UK parliamentary by-elections 2014

[EPG]

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.

[EPG]

Bear in mind that they did elect Patrick Mercer.

[EPG]

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

[EPG]

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

[EPG]

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.

[EPG]

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.

[EPG]

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.

[EPG]

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).

[EPG]

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

[EPG]

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.

[EPG]

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.

[EPG]

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.

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.

[EPG]

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.

[EPG]

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

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.

[EPG]

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.

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.

[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.

[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.

[EPG]

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.

[EPG]

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.