UK parliamentary by-elections 2014

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Reported to be:

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

[© tweed]

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

[morgieb]

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

[afleitch]

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.

[ilikeverin]

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?

[Gary J]

Extract from the Wikipedia article on White van man.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

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.

[Silent Hunter]

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

[Filuwaúrdjan]

'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.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The Labour Party is suffering a slight backlash in non-metropolitan areas of the country

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.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

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

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).

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

The Labour Party is suffering a slight backlash in non-metropolitan areas of the country

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.

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

[Tetro Kornbluth]

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

lolthelibdems.

[politicus]

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

lolthelibdems.

Well, they did finish ahead of the MRLP..

[YL]

'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.

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".)

[You kip if you want to...]

Do we remember the psephological joys of Holby City woman?

[YL]

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.

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.

[ilikeverin]

Hmm, fascinating.  Thanks for that input!

[DL]

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!

[EPG]

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.

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.

[Beezer]

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

[You kip if you want to...]

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

[EPG]

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.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

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.

[doktorb]

The Labour Party is suffering a slight backlash in non-metropolitan areas of the country

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.

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