Bradford West by-election - 29th March

[Pete Whitehead]

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

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

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

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

[joevsimp]

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

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

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

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

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

[Andrea]

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

[Filuwaúrdjan]

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

[minionofmidas]

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

[Pete Whitehead]

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

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

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

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

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

Oxhey or South Oxhey? major difference

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

[Andrea]

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

[YL]

Via Andrea on UKPollingReport:

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

[Andrea]

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

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

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

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

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

Afzal Khan (Manchester Councillor)

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

Simon Young www.simonyoung.info/cms2/

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Labour List reports that Imran Hussain won the nomination.

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

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Shocker.

[Andrea]

Shocker.

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

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

[Filuwaúrdjan]

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

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

[Filuwaúrdjan]

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

[You kip if you want to...]

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

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

[doktorb]

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

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

Nominations close on Wednesday

[YL]

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

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

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

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

[doktorb]

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

[doktorb]

Nominations close this afternoon.

[doktorb]

4pm, to be exact.

[YL]

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

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

We should get confirmation later today.

[doktorb]

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

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

[doktorb]

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

As expected


Interesting points of fact:

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

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

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

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

[Pete Whitehead]

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

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

[You kip if you want to...]

If anyone's interested, here's the data for all the by-elections so far in this parliament. Of course, freakish results like the massive Lab-Lib tactical vote in Oldham East & Saddleworth mess this up quite a bit.


An election projection, just for fun, if these results were to happen at a general election (on the proposed boundaries, with notional gains):
Labour - 344 (+113)
Conservatives - 193 (-104)
Liberal Democrats - 40 (-8)
Plaid - 1 (-1)
SNP - 6 (nc)


And, of course: