Oldham West and Royton by-election

[DragsterRR]

It tells us what I said on page one.
Put a red rosette on a dog turn and it would win Oldham.

[Jonesy23]

Scuffers said:

All that aside, what does this tell us?

That 'Vote early and vote often' is still a winning campaign strategy?

[AJS-]

I think it tells us that Corbyn is a lot more 'credible' than he is given credit for. At least with a large chunk of the people of Oldham, Royton and the Swat valley.

Mistake for UKIP to spout off angrily about postal votes now. They were never going to come anywhere close to winning with that number of votes.

[longblackcoat]

steveT350C said:

@RaheemKassam: UKIP sources are optimistic but cautious about #OldhamWest. They reckon there's fewer than 1000 votes in it.

No more accurate than they were at the GE.

May just be that the UKIP brand simply isn't as attractive as its supporters think.

[hidetheelephants]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

[AJS-]

General Election

Labour Michael Meacher 23,630 54.8 +9.3
UKIP Francis Arbour 8,892 20.6 +17.4
Con Kamran Ghafoor 8,187 19.0 -4.7
Lib Dem Garth Harkness 1,589 3.7 -15.4
Green Simeon Hart 839 1.9 +1.9

Turnout 43,137 59.6


By Election

Labour Jim McMahon 17,322 62.11 +7.33
UKIP John Bickley 6,487 23.41 +2.81
Con James Daly 2,596 9.37 -9.67
Lib Dem Jane Brophy 1,024 3.7 0.0
Green Simeon Hart 249 0.9 -1.0

Turnout 27,819

A few of interesting things:

UKIP's problems are their own

The Conservatives were decimated losing 70% of their vote since the GE and UKIP didn't seem to pick up any.

2,500 people who voted UKIP at the GE didn't bother yesterday despite a UKIP win looking possible.

The postal vote line is a bit of a red herring because even if all 7300 (26%) were for Labour and were fraudulent, then you could discount them completely and they would still have won by over 3,000 votes compared with the ~1,000 predicted.

And bad news for the Tories:

The Corbyn effect obviously didn't put people off voting Labour.

It is possible that an Asian block vote has shifted from the Conservatives who put up an Asian candidate at the GE to Labour.

Edited by AJS- on Friday 4th December 05:49

[Axionknight]

Halb said:

Christ, UKiPs woman is scrabbling. 'Very good second?'

100% is not a good second place.

[anonymous-user]

That was close wasn't it!
UKIP future looking very Rocky after that

[powerstroke]

longblackcoat said:

No more accurate than they were at the GE.

May just be that the UKIP brand simply isn't as attractive as its supporters think.

No thats true ! free money and the nanny state is a much more attractive proposition...

[jmorgan]

What is the norm for postal votes in the UK? Suppose there must be a figure somewhere.

[JagLover]

Just heard N Farage on Radio 4. Sounds like there has been the usual shenanigans involved with the postal vote we have come to expect from Jezbollahs core constituency.

[Axionknight]

How many postal votes were cast? If the figure is less than Labours majority you are talking nonsense.

[Derek Smith]

That was a surprise. Time to reconsider the Corbyn effect.

No way can I ever criticise the pollsters for getting it a bit wrong. I was way off.

The result will be a shock for those labour MPs considering crossing the floor or even starting their own party.

The real looser is the UKIP.

[JagLover]

AJS- said:

I think it tells us that Corbyn is a lot more 'credible' than he is given credit for. At least with a large chunk of the people of Oldham, Royton and the Swat valley.

Mistake for UKIP to spout off angrily about postal votes now. They were never going to come anywhere close to winning with that number of votes.

Very much disagree

There will be a number of labour seats that could become UKIP Labour marginals without the Labour postal vote fraud. Now is the time to kick up a fuss not after a general election.

[Countdown]

Esseesse said:

Pesty said:

I wonder what the breakdown of the postal votes was and if it matched the overall results.

Nuttal said 99% Labour!

I thought it was 217%..... If only they could stop postal voting somehow, then we'd see the true result.!! It's SO unfair.....

[JagLover]

Axionknight said:

How many postal votes were cast? If the figure is less than Labours majority you are talking nonsense.

Less than Labour's majority so lets be clear labour would have always held this seat.

That is not the point, the margin of victory was, as it took momentum away from UKIP and enabled the Corbynites to say he has a mandate from the electorate.

End postal voting for anyone who is not too ill or disabled to make it to a voting booth and lets see how Labour do then in the Northern seats which have less of a Muslim presence.

[AJS-]

JagLover
Not after the general election, no. But the angry tweets and snipes at the count don't do them any credit.

Get their case together and push it in a sensible way.

[Lucas CAV]

Ukip have their moment and that moment has passed. Farage has been virtually invisible since the ge.

JagLover said:

Less than Labour's majority so lets be clear labour would have always held this seat.

That is not the point, the margin of victory was, as it took momentum away from UKIP and enabled the Corbynites to say he has a mandate from the electorate.

End postal voting for anyone who is not too ill or disabled to make it to a voting booth and lets see how Labour do then in the Northern seats which have less of a Muslim presence.

[jjlynn27]

It's entertaining how kippers are surprised every time they get decimated. Oh, it's MSM conspiracy, oh it's postal votes, oh it's tactical voting. The only MP they have is a guy who would won regardless of party that he was representing. And when he disagrees with Nige, he's a Tory plant.

There is always someone else to blame.



ETA: Just read Farage's comments, what a sore loser, have some dignity. Nevertheless very entertaining to read.

Edited by jjlynn27 on Friday 4th December 08:11

[The Hypno-Toad]

Disappointing but not entirely unexpected. Polling before an election these days seems to be a case of sticking your finger up in the air and saying that'll do. Plus despite Farages occasional claims otherwise, I think he knew which way it would go and UKIP no longer have the money to through all their resources into a seat where Ian Huntley could win if he wore a red rosette.(as mentioned earlier.)

The Conservatives got sucked into this by thinking that they would be able to destroy Corbyn if UKIP won but instead with the ground swell of public opinion against sending planes to Syria, this is now going to be a major victory for the Trotskyist thug and his traitorous team cancelling out all the good that the Benn speech did.

I would imagine that a number of Labour MPs are now thinking that the only way to get rid of Pol Jeremy(and hang onto their jobs.) is to split the party.