Barnsley Central by-election, 3rd of March 2011

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Caused by the resignation of Eric Illsley on the 8th of February 2010. Illsely has admitted false accounting in connection with his expenses and will be sentenced fairly soon. A new thread has been set up so I can put the profile at the top.

Brief Profile

Barnsley Central should logically just be called Barnsley; the 'Central' is a reference to the local authority (which stretches from Penistone to the Dearne Valley) and not to the town itself. The constituency includes almost the entirety of the old Barnsley County Borough (a small part is in Barnsley East) and also includes Royston and Darton, both of which are large pit villages. Barnsley itself is, of course, a large industrial town that developed around the coal and glass industries. There's probably no need to mention that the area is not especially prosperous these days. The local economy is now largely driven by the public sector. So things are even worse now than in 2010 and will be worse this time next year. Barnsley has no sizeable middle class districts to speak of, though the western half of the town is less economically depressed than the rest of it. Politically speaking the tendency is towards uniformity, although parochial local independents did fairly well in places during the last six or so years of the Sixth Labour Government and certain areas (examples would include Royston and the north of Barnsley proper) tend to be especially strong for Labour.

Technically the constituency was created in the 1983 boundary review, but reality is slightly different; Barnsley Central was always the successor seat to the old Barnsley constituency, and in the last boundary review the constituency shifted westwards to pick up areas lost in 1983 to Barnsley West & Penistone. Barnsley Central, in other words, is both older and newer than the formal date of its creation.
Barnsley has never elected a Tory MP since it was first given a constituency of its own in the late Nineteenth Century and was a safe Liberal seat until it fell to Labour in 1922. Labour lost it in the disaster of 1931 but, tellingly, by a margin of just 1.8. It was regained in 1935 and was an extremely safe Labour constituency until its technical abolition in 1983. From 1953 its MP was the pugnacious right-winger Roy Mason, a former miner and Callaghan's extremely controversial Northern Ireland Secretary. Mason held the new constituency for one term, before retiring. He was replaced by Eric Illsley, then a senior NUM bureaucrat. In the 1980s and 1990s the new Barnsley Central turned out to be even safer than Barnsley had been (Illsley's majority in 1997 was a scarcely believable 67.2), though this was in part because of heightened emotions on the Yorkshire coalfield as a result of the Miners Strike. The constituency as redrawn in 2010 was less safe than either the 1983 or 1997 vintage with a notional majority of 38.0. This fell to a 'mere' 30.0 in 2010 as Labour did badly in Yorkshire (much of which took an especially brutal hit in the early stages of the slump that we're in) and leaked votes to protest parties. Illsley's creative accounting was also public knowledge by that point and shortly after the election he was arrested and promptly thrown out of the PLP.

Past Results

2010: Labour 47.3, LDem 17.3, Con 17.3, BNP 9.0, UKIP 4.7, Ind 2.0, Ind 1.6, SLP 1.0
2005: Labour 61.1, LDem 16.6, Con 13.3, BNP 4.9, Ind 4.1 (notional Lab 57.6, LDem 19.3, Con 14.7*)
2001: Labour 69.6, LDem 14.7, Con 13.1, SA 2.5
1997: Labour 77.0, Con 9.8, LDem 9.6, RP 3.6

Majorities before 1997

Barnsley Central: 1992 Lab 49.6, 1987 Lab 48.7, 1983 Lab 38.8
Barnsley: 1979 Lab 39.9, 1974O Lab 47.4, 1974F Lab 43.5, 1970 Lab 44.7, 1966 Lab 51.3, 1964 Lab 49.9, 1959 Lab 47.4, 1955 Lab 45.5, 1951 Lab 52.4, 1950 Lab 50.9, 1945 Lab 45.8, 1935 Lab 17.8, 1931 Nat Lib 1.8, 1929 Lab 23.0, 1924 Lab 3.4, 1923 Lab 22.0, 1922 Lab 10.2, 1918 Co Lib unopp.

_{It should probably be pointed out that some of the South Yorkshire notionals done for 2010 were a little odd; the figures for Barnsley Central look fine though. An argument exists for adding figures for the old West & Penistone seat as well, but meh. That would be deceptive anyway. Just make mental adjustments, I'm sure you're all capable of that.}

Unemployment Statistics

Unemployment Rate: 10.9*
JSA Claimant Count: 4.7
JSA Claiments per Vacancy Available: 3.8
Total Economically Inactive: 21.9*

*As of June 2010.

Census statistics will be added later, maybe. Can't seem to find a set for the new boundaries.

Candidates

The Labour candidate is Dan Jarvis. Brief info on him from Labourlist:

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It has been noted in various places that Jarvis is the first Labour PPC in the town not to be born in Yorkshire since the 1930s.

The Conservative candidate is James Hockney, a businessman and a councillor in South Cambridgeshire. He was the Tory candidate in Barnsley East in 2010.

The Liberal Democrat candidate is Dominic Carman, who is a self-publicist and the son of the colourful libel barrister to the establishment George Carman. He was the LibDem candidate in Barking in 2010.

The BNP candidate is Enis Dalton.

The UKIP candidate is Jane Collins.

I know nowt of either, but wouldn't be entirely surprised if at least one manages to finish ahead of a coalition party candidate. The BNP in particular are reported to be putting a lot of effort into this, but there's a longstanding tendency for everyone (both BNP and anti-fascist organisations) to exaggerate the extent of BNP electoral efforts, so we'll see. The Greenies have apparently decided not to throw away £500. Presumably there will be some independents... but so far (13th February) there seems no evidence of any running.

[YL]

Census statistics will be added later, maybe. Can't seem to find a set for the new boundaries.

This what you're looking for?
http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons/lib/research/rp2008/rp08-038.pdf

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Census statistics will be added later, maybe. Can't seem to find a set for the new boundaries.

This what you're looking for?
http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons/lib/research/rp2008/rp08-038.pdf

Ah, excellent. I didn't think of looking in the obvious place; will select some from there later today. Thanks!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Shortlist is out.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And the dark horse candidate won the nomination. Interesting.

[minionofmidas]

Reading that shortlist, I had the feeling there were three dark horse candidates.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Anyways, Nick Griffin will not be the BNP's candidate despite rumours to the contrary. Interesting.

[doktorb]

BNP candidate - Enis Dalton

UKIP candidate - Jane Collins

[You kip if you want to...]

BNP candidate - Enis Dalton

UKIP candidate - Jane Collins

Two people on this list are bigots.

[doktorb]

But notably, women....

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Illsley has resigned. Apparently the by-election will be on the third of March, but I've not seen that confirmed (though haven't looked either).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And we have a date and it is official and it is soon.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Anyway, Illsley has been sentenced today.

On a more amusing note, the Tories appear to have made an attempt to get Darren Gough to be their candidate, although he turned the 'chance' down. This is a pity as the opportunity to see him trying to remember more than three words at once on a hustings would have been utterly hilarious. So they've chosen someone else (see main post).

[YL]

Did Gough actually think that being a Tory candidate in Barnsley needed to interfere with his "continuing professional sporting commitments"?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Did Gough actually think that being a Tory candidate in Barnsley needed to interfere with his "continuing professional sporting commitments"?

Well there never was much between his ears, so it's possible.

[doktorb]

Dominic Carman has been chosen for the LibDems

Alan Hope is said to tbe the choice of the OMRLP

[You kip if you want to...]

Any predictions?

[minionofmidas]

70.

[You kip if you want to...]

70.

As in Labour share?

[minionofmidas]

70.

As in Labour share?

Yeah.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Not impossible given patterns elsewhere. Probably the only thing that might prevent that sort of result would be the circumstances that triggered the by-election in the first place (but then in the General Election there was no sign of such a backlash in Livingston or even Bury. May have been in Sc**nthorpe, but then what Morley did was several orders of magnitude worse than the rest). Does anyone know anything about the Tory candidate? Carman is certainly not a serious candidate for the LibDems.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Right, so I've just checked wikipedia and it has the answer. Hockney is apparently a businessman who is also councillor in South Cambridgeshire and was their candidate in Barnsley East in 2010.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

We have a full list of candidates now.

Dominic Carman, Liberal Democrat
Jane Collins, UKIP
Enis Dalton, BNP
Tony Devoy, Independent
James Hockney, Conservative
'Howling Laud' Hope, ThatJokeCeasedToBeFunnyAgesAgo Monster Raving Loony William Hill Party
Dan Jarvis, Labour
Kevin Riddiough, EDP
Michael Val Davies, Independent

Somewhat surprisingly, no candidates currently live in the constituency; I'd expected a 'local candidate for LOCAL PEOPLE' type. Will maybe check if anything interesting can be found about any of the other candidates later.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Right, Devoy stood in the constituency at the General Election in 2010 and polled a grand total of 610 votes. Will have to check if he's ever stood in a local election. Obviously Hope wastes £500 all over the country. I can find nothing on Michael Val Davies, though he lives in Devon.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

We have a poll! Somewhat regrettably it is by 'Survation'. Anyway...

Labour 63%, Con 13%, UKIP 9%, LDem 6%, BNP 4%