bingham area in the south is in Rushcliffe, and a rural area in the north around is in Bassetlaw.

UKIP carried Newark & Sherwood district by 32.4% to the Tories' 31.2% and Labour's 21.4%, but it should be noted that the district also contains a substantial part of Sherwood constituency, and it is pretty clear that the part of the district in Sherwood (much of which is coalfield) is substantially worse for the Tories than that in Newark constituency.

The parts in the other two districts are both fairly small.  The Tories carried Rushcliffe fairly comfortably (the rest of the district forms Ken Clarke's constituency, of course) and Labour carried Bassetlaw narrowly over UKIP with the Tories some way behind, but the bit in this constituency is not where the Labour strength is in Bassetlaw.

Putting that together, I think the Tories carried this constituency in the Euros.

What are those reasons?

However, Rushcliffe includes West Bridgford which will have been comparatively poor for UKIP.

He has been an MEP for fifteen years. British MEPs are mostly lazy morons who do very little work, unless you count the abuse of expenses as work. British voters are fine with this because they do not care about the European Parliament and are barely aware that it exists. British MPs, however, are expected to be active, whether as parliamentarians or as constituency representatives. Voters do not like it when this is not the case. And as a consequence of the 2009 expenses farrago, a very considerable degree of probity and good behavior is now not only expected but demanded.

In other words, there's a reason why the George Galloway Express moves from city to city rather than staying put.

Additionally, he's an idiot who often says stupid and offensive things. That's not so damaging if it's councillor x or candidate y, but if it is an MP, reactions are generally more severe.

Any idea of when we will get the result? I'm not willing to sit through media coverage.

By-elections usually declare after one; sometimes much later.

Ah, another time then :P

Rumours suggest a 1. Tory, 2. UKIP, 3. Labour lineup, for whatever that's worth. But there are less rumours and they are less detailed than is the norm.

Looking at the two Survation polls, evidence of Labs and Libs going tactically for the Tories.

Weird sh!t happens in circus by-elections. This is the first one for a while, I suppose. Low turnout but not an embarrassing low turnout.

Turnout was 52.8%

Bang on the same as Eastleigh. Tied for second best of the parliament, behind Mid-Ulster.

But note that this is a high turnout constituency.

Farage has conceded on behalf of Helmer (!) and says the Tories have won by c. 2,500

LibDems in 6th!

haha.

Outstanding result considering they came 7th in Rotherham and South Shields.

Malcolm Bruce saying that the Libs aren't a national party and they never have been.

Some revisionism there. These guys were leading in the polls during the last general election campaign.

More to the point, they do have an existing local government base here (a bigger one that Labour, actually). If these rumours are true, that's worse for them than I expected.

Dan Hodges tweeting about how the LibDems finishing 6th is bad news for Labour.

It's terrible news for Ed Milliband.

But they have beaten Bus Pass Elvis.

Christ, the Labour guy at the count is a muppet.

Update: And is matched by the Tory in the studio.

Con 45.03% (-8.82%)
UKIP 25.91% (+22.09%)
Lab 17.68% (-4.65%)
Ind (Baggaley) 4.89%   
Green 2.73%   
Lib Dem 2.59% (-17.41%)
MRLP 0.43%   
Ind (Woods) 0.30%   
Elvis 0.22%   
CG 0.17%   
PSP 0.05%   

Good result for the Tories under the circumstances; a big majority. Pleased the Labour vote didn't collapse horribly or anything, LibDem vote even worse than expected. This is somewhere where they still have councillors.

Hahaha lolmedia

Also, I must here point out that this result is terrible news for Ed Milliband.

I don't think this was an ideal seat for UKIP, but they were clearly trying to win and only getting 25% must be disappointing for them.  Even if it's true that other parties' supporters ganged up on them by tactically supporting the Tories (which does look plausible from the figures) they didn't get enough votes for that to have been needed.  In a General Election people might feel differently of course, but could something similar happen then in a UKIP target seat?

According to the Guardian UKIP and the Lib Dems are wondering aloud whether the Tories spent more than allowed on their campaign.

I wonder if I can block Dan Hodges blog posts from the Daily Telegraph. Probably not :P

While the circumstances were certainly ideal (seat vacant due to a corruption scandal, poll held shortly after the Euro elections) and the Tories had the sort of candidate that can could have lost a by-election all by themselves back when a certain yellow hued party enjoyed rather than dreaded them.

It's terrible news for the Monster Raving Loonies if they still can't beat the LDs in a place like this. I'll go out on a limb and predict the MRLP will not win a single seat in the next general election if this trend continues.

I remember when Robert Jenrick was an unsuccessful candidate in local elections in Broseley. This means that the awful local rag will probably big up The Shropshire Connection of New Tory MP or some similar nauseating bollocks.

Robert Jenrick seems like a caricature of a Tory MP.

Yes. He's exactly the sort of candidate that - back when the LibDems were a danger in by-elections - the Tories had a habit of wishing they hadn't selected.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, is that you? (That name always sounds like a great name for a tomcat to me.)

Eye Manor even has its own wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_Manor)!

I doubt they'd be so blatant as to spend more that £100,000 0n the campaign, but there were some similar mutterings at the last general election that money was spent on the council election tab that had an effect on the parliamentary campaign. Might be something similar with euro money being disproportionately spent  in Newark

of course i'm merely speculating on what the lib dems might be thinking, i'm sure that the tories didn't do anything illegal.  Sneaky and underhanded on the other hand...

Posh, monied and with a superior slightly patronising air about them... it's easy to see why 64% of the UK electorate dislike the Tories so effortlessly :(

It's not like campaign overspending has ever happened before in Newark.

South Cambridgeshire is a potential by-election; Andrew Lansley being widely associated with Britain's EC spot. Most of the area has been represented by the Tories since 1950. Lansley's majority is solid rather than large (13.3%) but that's over the LibDems.

not that I like making everything about UKIP, but what do we think? 20% second place?

Why does Cameron want to bump Lansley of all people off to Brussels? he's been doing such a good job at health.

I don't know, looking at the map of Cambridgeshire 2013 elections, UKIP did not penetrate any of South Cambridgeshire and maintained their sprawling rural wards.

()

Looking at the ward-by-ward results for South C, it looks like the LD's haven't entered freefall; so the party may still remain second. If a "Newark" result occurs here, we can only declare Libdemegeddon.

I can't find the Euro election results though, which may be more helpful.

Will there even be a by-election, though?  I suspect that if the seat becomes vacant too late for one before Christmas, it'll just be left vacant.

Quite a bit of that area is effectively Cambridge suburbs and exurbs, not what I'd have thought of as prime Kipper territory.  It's not the real Fens.

           Con   Lab   LD   UKIP Green Oth
2014   32.4   13.9   14.8   24.2     11.6   3.1

that's South Cambs district, which includes parts to the east that aren't in the constituency

not all wards were up in the local elections this year, but the lib dems held all of the ones that they were defending, UKIP only stood in one and got 16%

Nah, there's been really late by-elections before. Wirral South 1997 probably being the most notable. Also, a two or three months before the election, a Tory hold (which it would easily be) would really cheer up the party.

No, they wouldn't be.

Yeah, there's a good chance of that being so.


Think it still includes a ward of Cambridge proper.

Yes, Queen Edith's (a Lib Dem stronghold). No clue who was Queen Edith, through.
25 of the 34 South Cambridgeshire, too (exceptions are Balsham, Fulbourn, Histon and Impington, Linton, Milton, Teversham, The Wilbrahams, Waterbeach, Willingham and Over).

Edith of Wessex possibly? But I'm not actually sure.

Mike Hancock's political career is clearly very very over now. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-27909267)

He will presumably try to avoid resigning his seat and his (soon to be former?) party would not wish for a by-election, which would be a circus and a free-for-all.

Well, plainly he's not going to resign and cause a by-election; that would entail the abstract concept of shame. And if that hasn't kicked in by now, it never will...

After all, this is someone accused of being a dirty old man who wears a beige mac in public.

Edith Swan-Neck? Wife of King Harold II (>>>------>0 that Harold)

Is there a scenario where the Libs finish 4th in any Portsmouth South by election?

Cons 1st, obviously.
UKIP 2nd, sort've obviously.
Lab 3rd, 25% of the population are in 'full-time education' here - students, they would've gone en masse for Hancock in 2010. Obviously this is blunted if it's a summer by-election.
Libs 4th, new candidate and vote split with...
...Hancock IND 5th.

The Kremlin must be very sad its pet shill turned out to be even more awful than suspected.

I don't think Hancock will run as an indie, unless his ego is incomprehensibly distorted.
 And as much as he deserves it he won't be forced to resign, so a by-election is unlikely.

LOL yes. Must try harder!

I believe she was his mistress

Chris Rand has a website called Queen Edith's Online, which has something about the origin of the name.


http://queen-ediths.co.uk/why-is-this-area-of-cambridge-called-queen-ediths/

Looks like we have a Clacton by-election, with Douglas Carswell (elected as Conservative) formally resigning to defend his seat in his new UKIP colours:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-28967904

Douglas Carswell MP (elected for the Clacton constituency in 2005) has announced this morning that not only is he defecting from the Conservatives to the United Kingdom Independence Party, but he will resigning his Westminster seat in order to fight the Clacton by-election as UKIP (which as you can imagine has taken a lot of people by surprise!)

Clacton
Douglas Carswell, Con    22867   53.02%
Ivan Henderson, Lab    10799   25.04%
Michael Green, Lib Dem     5577   12.93%
Jim Taylor, BNP     1975    4.57%
Terry Allen, Tendring     1078    2.49%
Chris Southall, Green      535    1.24%
Christopher Humphrey, Ind      292    0.67%
Conservative HOLD with a majority of 12,068 (28%) on a swing of 9% from Labour to Conservative

This by-election is the first defection by-election since Mitcham and Morden in 1982 and could well be timed to cause maximum chaos for the Conservative Party Conference (due towards the end of September)

As much as I despise his politics, props to him for having the balls to immediately re-contest his seat. 

Ah, already heard the ignorant "Labour will win if anyone votes UKIP" line. That was swifter than usual.

The latest rumours swirling around Westminster are:

Coalition MP's are being whipped to reject the writ being moved
Chancellor to oppose signing the stewardship document that allows an MP to resign
Writ to be moved so that the by-election happens during the Liberal Democrat conference

Hm, there are more than a few other Tory MPs with UKIP sympathies, and they would not be amused by those plans.

Ladbrooks by-election odds:

1/3 UKIP
5/2 Cons
10/1 Lab
100/1 LD

I wonder who else in the Tory ranks would be tempted to break ranks if all hell breaks loose. Michael Fabricant? Owen Patterson? Nadine Dories? Peter Bone? Dan Hannan?

You mean Dan Hannan the MEP (who cannot force a by-election due to the method of his election)?

Yes. I didn't mean to imply "cause by-elections", sorry, just some prominent Tories that might floor cross.

So how does that work? Can his seat legally stay empty for almost one year?

Paterson is an NFU hack, so, no.

In principle, yes, but it's not very likely.

The first thing that needs to happen is for Carswell to be appointed Steward of the Manor of Northstead (which is the formal way he resigns his seat).  One of Harry's rumours above is that the Chancellor might refuse to do this; as MPs cannot actually resign (but have to be appointed to either that office or the Chiltern Hundreds) this would block the by-election, but it would unprecedented in modern times (not to say rather petty) for the Chancellor to refuse.

Then an MP needs to move the writ in the Commons to formally call the by-election.  Normally this is done by the defending party.  In this case I don't know whether that's considered to be the Conservatives or UKIP, but as the latter have no other MPs if it's them someone else will have to do it, as happens for Sinn Féin and independent vacancies.  (Anyway, another party can move it: the Lib Dems moved the writ for Oldham East & Saddleworth earlier in this parliament, where Labour were defending.)  There are cases where a party who didn't want a by-election wait a long time to move the writ, but the recent trend has been to move it quickly.  It would also be possible in principle for MPs to vote down the writ, as suggested by another one of Harry's rumours, but again this would be unprecedented in modern times.

All that said, I expect that Carswell will be appointed Steward of the Manor of Northstead within a few days, someone (probably a Tory) will move the writ within the next couple of weeks, and there will be a by-election in October.

This is going to be a ridiculous circus of a by-election.

You can say that again.

In the days when rotten boroughs abounded, the House of Commons sometimes noticed particularly outrageous examples and punished them by not issuing a writ for a by-election. This left a seat vacant for the rest of a Parliament. The disappointed electors were thus cheated of the opportunity to freely vote for the highest bidder, one more time. Nineteenth century spoilsports were sometimes so outraged that they disenfranchised the borough (see the sad history of Grampound in Cornwall, whose two seats were transferred to Yorkshire). It should be noted that the borough would still be represented as part of a county constituency, when its individual representation disappeared, but there would be fewer opportunities to make a corrupt profit.

However punishing a corrupt constituency is not really something to be done in a modern democracy. Nowadays it would just be a squalid party game to leave innocent electors without an MP.

Yeah, I'd be very surprised if the Government actually reacts in that way. Would be totally counterproductive.

Potential mild amusement: UKIP already have a candidate selected for Clacton (some county councillor).

Question: Are "real life" UKIPers in general as fanatical and stupid as they appear to be on the internet?

A feisty type

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jimwaterson/ukips-clacton-candidate-says-he-wont-stand-down-for-douglas

()

Haven't been in for a while, but thought I would offer some constitutional knowledge to the by-election questions.

I think it would be unthinkable that Osborne could refuse an appointment to Northstead Manor/Chiltern Hundred. He would undoubtedly be advised by government lawyers/civil servants/constitutional experts that he would set an awful precedent. The only reference I can find to a refusal to appoint was in 1842 - I have no idea why it was refused.

Parliament is in recess until 1 Sept, and then again from 12 Sept to 13 Oct for party conferences. This is important. Under the terms of the Recess Elections Act 1975 the Speaker is required to issue a writ for a by-election if petitioned by 2 MPs during a recess. This is rarely used, but is on the books: Should we make it to the conference recess period, expect 2 MPs to be found.

There is potential for fun and games if the writ is moved during 1-12 Sept. Technically the motion to move the writ can contain many details, including when the Speaker should actually issue his writ. In modern times, no directive of time is usually given and the Speaker does so within 24 hours. Historically this was not always the case, and the Speaker was directed to issue his writ on a particular date - this definitely was done in 1983 for the Cardiff NW when Conservatives delayed the issuance of the writ by a few weeks (in the end, the 1983 general election superceded the by-election).

Should the Tories wish to prevent a conference season recess writ (which could not be filibustered or voted down) and a delayed by-election, this would be their best bet - pass a writ quickly in September with some date long in the future. By convention the writ is issued within 3 months of the vacancy, so technically they could direct the Speaker to issue at the end of November with a by-election date sometime in the New Year and be considered to be completely within the existing conventions.

Whilst constitutionally permissible, politically this would be crazy - UKIP would exploit it massively in the media and would tar the existing political classes as totally disconnected and operating within their own rules with no regard for the constituents who were unrepresented.

Yeah, he can't act like this is Canada.

Wouldn't shock me if they went for the Thursday of Labour conference. It'd nip any Labour bounce in the bud.

Unless Labour gained Clacton that is?

Everyone's pretty sure we can count that out though.

The only people who care about that kind of thing are Sunday newspaper columnists. Admittedly this means that it can't be ruled out entirely.

And, no, there's no chance of a Labour gain. Clacton was mostly in the old Harwich constituency that voted Labour in 1997 and 2001... but these were basically flukes, even for those elections.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/historic_moments/newsid_8185000/8185773.stm

Afraid. Frightened. Frit.

do the tories even need to banjax the Lib Dems any more, surely they'd do much more proportional damage to labour if those were the kind of shenanigans they're willing to stoop to

anyway, Carswell won Harwich in 2005 with a majority of 900 votes, the boundary change for the 2010 election notionally increased that to 4,000, and then the election result was a 12,000 vote majority (with no UKIP candidate) so Labour being in the equation isn't completely out of the equation, However knowing Essex I'd be surprised if they manage to increase their vote share though

It would appear that Labour held the seat from 1997-2005 for two main reasons: 1. 9.2% Referendum Party share in 1997 (surely close to being the highest in the country), 2. Lib Dem voters fleeing to Labour in droves; the Lib Dem vote in 2005 was half of what it was in 1992.

Labour's candidate was also a big factor; Ivan Henderson is a beloved figure in Harwich. Which was removed from the seat for the 2010 election. Conservative MP (and candidate in 2001) was a parachuted Scot mostly notable for a failed attempt at chicken running in 1983.

According to UKIPologists Matthew Goodwin and Rob Ford (not that one), Clacton has the most UKIP-friendly demographics of any seat in the entire country.

In fact, Goodwin made a blog post (http://www.matthewjgoodwin.com/2014/05/an-mp-and-ukip-database.html?utm_content=buffera3829&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer&m=1) in May where he says Carswell asked him where Clacton was on the list.  I wonder what Carswell was actually thinking about at the time...

"The Chancellor of the Exchequer has this day appointed John Douglas Wilson Carswell to be Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead." (https://www.politicshome.com/uk/article/103834/hm_treasury_manor_of_northstead.html)

do the actually still get their nominal pound for that office?

Clacton wasn't being spoken about as a UKIP target before now, despite this demography, which suggests that UKIP's public targets are chosen to punish Conservative MPs less opposed to the EU than Douglas Carswell.

You forgot to add 'champion bullsh!t merchants'.

Survation poll...brace yourselves.

UKIP - 64% (+64)
Tories - 20% (-33)
Labour - 13% (-12)
Lib Dems - 2% (-11)
Others - 1% (-8)

Several records would fall on that.

Terrible news for Matthew Goodwin and Rob Ford.

By Wikipedia, Harwich was the Referendum Party's best result anywhere in 1997.

I'm only vaguely familiar with them; why in particular are they bullsh*tters? Sensationalising UKIP in order to sell their book?

The Tories were going into this the underdogs anyway and a loss of any kind would be hard to manage for them, especially for the leadership... but a loss of this scale is something much, much worse (and of course, Labour and the LDs won't put in anything much beyond actually standing a candidate, so the story won't be them).

A majority like that for Carswell would be greater than that of any current Tory MP and even for Labour, you have to start looking to Glasgow and Merseyside to find majorities like this poll suggests.

Ashcroft poll for Clacton:
UKIP 56
Con 24
Lab 16
LD 2
(so a similar message to the Survation poll but not quite as extreme)

The writ is apparently going to be moved today for the by-election to be on 9 October.

Which is David Cameron's birthday.

So the combined 'right-wing' vote may well be in the 80s...if these polls are accurate then we are looking at Bradford West in reverse.

Carswell will almost certainly be elected, but is there a chance he could be buried in the general election's "Labour v. Tory" shuffle?

UKIP faded in 2010 because they only received publicity during the 2009 Euro elections and were swiftly forgotten about. But now they have firmly been in the public eye for two years. Carswell will pretty comfortably hold next year too, in my view, and UKIP will break 10% nationally.

There's no by-election previews this week (unless Kris has written one), but there are three contests today. In Oxford Labour are defending Carfax ward, which covers the city centre, after their councillor resigned due to pressure of work (she now runs a department at King's College London). The electorate in Carfax is overwhelmingly Oxford University students living in colleges, so God only knows how low the turnout is going to be with the University in recess. Labour are also defending Old Dean ward in Camberley, Surrey, which is the only reliable Labour ward in Surrey Heath district. Finally, the Tories are under pressure from UKIP in Harvey Central ward, Folkestone, where the previous Tory councillor resigned after the local newspaper started investigating his debts.

Roger Lord (the candidate UKIP originally selected for the general election in Clacton) lashes out at Farage (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/04/nigel-farage-candidate-ukip-clacton-douglas-carswell).

I'm somewhat disappointed that he doesn't appear to be planning to change his name by deed poll to Douglas Carsweel and stand in the by-election for An Independence From Europe.

In other developments, the Tories are going to decide who loses to Carswell for them (http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/sep/04/clacton-byelection-conservative-candidate-open-primary) in what the Guardian calls a "US-style open primary" but sounds more like a sort of open caucus: "a public meeting on Thursday 11 September at which residents will be able to vote for their preferred candidate from a shortlist of four selected by the local association".  And of course some people are saying that someone whose given names are Alexander Boris de Pfeffel should be one of the candidates.

A possible precedent of sorts. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_by-election,_1973)

What impact, if any, would a Yes vote have on the situation in Clacton? Some people ('some people' as in politicalbetting.com) are suggesting that it would unleash a wave of nationalism throughout the UK and UKIP would be the main beneficies in England.

The Labour MP for Heywood & Middleton, Jim Dobbin, has passed away.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-29100304 (http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-29100304)

Post modified by El Caudillo: let's have some basic human decency here people

I think what you meant to write was that Jim Dobbin (Labour MP for Heywood & Middleton since 1997) has died.

My apologies. I didn't think it sounded that way when I wrote it. Yeah, that's what you get when you rush.

Ding dong, eh, Al ? ;)

Matthew Parris currently at his most loathsome regarding Clacton.

I do love when retired politicians realise they don't need to appease electorate any more, and just spew all the stored-up bile they've squirrelled away, without care. I doubt it will help the alienation of provincial people who feel alienated by the big cities, though.

This is very sad news :(

Jim Dobbin was Chairman of the Parliamentary Pro-Life Group. Labour has lost 2 pro-life fighters in Joe Benton and Jim Dobbin in the next Parliament.

........................................................oh no

Is there really any significant anti-abortion faction in Labour?

There is a not large but also not negligible group of Catholic Labour MPs who are strongly opposed to abortion. There's a larger group (more mixed, but still with a Catholic lean) who are notably ambivalent about the subject.

Interesting - it's an absolute non-issue within the Social Democrats and the left wing parties in DK. But then again, no catholic faction either

Labour have moved the writ for the Heywood & Middleton by-election caused by Jim Dobbin's death, so it'll be held on 9 October together with Clacton.

according to this table posted on the local elections thread, the local results across the constituency (Heywood, not Clacton) was Lab 41, Ukip 25, Con 22, LD 10

I'd be very surprised if Ukip win this one but its not one that I think Labour are looking forward to

Yes, and Labour are terrified enough to force the writ to move backwards so they can quickly mobilise their machine and prevent UKIP momentum building.

It's odd that Catholic factions are considered social conservatives in the UK and Australia, but in the US Catholics are relatively moderate.

Some hypotheses.
1. There are more evangelical/Pentecostal Christians to push the Overton window rightwards in the USA - but what about the Netherlands?
2. Catholics are more firmly in the left-wing bloc in UK/Australia, so social conservatism stands out more.
3. Actually, pro-life US Democrats probably are Catholic (or in the South).

In contrast in Canada our version of the Labour Party - the NDP - is 100% pro-choice and you are not allowed to be a candidate (let alone sit in caucus) unless you pledge to support abortion rights in any parliamentary vote. The Liberals used to be more divided but now their leader Justin Trudeau has also said that no one will be allowed to run in the next election unless they support abortion rights - though a handful of incumbent pro-life Liberal MPs will be "grandfathered" and allowed to continue to be anti-choice.

The silver lining in this is that the NDP has never, and will never form government, so I guess they can do what they want.

Even the Lib Dems in the UK have a pro-life minority.  Indeed one of the more high profile pro-life MPs in the 1980s was a Liberal/Lib Dem, David Alton.

Back on topic, the Tory "primary" in Clacton (http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/sep/11/tory-councillors-clacton-primary) is tonight.  There are only two candidates (perhaps it wasn't the most attractive vacancy...) who will have a debate followed by a vote.

Saying that a party as strong as NDP will never form a government is absurd. The Grits may very well collapse at some point leaving NDP as one of the pillars of a two party system. Just because something isn't going to happen in the immediate future doesn't mean its never going to happen.

Especially in a country like Canada! :)

Or the Conservatives could collapse, which is perhaps more likely.

I think the difference between the NDP and UK Labour is that there's historically been large Catholic sections of their voting coalition. Many Labour MPs represent very socially conservative parts of the country as well.

An important thing to note here is that abortion was legalised via a private members bill and the legislation is a deliberate practical compromise that leaves everyone equally unhappy. Partly for reasons of obvious electoral self-interest there has always been a strong desire amongst mainstream parties to avoid issues like that becoming partisan ones.

Anyway, here's the Grauniad obit of Dobbin (http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/sep/10/jim-dobbin).

They selected Giles Watling (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giles_Watling).  An actor and Tory councillor for Frinton.

I think it's slightly generous to describe English abortion law as an equanimous compromise. In practice, it's difficult to distinguish from other European countries with liberal abortion regimes, and pro-life people are clearly unhappier about it than pro-choice people, as is clear from the parliamentary debates, which are usually about tightening the law and not loosening it. Labour's pro-life tendency is related to the bloc of Irish and Irish-British, and other Catholics, which until the Anglican reforms of the last few decades was much stronger in the Labour parliamentary party than the Conservatives, and as Sibboleth mentioned these debates and bills have been arranged more by parliamentarians than by voters' giving mandates to parties.

A tribute to Jim Dobbin (http://labourlist.org/2014/09/no-weather-vane-he/) on LabourList, by someone who worked for him.

Labour shortlist for Heywood & Middleton (http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/ex-bbc-presenter-who-sued-over-7770209):

- Miriam O'Reilly, former presenter of BBC Countryfile, who successfully sued the BBC for age discrimination when removed from it.  Twitter profile says "Irish. Award winning Journalist. Writer. Campaigner. Fought ageism at the BBC and won."

- Kailash Chand, doctor and deputy chair of the BMA, campaigner against the coalition's health "reforms", from Tameside.  Twitter profile says "Deputy chair of BMA. Passionate supporter of the NHS. Write regularly for Society Guardian & Tribune. I tweet on personal capacity."

- Liz McInnes, Rossendale councillor.  Twitter profile says "Healthcare scientist and union rep for Unite, Labour Councillor for Longholme Ward, Rossendale Council, mum to Sam, sister to many and mad housewife."

- Byron Taylor, Basildon (!) councillor.  Twitter profile says "Trade unionist & political campaigner."

Liz McInnes won the Labour selection for Heywood & Middleton.  Possibly the most local to the constituency of those on the shortlist, though I confess that when I think of Rossendale and the word "local" the League of Gentlemen come to mind.

Greens and Tories have also selected today.  UKIP selected their Wythenshawe candidate, John Bickley, a few days ago.  I don't know about the Lib Dems, but nominations close tomorrow so I suspect they have too.

Her ward is western Rawtenstall, which isn't too bad.  The real League of Gentlemen area in Rossendale is Bacup (in fact the real League decided against filming in Bacup because it was too scary).

Bacup is the place I was thinking of...

Just five candidates for Heywood & Middleton:
John Bickley (UKIP)
Iain Gartside (Con)
Abi Jackson (Green)
Liz McInnes (Lab)
Anthony Smith (Lib Dem)

And for reference, in 2010 this was the (rounded) results:

Labour - 40
Tory - 27
Lib Dem - 23
BNP - 7
UKIP - 3

After a healthy cannibalisation of the two coalition parties, we might end up with a result like this: (warning of terrible and doubtless incorrect prediction coming)

Labour 50%
UKIP 30%
Conservative 13%
Lib Dem 4%
Green 3%

As for Clacton, Tendring council haven't put an official list on their website yet, but the media are reporting that there are 8 candidates:

Douglas Carswell (UKIP)
Andy Graham (Lib Dem)
Alan Howling Laud Hope (OMRLP)
Charlotte Rose (Ind)
Bruce Sizer (Ind)
Chris Southall (Green)
Giles Watling (Con)
Tim Young (Lab)

A Scottish Jacobite Party (!) candidate had his nomination rejected for some reason.  The absurd "Patriotic Socialist Party" had supposedly selected a candidate (the one who got two votes in a recent council by-election) but he's missing from the above list.

Rochester and Strood (http://news.uk.msn.com/uk/tory-mp-mark-reckless-defects-to-ukip398844)

Result in 2010
Mark Reckless (Con) 23,604 (49% +6% on notional 2005)
Teresa Murray (Lab) 13,651 (28% -13% on notional 2005)
Geoffrey Juby (Lib Dem) 7,800 (16% +4% on notional 2005)
Ron Sands (Eng Dems) 2,182 (5% +5% on notional 2005)
Simon Marchant (Green) 734 (2%, no candidate in 2005)
Conservative HOLD with a majority of 9,953 (21%) on a notional swing of 10% from Labour to Conservative

Medway Local Area Count Result : European Elections 2014
United Kingdom Independence Party 27,265 (42% +20% on 2009)
Conservatives 15,043 (23% -8% on 2009)
Labour 12,448 (19% +4% on 2009)
Green 3,684 (6% -2% on 2009)
Liberal Democrats 2,420 (4% -5% on 2009)
British National Party 761 (1% -7% on 2009)
Other Parties 3,480 (5% -3% on 2009)
UKIP GAIN from Con on a swing of 14% from Con to UKIP

How similar is this seat to the Medway seat which Bob Marshall-Andrews narrowly held for Labour in 2005 (after conceding defeat)?  There must have been some changes if it was already notionally Tory, but it seems to have been very similar.

There haven't been any local elections to Medway council since 2011, and back then UKIP didn't have many candidates in the area, but that Euro result looks good for them.  (Anyone have any idea what the patterns are likely to be like within the council area?)

Trivia: Rochester is the only place in England to have lost city status.

According to UK-Elect (which takes the same data from the Press Association) the similarity is 15.10% (i.e nothing like the old Medway)

Mark who?

Anyway, is he resigning his seat to stand in his new colours or just seeking re-election in them?


Some minor changes, but it's essentially the same constituency.


Due to an administrative cock up when Medway UA was created. Hilarious. It's also where The Mystery of Edwin Drood is set.

That must be one of their best parliamentary results ever.

Any more Conservative backbenchers suspected to defect anytime soon?

There are rumours.  Names I've seen mentioned include Philip Hollobone (Kettering) and Chris Kelly (Dudley South).  Kelly recently announced he was retiring at the election and made a statement which sounded rather supportive of Carswell.

It should, however, be noted that rumours of defections don't have a very strong track record.

I have seen some really dumb predictions of defectors based on vague hearsay. The Mirror had a claim that my Southgate MP is thinking of leaving. If he does all power to him, but Enfield Southgate would be a dreadful place to run as UKIP for like a million reasons.

Banksy artwork in Clacton, removed by the local council, apparently because someone complained it was racist:
()

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/oct/01/banksy-mural-clacton-racist

Ridiculous.

Survation poll for the Scum of Heywood & Middleton:

Labour 50, UKIP 31, Con 13, LDem 4

You know something is off when Al is posting constituency polling data...

So, a 5-point win for UKIP then? :P

If Heywood and Middleton is won by UKIP, I will eat my hat.

That's terrible news for Ed Miliband.

Survation (just realized this is a portmanteau of survey and nation, haha) poll of of Rochester & Strood:

UKIP 40
Con 31
Lab 25
LD 2
Other 1

Looks like Reckless has not been as reckless as some thought.

On another positive note, it looks like the split on the right between the Tories & UKIP won't let Labour win this seat.

I wonder if Labour will quietly encourage its voters in Rochester to vote tactically for UKIP since a UKIP win there agianst the Tories would give UKIP huge momentum and likely be lethal to David Cameron.

While that's true, there's a lot of issues there; namely that a lot of progressive voters will not like Labour encouraging people to vote for Satan UKIP :P

I can't imagine Chretien encouraging people to vote Reform or Bloc to spite Kim Campbell. Can you?

If Tories could vote for Galloway...

What you do if that's what you want to do is just run dead. Nominate a paper candidate and put in no effort whatsoever. But Labour didn't even run dead in Newark.

I don't know the specifics of the constituency, but from the figures of the poll only, 40-31-25 is something with room for any of the three to win if they give it a shot, isn't it ?

Given the usual issues with constituency polling and the general weirdness of by-election, yes.

Labour will not encourage a tactical vote for UKIP, because it is a clear electoral threat.
If UKIP gains a lot of momentum, it would deal a serious blow to both Conservatives and Labour.

For every one vote UKIP takes from Labour they take three from the Tories. Notice that it's the Tories who are at risk of losing previously safe seats to UKIP, labour will easily retain its seat in a Byelection on Thursday

Another poll (usual caveats apply, etc) of Heywood & Middleton, this time by Lord Ashcroft:

Labour 47, UKIP 28, Con 16, LDem 5, Green 4

Like I was saying - UKIP poses no threat to Labour held seats - but has the potential to be lethal to the Tories...

This isn't really true, but okay.

You're right saying that they're more of a problem for the Tories, but they pose a threat to Labour in some parts as well, much in the same way the LibDems spent 15 years clawing themselves into Labour heartlands on councils and in some parliamentary seats, despite being (even pre-coalition) a party without policies and without principles.

Labour +7 in a seat like this is okay, but not great considering the Libs got like 25% here last time. Labour gaining votes from LibDems is disguising them losing some small parts of their (older, whiter, manlier) base. Just look at by-elections earlier in the parliament, like Middlesborough and Barnsley, where Labour did much better than Ashcroft or Survation are predicting here in Middleton.

Obviously when a party goes from 0% to 28% - some of that support will come from each of the older parties - but again - if you are the Labour Party you have to drool at the thought of all those Lab/Tory marginals where if UKIP goes from 0% to - say - 15% - 3 or 4 points will come from Labour while 10-11 will come from the Tories - all in all the rise of Ukip is good news for Labour in that for the most part it splits the rightwing vote....and in the longterm if the rightwing vote in the UK gets split between the established right (ie: Tories) and the populist, eurosceptic right (ie: UKIP) - its a boon to the Labour party.

Neither Rochester nor Clacton is really a safe Conservative seat; each in their old forms elected Labour MPs in 1997 and 2001, though like many seaside towns they were rather safe for Conservatives before then. In contrast, the other by-election seat has been Labour since the 1970s, even during the nadir of the 1980s.

The thing about Clacton when it was called Harwich was that it included Harwich; i.e. a ferry port. The Labour candidate also happened to be a man with what almost amounted (and still amounts) to a personality cult in Harwich town. It was one of the more bewildering gains of '97, which says everything.

Rochester has a more complicated electoral history. As Medway it was a safe Conservative seat in the 1980s and early 90s, but saw an immense swing to Labour in '97 (as did the rest of North Kent) and stuck (though only just) with Labour in 2005, before swinging massively back to the Tories in 2010 (as did the rest of North Kent). Rochester was paired with Chatham - the most working class of the Medway towns and the most favourable to Labour - before 1983, and the constituency of Rochester & Chatham changed hands five times between 1950 and 1979.

Mitterrand tried that thinking here back in the 1980s. Now Hollande is not amused...

Only back office strategists really think like this. I think 1 voter leaving Labour for UKIP is 1 voter too many, whether the Tories lose 4 at the same time or not.

Labour's playing with fire in the long-term if they think giving a racist party the space to grow, hoping to harm the Tories, is an okay strategy. It'll come back to haunt them, just look at the PS in France.

It worked very well for Mitterrand in the 80s and even now the Front Nationale is a much bigger problem for the traditional right in France than it is for the Socialists. Similarly in Sweden the growth of the Sweden Democrats has caused the rightwing coalition to lose power and the social democrats to regain power. When all is said and done, its all about winning elections and as someone who wants the Labour party to win in may 2015 - I REJOICE at the rise of the UKIP party and how it will drive a huge wedge in the British right...Labour lost election thanks to vote splitting with the SDP and libDems - now its the Tories turn to experience that. Enjoy! 

Anyway, the by-elections. Did anyone see the televised debate from Clacton last night? Normally I avoid such things, but had nothing better to do. It was hilariously awful.

This is literally one of the worst thing I've ever read.

One doesn't need to look further than Rochester. If this was a 1945, 1964, 1979, 1997 or even a 2010 moment, there'd be no question that Labour'd take it by about 1-2,000. But no, we'll probably come third because of this 'big-up UKIP' strategy. You can't build a government on the back of Guardian reading LibDems, then assume that Mirror reading Old Labourites have no other choice.

While I would agree that it makes no sense for Labour to aid any party other than Labour, that's just a teensy weensy bit of a strawman...

Let's be clear, Labour is in no position to openly help anyone other than itself in Rochester...but I'm also saying that this being a byelection - there is no "motive" whatsoever for a Labour voter to vote Tory to save the seat from going Ukip - on the contrary if you wanted to vote tactically at all - either stick with Labour or vote UKIP in the byelection just for the sake of tossing a hand grenade at the Tories.

Many of which were seaside towns (Hastings, Hove). Add on the others like Blackpool, and it suggests that something happened in these towns, some of which now seem prone to UKIP, but as a non-Britisher I haven't a clue what.

Well there are seaside resorts and then there are seaside resorts. Clacton is a retirement resort (the proportion of people over 65 in the constituency is twice the English average) and such places have generally remained within the Tory fold, even when they've become a little shabby around the edges. Seaside resorts of the other type have tended to become genuinely competitive - and some (e.g. Rhyl) have turned into Labour strongholds - as social trends have destroyed their former economic prosperity. There was also a government policy in the 80s of dispersing benefit claimants to seaside resorts.

Sounds odd. Why?

Cheap accommodation (boarding houses and so on).

The Clacton and Heywood & Middleton by-elections are today. I'm somewhat leery wrt the accuracy of constituency polling (way too many cases of them being miles off) but both seats have been polled twice. Both Clacton polls have shown huge leads for Carswell,* and both Heywood & Middleton polls have shown large leads for Labour. One thing to bear in mind (and I mention this only because there will be an absolute deluge of fevered comment tomorrow and over the weekend; actually it's already started) is that 'sensational' by-elections rarely have much of a long-term impact.

_{*Though it may be useful to note that the last one of these was conducted over a month ago.}

But "sensational" by-elections also rarely involve a rising third party winning their first seat in Parliament by a landslide, no?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradford_West_by-election,_2012

And for a none sarcastic response, I point to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crosby_by-election,_1981

Although yes, a UKIP win will be something pretty big.

At this point any result other than a UKIP win in Clacton and a Labour win in Heywood & Middleton would indicate an impressive feat of expectation management by the winner.

The margin in Clacton will be of interest: if it's of the scale suggested by the Survation poll, then that will be quite impressive; if it's much smaller, then that might suggest that UKIP are still struggling to do well enough to actually win seats under FPTP in any sort of normal circumstances. 

(At the moment, in the General Election I'm expecting them to hold Clacton, take South Thanet and quite probably also take Boston & Skegness, though I might change my mind on that one if the local party select Neil Hamilton as candidate; there are also a few other seats where I think they have a chance.  But if they only win fairly narrowly tonight I might go back to thinking they could easily flop and not win anywhere at all.)

Well a party can only ever win its first seat once. But that sort of thing has happened a couple of times, sure. There have also been innumerable massive Liberal by-election wins that led precisely nowhere (in many cases the triumphant Liberal/LibDem didn't even hold the seat at the next General Election).

And there there are all the various near-upsets that have often been treated as 'sensational'. And sometimes even results that weren't genuinely close but were a lot closer than normal have been treated (somewhat bizarrely) as such. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhondda_West_by-election,_1967) Who now remembers the 1989 Richmond by-election where William Hague was run shockingly close by the continuity SDP?

This is a fair comment I think.

Carswell's performance will also be some kind of indicator for Reckless when the end of the pier show moves to a swampy estuary in Kent.

Polls closed half an hour ago. As per usual I will warn you all about trusting very early rumours.

According to the Guardian the Clacton result is expected between 1.30 and 3am, and Heywood & Middleton at about 2am.  But they then do say that (as we know) these times are often unreliable.

I'm not seeing any suggestions of unexpected winners in either, even on Twitter.

The "All That's Left" blog has constituency profiles: Heywood & Middleton (http://www.allthatsleft.co.uk/2014/10/by-election-special-heywood-and-middleton/) and Clacton (http://www.allthatsleft.co.uk/2014/10/by-election-special-clacton/).

Indications (and these are still quite early so be warned) are of a UKIP majority of maybe as high as 10,000 in Clacton, and of a Labour majority in the general region of 3,000 to 2,000 in Heywood & Middleton. Turnout in the latter is confirmed as an awful 36%.

Labour are saying that they're going to win Heywood & Middleton and that their vote percentage will be up on 2010 and what they polled at the 2014 locals. UKIP are hoping for a result in the mid 30s. Tory vote rumoured to have evaporated.

Suggestions that the Tories might be as low as 10%, and there doesn't seem to be much hope for the Lib Dem deposit.  It seems as if UKIP are squeezing the anti-Labour vote.

... and the Guardian are saying that Labour are saying that the Tories are on about 20% in Clacton, and that the Lib Dems have lost their deposit there too (no surprise I think).

NB 20% is what Survation said.

Edit: they've now amended that to roughly U 60%, C 24%, Lab 12%

That's terrible news for Ed Miliband.

Farage has conceded defeat on behalf of his candidate (why does he do this?) wrt Heywood & Middleton.

51% turnout in Clacton.

Apparently a recount in Heywood & Middleton. urgh.

Its been suggested that it's a bundle check instead.

No, a full recount. Apparently the majority was c.600 or so; that would normally be too high for a proper recount, so this is a bit weird.

No, apparently it is a bundle check after all.

Labour hold

McInnes, Liz (Lab) 11,633 (40.86%)
Bickley, John Joseph (UKIP) 11,016 (38.69%)
Gartside, Iain Brian (Con) 3,496 (12.28%)
Smith, Anthony (Lib Dem) 1,457 (5.12%)
Jackson, Abigail (Green) 870 (3.06%)

Labour vote very slightly up on 2010, Tories down 15%, LDs down 17% (but deposit just held, which may be a minor triumph).  Very good result for the Kippers :(

Christ that was closer than I thought.

At least our percentage was up :)

Seriously though... 11,600 is an... unimpressive... number, and questions should be asked about it. Now, from noises made at the count, Labour seem to have assumed turnout would be higher than it was... and were obviously spooked by the actual figures. Which sounds to me like the campaign was a total fyck up.

Will also note that UKIP did have an 'issue' here and they certainly used it: Heywood & Middleton is in Rochdale Borough, where there has been a grooming scandal.

Low turnout or not, I am quite shocked about Heywood & Middleton, I was expecting Labour to have at least a 10 point lead. Both Labour and the Conservatives won't go easy on Reckless after this, but he might actually retain his seat, which looked doubtful right after his switch...

Yeah, the Labour vote is at the lower end of expectations though isn't actually worse than them, but there's no doubting that UKIP polled better than seemed likely. I was personally guessing a majority somewhere between 12pts and 7pts, fwiw.

_{(silver lining: more reason to be leery of constituency polling)}

Still waiting for Clacton...  They said it'd be in about 5 minutes about 15 minutes ago.

For those not familiar, when I mentioned the grooming scandal I was referring to this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochdale_sex_trafficking_gang). Despite the name of the article, the abuse happened in Heywood. Knowl View school (where there was an abuse scandal of a different sort) was also in the constituency.

Clacton: Carswell 21113, Tory 8709, majority 12404.

Greens beat LDs.

I think mediocre is the operative term to describe Labor's performance in Heywood, and they certainly can't afford to be too mediocre* this close to a general election.

*A reasonable degree of mediocritie is expected from all three major parties at regular intervals, of course. ;)

Clacton is apparently:

UKIP 21113 59.7%
Con    8709 24.6%
Lab    3957 11.2%
Grn      688  1.9%
LD       483  1.4%
Ind S   205  0.6%
MRLP  127  0.4%
Ind R     56  0.2%

Those figures are similar enough to those of the 1973 Lincoln by-election (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_by-election,_1973) to be at least mildly amusing.

Wonderful!

Now if only UKIP would follow Democratic Labor's lead and fizzle out of existence. ;D

Although the similarity of a result between two pro and anti-EU parties spaced some 40 years apart is rather hilarious.

Congratulations to Douglas Carswell!

Also, to quote Blur, this is how I'm feeling at the moment! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSbBvKaM6sk)

Looks like Farage was right:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/07/nigel-farage-ukip-heywood-middleton-byelection-close-labour (http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/07/nigel-farage-ukip-heywood-middleton-byelection-close-labour)

RIP Liberal Democrats

Not only are UKIP stealing the LibDem's old function, they're even stealing their lines: they've now claimed to be the only truly national party, which as most of you will recall...

Ugh...

They're going to become so much more insufferable now.

Here's an curious thought: remember how in 2010, all sorts of Guardianasta's and the like came forward to say "We must vote Lib Dem, whatever their platform; for only they can bring about the electoral reform this country needs!"

Imagine if those people all start voting for UKIP - after all, they are an PR supporting minor party with a chance of bringing about such reform. And I did hear a lot of people say "I'll vote for anyone who gives me electoral reform"...

There's an article about Heywood & Middleton (http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/10/heywood-and-how-labour-nearly-lost-it) on the Guardian website by Helen Pidd (do they have anyone else who can cover Northern by-elections?).  Its premise seems to be that Labour's mistake was not turning themselves into some sort of UKIP-lite.  Possibly the one thing to be said for it is that it isn't as bad as the comments below it.

By the way, does anyone think that a falling out between Carswell and Farage at some point is quite likely?

I'd imagine so, given that Carswell seems to place (at least publically) a very high value on his 'principles'. Add to that the fact that UKIP seems unable to sustain more than one large personality, well...

Anyway, fantastic result in both seats of course. Particularly gratifying to see the yellow mongrels pushed down to only 1.4% in Clacton.

Of course, it will also be interesting to see how Dan Hodges attempts to write up these results as a strategic triumph for David Cameron and a failure for UKIP.

Another noteworthy tidbit is that the Clacton polls weren't entirely useless. Pity the same can't be said for H&M.

()

Yes that is a... strange... piece. Bizarrely - given, you know, her job - doesn't mention the grooming scandal which was clearly at least a factor. Though bizarre comment pieces and dubious analysis traditionally accompanies by-elections of a certain sort, so maybe we shouldn't be surprised.


It does feel like a 'when' rather than 'if' situation, yeah.

Assuming Reckless wins as well, how likely is it that we start seeing more Tory defections?

Very hard to say.  I'm sure there are a few Tories who are tempted, but whether they decide to jump is another matter; some of them are in UKIP-unfriendly seats (like Enfield Southgate, as mentioned above) so probably won't unless they're standing down or planning to move constituency.  Farage also talks about possible Labour defections, but I'm not sure whether anyone really believes him.

BTW the Tories are supposedly going to move the writ for Rochester & Strood next week, with polling day on 6 November.  They're also going for a postal open primary (as opposed to an open hustings followed by a vote, which is what they did in Clacton) to select their candidate.

One annoying thing I've seen people claiming is that UKIP are winning over 2010 LDs based on Heywood.

The problem in Heywood is that Labour probably won over plenty of 2010 LDs, but probably lost plenty of their own 2010 voters in equal measure.

It's likely that Ukip picked up some 2010 Lib Dems, of course, but there's no evidence for or against any given number of switchers from that by-election.

A lot of people - and particularly in 'ordinary' places like this - voted LibDem because they were not one of the main two parties rather than because of any ideological commitment to liberal causes or whatever. There's no reason to assume that such people would not find UKIP a tempting option in a by-election.

Looking at past local voting patterns in the constituency (perhaps not a massively reliable guide but whatever), we notice that the LibDems were strongest in the northern end of the constituency; the North ward of Heywood town (which they actually held in 2014; Labour performed pretty poorly in Heywood in the 2014 locals, possibly due to the grooming scandal), Castleton (where Labour has done well post 2010), Bamford, and Norden. In the latter two wards Labour are strikingly weak (they are natural Tory territory and in local polls have reverted to type). The LibDems occasionally won seats in parts of Middleton but were weaker there by 2010.

But here's the thing. In 2010 the BNP polled 3,239 votes in Heywood & Middleton. Combined with the UKIP vote from that year (and no, I'm not claiming that the parties were/are ideological soulmates) that's 4,454 votes. Bickley polled 11,016 in the by-election. Obviously not all of those 4,454 people voted (and maybe some didn't vote for Bickley), but that's a pretty solid by-election kernel all the same.

Additional note while I'm at it: in raw terms the Labour vote didn't hold up that badly (marginally worse than in most other by-elections in this parliament, but nothing to indicate heavy electoral bleeding), better than I'd thought at first actually. Of course all right is not really all right in this type of by-election; you want to poll more votes than a classic insurgent candidate could possibly manage. In this seat that would be somewhere around 13,000.

The Tories have indeed moved the writ, but the actual date is 20 November, which gives them time to complete the open primary process.

(Part of) an interesting post from another forum by someone with links to the constituency:

Rochester & Strood sounds quite nasty.  There are reports of push polling (anti-Reckless) and the like.  There are also some suggestions from the purple corner that the Tory primary was a ruse to get round spending limits.

ComedyResults poll in Rochester & Strood: UKIP 43 Con 30 Lab 21 LD 3 Green 3

The Tory primary result has been announced, and it was quite close: Kelly Tolhurst (described as a "local businesswoman") won with 50.44% to Anna Firth's 49.56%.  5688 ballots were returned, but the party aren't saying how many of them were valid votes.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/23/rochester-byelection-tories-select-local-businesswoman-kelly-tolhurst

Rochester & Strood has drawn the candidates out of the woodwork, 13 of them:

Mike Barker (Independent) [1]
Christopher JustQCharley Challis (Independent) [2]
Hairy Knorm Davidson (OMRLP)
Jayda Fransen (Britain First) [3]
Stephen Goldsborough (Independent) [4]
Clive Gregory (Green) [5]
Geoff Juby (Lib Dem)
Naushabah Khan (Labour)
Nick Long (People Before Profit)
Dave Osborn (Patriotic Socialist Party) [6]
Mark Reckless (UKIP)
Charlotte Rose (Independent) [7]
Kelly Tolhurst (Conservative)

[1] Appears to have asked George Galloway to allow him to stand as a Respect candidate, but not to have received a reply.  Googling for information about him is not helped by the fact that he shares a name with a Republican who has stood for election in or near Rochester, New York.
[2] http://justqcharley.blogspot.co.uk/
[3] Using a registered description of "Vote British!" rather than the party name
[4] Features on a Guardian YouTube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRUsAAdrRlw) saying he's starting something called the Christian Democratic Movement for World Peace UK.
[5] "Green Party - Say No to Racism" on the ballot paper
[6] Got precisely two votes in a recent council by-election in Essex.  The party is ... odd.
[7] Also stood in Clacton

Another Survation poll for Rochester & Strood: UKIP 48 Con 33 Lab 16 Green 2 LD 1

New poll shows NHS is the top priority in Rochester & Strood:

http://www.kentnews.co.uk/news/new_poll_shows_nhs_is_the_top_priority_in_rochester_strood_1_3828739 (http://www.kentnews.co.uk/news/new_poll_shows_nhs_is_the_top_priority_in_rochester_strood_1_3828739)

A couple of weeks ago, people in this thread ridiculed me when i suggested that Labour voters would never vote tactically for the Tories to stop UKIP and that on the contrary Labour voters were more likely to vote tactically for UKIP if they think that UKIP is the party best able to kick the Tories in the face in this byelection...turns out i was right!

This agrees with national polling suggesting immigration and the NHS as more significant than the economy. The Conservatives face a problem in that their advantage over Ed+Ed is based in part on much stronger economic competence ratings, as well as much stronger personal approval ratings. As unemployment falls and incomes grow, the economy matters less and other issues become more salient.

However, it is worth noting that this poll was financed by a trade union to promote support levels for its NHS policy. If improperly asked, this question could bias results of other questions.

It also seems that a lot of former Labour voters have been won over by hard right populism.  Even the idea of voting "strategically" for UKIP is a disturbing trend.

There have been certain signs recently that UKIP is turning into a mere generic populist party.

In by-elections there is a very strong tendency for voters to rally around parties perceived to be in with a shot of winning.

Why are those on the left side of the political spectrum always so shocked and surprised when they realize that huge portions of their voting base are also attracted to and willing to support right-wing populism? That's been the case for generations.

There is a long history of "third parties" doing very well in byelections in the UK on the strength of representing a "protest vote". If the Tories had won a majority in 2010 and the Lib Dems had been sitting in opposition for the last 4 years in all likelhood the Lib Dems would be polling in the mid 20s and would be easily winning byelections in strongly Conservative seats like this one.

Shocked and surprised, no.  Right-wing populist parties have been more effective at tapping into people's anger, while the social democrats present themselves as far more "respectable" and are seen as part of the establishment.  The line about left-wing "elites" has been very effective, and does have an element of truth to it. 

They underestimate how socially conservative the working class are and only vote for the left due to economic issues.

In fact, social liberalism was not a huge component of left wing parties until the last quarter century.

Very much depend whee you are. The 60s influenced SDs a lot in Western European countries.

If the Tories had won a majority, I could see an 'anti-establishment, we still agree with Nick' narrative leading to an LD surge, rather than UKIP.

We can only really rely on observations of similar situations to judge alt-history scenarios. Across Europe, the parties that benefit from such narratives are typically not like the Lib Dems and are more like Ukip, because crises seem to beget not moderation but rancour. The Nick debate bounce was already dissolving by the time of the last general election, and they were landing back on the 16% or so that they scored in polls pre-election. Given the negative feelings about immigration and the EU, it was more likely that Ukip or god help us the BNP would have benefitted. I know some here think Ukip supporters rationalise that support by adopting negative views on immigration and the EU, but I think it's more credible that Ukip wins the small minority of voters who felt unrepresented by the broadly positive stances of the formerly "big three" parties on those topics.

Once UKIP gain Rochester (I mean, it's gonna happen, let's be honest), they'll just about have received more votes than the Tories in by-elections during this parliament.

They're ~3,000 behind at the moment.

There is a fourth poll for Rochester & Strood, this time from Ashcroft.  The figures are UKIP 44 Con 32 Lab 17 LD 1 Others 5.  (The Greens are on 4 before the don't know adjustments, but aren't distinguished from Others in the headline figures.  The don't know adjustments reduce Reckless's lead from 16 to 12 points.)

There is also a question about General Election voting intention, which appears to give the Tories a very slight lead.  This doesn't particularly surprise me; I suspect that the Tories will regain this seat (but not Clacton) next May.

Today's Daily Express (I know, I know) says 6 Tories are thinking of defecting post-Rochester

Grit bins full of salt obviously, but I wouldn't be surprised to see more go.

Sort've getting towards to point now where a by-election can be kicked into the long grass.

There is no rule that says that MPs that switch parties have to quit and run in a byelection (maybe there should be - but there isn't) - in fact in the vast majority of cases floor-crossers do NOT resign and trigger a byelection, right?

Yes, there's no rule and yes most defectors don't resign their seats and stand under new colours. UKIP have done this to gain publicity.

Before Carswell the last defector to resign and trigger a by-election was Bruce Douglas-Mann, one of the Labour MPs who defected to the SDP.  (None of the other SDP defectors did.)  Unfortunately for him his by-election was held in June 1982, near the end of the Falklands War, and he lost his seat to the Tories (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitcham_and_Morden_by-election,_1982).

The number of MPs who defected between Douglas-Mann and Carswell is in double figures.  Many of them, of course, were in seats which were hopeless for their new parties, e.g. Shaun Woodward, Cameron's predecessor as MP for Witney, who joined Labour in 1999.  The most extreme case would be Andrew Hunter, who was elected as a Tory but tried to make a career in Northern Ireland politics and ended up representing Basingstoke for the DUP for a brief period.

Yeah, the Express is effectively the closest thing UKIP has to an in-house propaganda sheet now.

Supposedly, the next two candidates to defect are the MP's for Bournemouth West, and Basildon and Billericay. Apparently they've been spotted chatting to Farage in a pub, or something silly like that. Of course, the peril for UKIP is that the more Tory headbanger MP's they attract; the more tricky their much-vaunted "crossover support" for "disenchanted Labour" voters becomes.


The Mirror also had a "helpful" graphic of all the most likely Tories to defect based on how much they rebelled against party line. Seeing as Zac Goldsmith was fourth, they possibly should have established a less crude way to predict defectees...

where did they even get that from? according to this list Goldsmith is the 12th most rebellious tory
http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/mps.php?sort=rebellions
its not as if its not possible for someone adequately caffeinated to extract and collate the data from theyworkforyou on conservative MPs' voting record purely about Europe is it?

anyway, Basildon and Billericay is probably winnable for UKIP, either if the current MP defects or for whoever's up against him in May.  Bournmouth I don't know so much about but electionforecast.co.uk are predicting them 14%, not even overtaking the LibDems

who knows? the Mirror works in mysterious ways...

I don't see why they's count out Bournemouth so easily. UKIP easily saved their deposits last time around in both constituencies and Bournemouth's other constutuency gave a horrendously high vote to the awfully, tremendously racist "New Britain" back in the 70's.

Just the very *name* "Basildon and Billericay" screams out UKIP targetability.

oi oi, choose your next words about my native county, carefully...

although yes, I wouldn't be surprised if ukip went and won all of the seats around the essex coast, plus Harlow and Romford for good measure

Incidentally, Billericay's 90's era "maverick" MP Teresa Gorman is now a UKIP supporter. The Billericay constituency has seen some ... interesting characters in its time, so a UKIP defectee would be be par for the course.

I wonder if any ministers could fall to a surprise UKIP surge.

Talking of surges, the one UKIP had in the polls following the last by-elections has already pretty much dissipated. It will, however, surely return this very weekend (but then how long will it last I wonder?)

they've been making some interesting claims about Ed M's seat in Donny (can't remember if it's North or Central)

Eric Pickles is down the road in Brentwood, but I think that's one of the less likely seats in Essex to go mauve

IDS is in Tebbit's old seat, Chingford, where UKIP will most likely come a strong second but he's not going anywhere this time around

remembering how disastrous the LibDems decapitation strategy in 2001 was I'm not expecting anything like that, Ukip will be much better off targeting their most winnable seats regardless of who the MP is

By 'interesting' you mean 'completely delusional'?

Reckless living up to his name, to the consternation of UKIP HQ.

Miliband's seat is Doncaster North, I've got family there. From what I know, UKIP may poll strongly in areas like Bentley, but I don't think they'll topple Labour there.

English Democrats + UKIP + BNP last time in Doncaster North was over 16%. Assuming UKIP collects all that and more, I'm sure they'll get second; and Ed won't get the traditional "new leader boost".

Doncaster and South Yorkshire is the base of the Eng Dems. Will UKIP completely bust them, I wonder?

The first thing does not automatically imply the second thing, actually. Of course the election is still quite a while away and who knows how things will look by then.

Counting well underway for what it's worth. Rumoured to be UKIP 43, Con 35, Labour 17 or so, which is in line with expectations but not earlier rumours from the count. We shall soon find out the truth. LibDems rumoured to have finished behind a joke candidate.

From the Guardian:

The BBC’s Chris Mason says he’s heard figures suggesting Ukip will get around 17,000, the Conservatives around 14,000 and Labour 7,000 or 8,000.

Weirdly long count even for a by-election.

Probably MI5 stuffing the ballots

Reported to be:

UKIP 42.1
Con 34.8
Labour 16.8
Green 4.2
LDem 0.9
MRLP 0.4

"#RochesterAndStrood was our 271st most-winnable seat. If UKIP win here, we can win across the country" - Mark Reckless

I'd first like to see them win a seat without a defecting incumbent....

With the result being as it was, it probably lessens the chance of any more Tory MP's defecting. I doubt he will hold his seat come May.

Can someone explain this "news" "story" to me? http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-30148768

Are white vans somehow special in England?  What is strange about having English flags?  Why did people feel it necessary to say that "white vans, England flags, they're Labour values and actually pretty routine Labour values for most of us"?  Are vans colored in certain colors really so important in the UK?  Why does everyone treat it to be implicitly true that it was "snobbish" to take a picture of a house with a white van and English flags and post it on Twitter?  Why would taking such a picture and posting it publicly be grounds for this MP to offer her resignation?

Extract from the Wikipedia article on White van man.

The English flag has in its time had some unpleasant connotations. Unlike the Scottish and Welsh flags, the flag has never had much "legitimate" political use, and was usurped by racists and fascists. For a large amount of time, having an English flag outside your house was like hanging a Confederate flag in the South. In the 90's there was an enormous attempt to "rehabilitate" the flag from the kooks, with the St George flag being "brought into the new century" in that very 90's way.

The flag is rescued now, but it still exists in an uneasy half-way house between legitimacy and its scary former connotations (and of course general tackiness). I'd admit that I'd probably react similarly to Thornberry if I saw a house decked out with England flags in a non-sporting context - I would make certain (unfair) assumptions about the owner's political beliefs.  But then again a) I wouldn't be a prick about it on Twitter and b) I wouldn't day this while being a sitting member of the Shadow Cabinet.

Also, Thornberry is from Islington which carries its own connotations of snobby "champagne socialism". Think Obama's comment about "clinging to guns and Bibles", for an American comparison. The Labour Party is suffering a slight backlash in non-metropolitan areas of the country - it certainly doesn't need some North London snob to tell small town poors they are tacky morons.

I'd find three England flags a bit excessive personally, but Thornberry went too far.

'White Van Man' is a ridiculous media stereotype that has remarkably little relation to any known social reality and which very few legitimate tradesmen identify with and which quite a few - my father for instance - find pretty offensive (of course the idea that all tradesmen drive vans and that all people who drive vans are tradesmen... er... antiquated to say the least). The media, of course, believe it is an objective sociological category.

Broadly speaking the tweet was a very classic Not Ready For Prime Time Sorry About That moment (to say the least),* but the media reaction to it has been bizarre beyond the point of absurdity, and (I would argue) quite hypocritical: the assumption - and I write here as confirmed white trash - that it is normal to have a house festooned with absurd faux neoclassical columns and bedecked with enough flags for the average battleship is itself rather snobbish.

*I.e. public rubbernecking isn't a very bright idea if you are a public figure, even if one as absolutely obscure as Thornberry.

It is highly questionable whether this is actually happening outside the fevered imagination of out of touch political junkies (of all hues) in central London, but whatever.

Its unusual for the winner of by-election to also come out with the most egregious bit of post-electoral bullsh!t, so congratulations of a sort to Reckless. That figure comes from an extremely dubious demography (bad demography) as destiny nonsense put forward by a pair of cringeworthy academic hacks. In reality the Medway towns were one of the strongest areas in the country for UKIP in the mickey mouse Euro elections earlier this year (and let's not even talk about the unusual circumstances of the by-election).

I think I'm just internally preparing for the worst case scenario :/

Apparently Thornberry is just really addicted to taking pictures if buildings:

https://storify.com/shivmalik/emily-thornberry-tweets-alot-about-buildings-and-s (https://storify.com/shivmalik/emily-thornberry-tweets-alot-about-buildings-and-s)

Anyway can we talk about the real point of interest in this result:

lolthelibdems.

Well, they did finish ahead of the MRLP..

Not just the media.  One of the categories in the Mosaic system used by at least one political party to help with voter targeting (among various marketing uses) is "White Van Culture".  (Others include "Corporate Chieftains", "Sprawling Subtopia", "Dignified Dependency", "Rustbelt Resilience" and "Parochial Villagers".)

Do we remember the psephological joys of Holby City woman?

I agree.  I'd guess that any further defections will either be in seats where UKIP is naturally very strong, stronger than in Rochester, anyway (Basildon & Billericay might come into this category, but I don't think Kettering would) or will be people who aren't that bothered about their career prospects, or indeed have already announced their retirement.

As for the Lib Dems, I guess they're glad that that was very likely the last by-election of this parliament.

Hmm, fascinating.  Thanks for that input!

I really don't get the uproar over "white van man"...its not as if Thornberry tweeted the picture along with some condescending derogatory comment. She just tweeted the picture without comment - so big deal?? I tend to assume that people who festoon their homes with English flags do so because they WANT to make a statement and be noticed and so she was just giving the owner of the home the coverage he obviously craved.

Surely having someone resign from a shadow cabinet over tweeting a picture of a house with no associated comment is OVERKILL to say the least!

Yes, furthermore white vans and England flags are the two most salient stereotypes of the English white working class and are both (of course :( ) negative stereotypes. That negativity is one context; I would only add that the phrase "image from Rochester" in the caption didn't help - it is not exactly the most engaged/positive way to put things.

I can't join the contempt for public analysts of demographic and politics data elsewhere on this thread, though. They are just people doing jobs. The average person who listens to them is busy and wants a brief summary to get a better understanding of the world, rather than read through pages of extremely detailed forum threads here. They are two different types of analysis, and there is much more desire for one than the other. A bit of tolerance is good.

Miliband can salvage the situation by naming Danny Dyer as his new shadow attorney general.

https://twitter.com/SteveBakerMP/status/143660079701442560

The threshold for stepping down from political office in the UK seems really, really low. If Labour were on 40%, this would not have happened. Thornberry is as much a victim of her party's precarious position as of her urbane naiveté.

Anyway, that was probably the last by-election of 2014, if not this Parliament. 20 so far, 2 Ukip gains from C, 1 Lab gain from C, 1 Respect gain from Lab. Net -3 from Conservatives to third parties. Here are some speculations.

First, net -3 for C-Lab-LD confirms the weaknesses of all three major parties. C losing seats. Lab failing to improve from abysmal 2010 figure. LD losing tons of votes and heading for a duck egg outside about 35 seats.
Second, Ukip did much better in by-elections than national opinion polls. Since the beginning of 2013, Ukip gained at least 14% in every by-election, 30% on average, while only increasing their national polling average by 10%. I think this is due to high-turnout protest voting in low-turnout by-elections. Perhaps they are also unusually favourable seats to Ukip? Non-London English seats? Not sure how much I think this second explanation explains things.
Third, by-elections have changed since the 1990s, with elderly Socialists not Tories dying. Consequently most were not favourable for LD or Greens. Even outside government, there would have been three winnable by-elections for LD (Eastleigh, Leicester S, Oldham E), two of which were against Lab polling over 40%. The Conservative seats were all winnable for both Lab and C, or in unfavourable territory like the East Midlands, or full of old people. This also explains why the Greens underperformed national polling. I think they could have won a by-election in certain LD or C seats, had that happened.

With a certain crashing inevitability it emerges that the owner of the house - feted as emblematic of all working class people by middle class wankers who work for newspapers - is not, in fact, a tradesman of any description, but is actually a car dealer.

You almost lost Heywood and Middleton through a working class revolt to UKIP.

Whatever can be said about that particular by-election, two things can be noted. First, that Labour's poll share held steady; second, that the issue that allowed UKIP to build up a head of steam was (as you know very well) a local one.

The C2 demographic has been contested since the 80s so one can't simply say that Labour are losing these people; they lost them a long time ago and probably those inclined to the Conservatives were first to jump to Ukip.

Though I'd point out that there is no such thing as 'the C2 demographic'. One of the principle reasons why polling breakdowns in that category are notably volatile (even when allowing for the replacement of theoretically more reliable survey data with commercial polling aggregates) is because the range of occupations in it is extremely diverse. There are subsections that tend to vote heavily for this party or that party, and subsections that are extremely swing-y. And of course subsections that vote quite differently in different parts of the country. Back when there were still huge industrial employers employing huge numbers of skilled workers, sheer weight of numbers from that source meant that the category was (just about) uniform enough to (just about) make some sort of sense; not so now.

But that describes every demographic group in society, particularly those in the middle of some distribution. Outside theoretical sociological models, no demographic is uniform, not even a social class. Groups don't have to be uniform to be useful or meaningful. You still typically end up with, for instance, C1C2 voters supporting Labour at rates somewhere between AB and DE. They still typically earn less than AB, and do better than DE. So there is something useful going on in the industrial split, even if it means different things today than 40 years ago, and even if there's a better hypothetical alternative. It's just a matter of taking large amounts of evidence on aggregate and not relying on any one, small sub-sample.