Ealing Southall and Sedgefield by-elections thread

[Filuwaúrdjan]

According to Newsnight Labour will hold Sedgefield, while Ealing Southall looks close between Labour and the LibDems.

There are rumours that the BNP have come third in Sedgefield.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

According to Newsnight Labour will hold Sedgefield, while Ealing Southall looks close between Labour and the LibDems.

There are rumours that the BNP have come third in Sedgefield.

Really? I was up near there recently and it hardly seemed like a BNP friendly part of the world.. or maybe I saw only the good parts.. or maybe third here is something like 2%. *shrugs*

[Filuwaúrdjan]

According to Newsnight Labour will hold Sedgefield, while Ealing Southall looks close between Labour and the LibDems.

There are rumours that the BNP have come third in Sedgefield.

Really? I was up near there recently and it hardly seemed like a BNP friendly part of the world.. or maybe I saw only the good parts.. or maybe third here is something like 2%. *shrugs*

The North East is rather strange when it comes to racism. Most people are pretty tolerant, but there's a minority that is extremely racist.

[Verily]

According to Newsnight Labour will hold Sedgefield, while Ealing Southall looks close between Labour and the LibDems.

There are rumours that the BNP have come third in Sedgefield.

Really? I was up near there recently and it hardly seemed like a BNP friendly part of the world.. or maybe I saw only the good parts.. or maybe third here is something like 2%. *shrugs*

Given the complete lack of a Conservative campaign but a fairly lively Lib Dem one, I wouldn't be surprised to see the Tories down below 10% in Sedgefield. 8-9% is not a big ask for the BNP in a by-election in a safe, mostly white Labour seat where their candidate is a prominent local.

Rumors are flying around that the Tories did not do nearly so well in Ealing Southall as expected, and that they will come in a fairly distant third. Looks like a Labour hold with the Lib Dems in a close second in ES; Labour hold with the Lib Dems in a distant second in Sedgefield.

Ealing Southall
Labour: 35-40%
LD: 30-35%
Con: 17-20%
Rai (Ind): 6-8%
Respect: 3-5%
Green: 3-5%

Sedgefield
Labour: 45-50%
LD: 30-35%
BNP: 8-10%
Con: 8-10%

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Given the complete lack of a Conservative campaign but a fairly lively Lib Dem one, I wouldn't be surprised to see the Tories down below 10% in Sedgefield. 8-9% is not a big ask for the BNP in a by-election in a safe, mostly white Labour seat where their candidate is a prominent local.

True enough; the BNP did well in parts of the constituency in the District elections earlier in the year also. I'm now wondering how well Gittens (a Newton Aycliffe based Indy and District Counciller) did...

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And if all these rumours doth prove true, I'll be quite pleased. But all these rumours aren't based on much more than early sampling; much better than anything we've had in the campaign so far, of course, but still with a large margin of error (I'll never forget "LibDems gain Perry Barr"... actually I only remember that because of my reaction to what turned out to be a false rumour...). Wait until we get closer to the declarations; Sedgefield in a little over an hour, Southall in about two.

[Harry Hayfield]

BBC News has just shown a picture of the Sedgefield count and it looks like a convincing Labour hold as they votes were almost all tallied, that would suggest a declaration within 30 minutes or so.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Some estimates from Sky: Wilson 43%, Stone 24%, Robb 13%. BNP and Ind (Gittins) have apparently saved their deposits.

Declaration expected very soon.

[Verily]

Some estimates from Sky: Wilson 43%, Stone 24%, Robb 13%. BNP and Ind (Gittins) have apparently saved their deposits.

Declaration expected very soon.

BNP expected to be at 10%, I think.

[Harry Hayfield]

Sedgefield

Stephen Gash (English Democrats) 177
Paul Gittins (Independent) 1,885
Tim Grainger (Christian Party) 177
Chris Haine (Green) 348
Alan Hope (Loony) 147
Toby Horton (UK Independence Party) 536
Graham Robb (Conservative) 4,082
Norman Scarth (Independent) 34
Andrew Spence (British National Party) 2,494
Greg Stone (Liberal Democrats) 5,572
Phil Wilson (Labour) 12,528

Labour HOLD

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Phil Wilson is the new M.P for Sedgefield

[Filuwaúrdjan]

plus where will those Spectre (Reg Keys) votes go? Back to Labour or to the Lib Dems?

Seems to have been a mixture of "staying at home" and BNP...

[Verily]

plus where will those Spectre (Reg Keys) votes go? Back to Labour or to the Lib Dems?

Seems to have been a mixture of "staying at home" and BNP...

Surely most of them did go to the LDs, who rose around 8% (or about 75% of Keys' vote). Many of them might have gone to the local Independent, too. I doubt very many went BNP.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Surely most of them did go to the LDs, who rose around 8% (or about 75% of Keys' vote). Many of them might have gone to the local Independent, too.

Stone only polled 637 more votes than the LibDem in 2005 did. Mind you, I suppose that some who voted LibDem in 2005 stayed at home.
Actually, a lot probably did vote for Gittins...

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A protest vote is a protest vote.

On a lighter note, I love this little piece of self-parody from the Sedgefield Labour website:

[Verily]

Surely most of them did go to the LDs, who rose around 8% (or about 75% of Keys' vote). Many of them might have gone to the local Independent, too.

Stone only polled 637 more votes than the LibDem in 2005 did. Mind you, I suppose that some who voted LibDem in 2005 stayed at home.
Actually, a lot probably did vote for Gittins...

As you say, not everyone who voted Lib Dem last time bothered to vote, either. The difference in turnout between parties exists, but it's not so great to suggest that the drop in turnout was solely or even primarily due to Labour voters not showing up. The percentages are much more useful to look at, even in low-turnout by-elections.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The percentages are much more useful to look at, even in low-turnout by-elections.

Depends entirely on what you're looking for

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Ealing Southall declaration soon

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Sharma's won

[Verily]

Lab: 41.3%
LD: 27.7%
Con: 22.5%

So much for the amazing Tony Lit or the strength of the Cameron brand. Minor candidates did much worse than expected in ES, too; Rai was negligible, Respect at 1.6% and the Greens at 3.1%.

[Silent Hunter]

Not a good result for the Tories. Nice to see Labour holds in both.

[Democratic Hawk]

Thoughts on Ealing Southall

1) Firstly, I'd fancy Labour's chances were the seat being fought on new boundaries rather than old since it loses two Conservative wards (Ealing Common and Walpole), as welll as 20.8% of another, Ealing Broadway, which seems strongly Conservative

In the 2006 Borough Elections, the aggregate vote total in these three wards were as follows:

Ealing Common: Con 40.5%; LD 37.5%; Green 11.9%; Lab 10.1%
Walpole: Con 37.0%; LD 28.5%; Lab 23.7%; Green 10.8%
Ealing Broadway: Con 54.1%; LD 17.2%; Lab 14.5%; Green 11.6%

2) Secondly, the 2006 Borough elections in Southall, although they favored Labour, they were by no means comfortably ahead of the Conservatives, which I have estimated as follows:

Labour 12,658 (37.89%)
Conservative 10,886 (32.59%)
Lib Dem 6,439 (19.28%)
Green 2,657 (7.95%)
Respect 763 (2.28%)

Since only 20.8% of Ealing Broadway is in the constituency, I've taken each party's total aggregate vote and multiplied by 0.208 to give an adjusted total

However, on new boundaries, the results point to a more significant Labour lead:

Labour 11,114 (45.94%)
Conservative 7,158 (29.58%)
Lib Dem 3,585 (14.82%)
Green 1,575 (6.51%)
Respect 763 (3.15%)

3) Given the possibility that the five Labour to Conservative defecting councillors might erode Labour support in the safe Labour wards of Lady Margaret (Jarnai Singh Jandu, Maininder Kaur Keith, Gurchuran Singh) and Southall Broadway (Jagdish Chander Gupta, Manjit Singh, the portents do not bode well for Virendra Kumar Sharma

In 2006, in Lady Margaret, Labour polled 57.1%to the Conservatives' 29.1%; and, in Southall Broadway, Labour polled 57.4% to the Conservatives' 34.6%

Depending, on the local strength of these defecting councillors, it is highly possible that Tony Lit shall gain votes at the expense of Sharma. Then again, it may not, depending on the extent to which Sikh voters identify with the Labour Party, rather than their local councillors. I suspect, however, given the evidence of communal feuding that party identification might come second to many Sikh voters

My prediction: Anything can happen in the by-election, though, were Labour to lose it, it should, in theory, given the new boundaries, revert to being a safe Labour seat at the next general election

As you can see, I was pretty concerned about Labour's chances in Ealing Southall and, genuinely, thought Sharma was in trouble for two reasons:

1) The animosity of among certain Sikh Labour councillors to his candidacy, which culminated in the defection of five of them to the Conservative Party, towards his selection. I had concerns as to whether their consituents would vote Conservatives in truck loads

2) The 'relative' weakness of Labour in the constituency in 2006, compared with 2005. By my estimation, Labour polled 37.89% to the Conservatives' 32.59%, with the Lib Dems on 19.28%

So, what is telling is that not only was there a 5.24% swing to the Lib Dems in the by-election (from 2005), there was a significant swing from the Conservatives to Labour on 2006. The Labour vote rose by around 3.5%, while the Conservative vote tumbled by 10%, which for Labour can only be good

Apparently, Ealing Southall saw the lowest swing against a governing party held seat since the Conservatives held Beaconsfield in 1982, when the losing Labour candidate at the time was a young barrister by the name of Tony Blair

Virendra Sharma and Sedgefield's Phil Wilson will be re-elected at the next general election with substantially increased majorities

Dave

[minionofmidas]

Post by Nick Palmer M.P over at politicalbetting.com (and if thee wants to gloat or mope loadly or whatever... please do it over there, not here)

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I think we all know what "simply not saying" indicates. Sigh.

What a fucking Hindutva Nazi.

The Labour-Tory wrangling with the defections 'n'all was just typical Indian politics at its worst - which even in India voters tend not to reward anymore, if there's a decent alternative around. And I quite wondered how the seat's posh Whites would react to it. Which was part of what my "Lib Dem gain" claim was based on. Well. Fell on my face with that.

Apparently, Ealing Southall saw the lowest swing against a governing party held seat since the Conservatives held Beaconsfield in 1982, when the losing Labour candidate at the time was a young barrister by the name of Tony Blair

Interesting. I suppose that's only in seats held by the governing party before the by-election though?

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I agree with this prediction.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The Labour-Tory wrangling with the defections 'n'all was just typical Indian politics at its worst - which even in India voters tend not to reward anymore, if there's a decent alternative around. And I quite wondered how the seat's posh Whites would react to it. Which was part of what my "Lib Dem gain" claim was based on. Well. Fell on my face with that.

Interestingly enough, there were a few reports during the campaign that what Labour were really worried about was the possibility of the white vote lining up behind the LibDem; didn't happen in the end, but methinks that more whites voted LibDem than any other party.

I guess that this thread needs a photo of Sharma's battlebus. Not been able to find one until today:



The McDonalds sign is in the background, not on top of the bus.

[Democratic Hawk]

Apparently, Ealing Southall saw the lowest swing against a governing party held seat since the Conservatives held Beaconsfield in 1982, when the losing Labour candidate at the time was a young barrister by the name of Tony Blair

Interesting. I suppose that's only in seats held by the governing party before the by-election though?

Yes

[minionofmidas]

The Labour-Tory wrangling with the defections 'n'all was just typical Indian politics at its worst - which even in India voters tend not to reward anymore, if there's a decent alternative around. And I quite wondered how the seat's posh Whites would react to it. Which was part of what my "Lib Dem gain" claim was based on. Well. Fell on my face with that.

Interestingly enough, there were a few reports during the campaign that what Labour were really worried about was the possibility of the white vote lining up behind the LibDem; didn't happen in the end, but methinks that more whites voted LibDem than any other party.

I guess that this thread needs a photo of Sharma's battlebus. Not been able to find one until today:



The McDonalds sign is in the background, not on top of the bus.

Aw. It's a beauty.

[Democratic Hawk]

I wonder how the BNP would have faired in ES had they ran a candidate. UKIP's vote was derisory both here (0.78%) and in Sedgefield (1.92%)

Dave