Oldham West and Royton by-election

[BlackLabel]

Esseesse said:

Lord Ashcroft: Based on Ladbrokes' latest odds, here is their updated projection for Thursday's Oldham West & Royton by-election.

Labour 41%, UKIP 38%, Cons 14%, LD 6%.

Has Ashcroft made a mistake here?

These are the current Ladbrokes odds:

ladbrokes said:

Labour
1/4
UKIP
3/1
Conservatives
100/1
Liberal Democrats
100/1
Greens
100/1
Monster Raving Loonies
1000/1

https://sports.ladbrokes.com/en-gb/betting/politics/british/local-by-elections/oldham-west-royton-by-election/221137036/

Labour are 1/4 favourites to win which gives us an implied probability of 80%.

[anonymous-user]

AJS- said:

Jimboka said:

What weak handling of the migrant crisis?. Taking in the most needy (bypassing the traffickers) is the most sensible policy in the whole of Europe..

The weak handling that gave us record migration figures last week.

He talks a good talk and is less overtly destructive than Merckel, but the end result is the same. A vast influx of foreign people, many of whom will make no real contribution to anything and some of whom will simply be terrorists.

Having the most sensible policy in Europe is not much of a recommendation.

I thought the migrant crisis referred to the migrants from Syria/Afghanistan/etc/etc.? Cameron has lead the way in Europe on that . I'm sure Getmans are very envious of his sensible approach .

Fellow EU citizens move here because we have one of the strongest economies due to Cameron & co's good economic policies. We are not typical EU basket case. He had no control over who comes here from EU. Which could contribute to the no vote of course.

[anonymous-user]

PS
A lot of conservative voters would vote for alternative rather than 1 MP no hopers UKIP

[richardxjr]

BlackLabel said:

https://sports.ladbrokes.com/en-gb/betting/politic...

Labour are 1/4 favourites to win which gives us an implied probability of 80%.

1/4 is tight tho.
Look at the other markets, eg margin and vote %

[s2art]

Jimboka said:

PS
A lot of conservative voters would vote for alternative rather than 1 MP no hopers UKIP

Why would they bother to vote at all then? The only way they can stop Labour is to vote UKIP. But as has been said, they could vote Labour to extend Corbyns time as leader, UKIP or Labour are the only intelligent options for them.

[rs1952]

s2art said:

Jimboka said:

PS
A lot of conservative voters would vote for alternative rather than 1 MP no hopers UKIP

Why would they bother to vote at all then? The only way they can stop Labour is to vote UKIP. But as has been said, they could vote Labour to extend Corbyns time as leader, UKIP or Labour are the only intelligent options for them.

As we have seen in the recent past when a certain Reckless Mark couldn't even hold the seat in a GE that he previously won as a tory and then took as the UKIP candidate in a by-election, UKIP are primarily seen by many of the electorate as a party for a protest vote. Some on here may think otherwise, but the evidence doesn't appear to back them up.

There are people around who see UKIP as BNP-lite, and they aren't going to loge their protest vote with them. Other protest vote candidates are available.

[powerstroke]

There are tories in Oldham????!!!!!

[AJS-]

Jimboka
I would say those from the countries you mention epitomise the migrant crisis but are not the whole story. Record total numbers arrived last year. We have had migrants besieging Calais and more coming. We seem to have no meaningful deterrents or ability to quickly deport them. He has been slightly less destructive than some other EU politicians but I would hardly say he's led the way on anything. He has probably benefited more from the English Channel (which he didn't create) than anything.

Nor do I get in what sense we're not a typical EU basket case. We're not Greece, granted. We're not in the Euro but we have huge and rising debt, unfunded pension liabilities, chronic welfare dependency, large scale youth unemployment, slow growth and burdensome taxes. Sounds pretty continental to me.

As I see it Cameron is just a showman who hasn't really done anything of much substance and never had any intention to. His laughable EU 'negotiations' show as much.

[Mr_B]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

That's interesting. Did the BNP vote come from and go back to Labour ?

[AJS-]

As for UKIP being a protest vote - the bookies certainly seem to think there's a far better chance of them winning this seat than the Tories. If it's a protest against the arrogant complacency of the main parties then long may it continue.

[Axionknight]

Mr E said:

Pesty said:

Conservatives are mental if they don't vote ukip

If labour lose the seat to ukip, Jeremy is likely toast. That means the opposition might actually get their house in order and be credible? Or simply implode with infighting?

So, were I a Tory voter in the constituency, my thoughts would be;
Vote ukip; always fun to give labour a bloody nose, and if it results in a credible opposition that's probably better for the political system and country as a whole.
Vote Tory; return a labour candidate, keep the opposition leader in charge and completely out of his depth for a while longer in the hopes of the opposition being completely unelectable come the next GE.

One supposes if the latter was your aim, you may as well vote labour and be done with it.

Or, elect a UKIP candidate who is more likely to be in line with some Tory policies and effectively add a vote to a slim Tory majority during key votes in the house.

[Axionknight]

rs1952 said:

As we have seen in the recent past when a certain Reckless Mark couldn't even hold the seat in a GE that he previously won as a tory and then took as the UKIP candidate in a by-election, UKIP are primarily seen by many of the electorate as a party for a protest vote. Some on here may think otherwise, but the evidence doesn't appear to back them up.

There are people around who see UKIP as BNP-lite, and they aren't going to loge their protest vote with them. Other protest vote candidates are available.

When does a party stop being a protest vote party out of interest? Is there an arbitrary figure at a general election and if so how close is 3,881,129 votes to it?

[powerstroke]

Axionknight said:

rs1952 said:

As we have seen in the recent past when a certain Reckless Mark couldn't even hold the seat in a GE that he previously won as a tory and then took as the UKIP candidate in a by-election, UKIP are primarily seen by many of the electorate as a party for a protest vote. Some on here may think otherwise, but the evidence doesn't appear to back them up.

There are people around who see UKIP as BNP-lite, and they aren't going to loge their protest vote with them. Other protest vote candidates are available.

When does a party stop being a protest vote party out of interest? Is there an arbitrary figure at a general election and if so how close is 3,881,129 votes to it?

when it wins a GE???!!!

[Axionknight]

Unless you don't agree with the incumbent in the first place surely? That's not a protest vote is it, voting for a party you align with politically even if they aren't in power? Over nine million people voted for Labour ladt time around - all protest votes? I don't think so. Lots of people out there are tribal voters, for example, they'll vote red, blue or whatever regardless of whether they are in power or not.

[Axionknight]

So cynical for someone so young, Tonker!

https://mobile.twitter.com/LordAshcroft/status/671...

[Mr E]

Axionknight said:

Or, elect a UKIP candidate who is more likely to be in line with some Tory policies and effectively add a vote to a slim Tory majority during key votes in the house.

There was a key vote last night. The opposition was too busy scoring points internally to effectively oppose (and wasn't even sure it wanted to)

[Axionknight]

Mr E said:

Axionknight said:

Or, elect a UKIP candidate who is more likely to be in line with some Tory policies and effectively add a vote to a slim Tory majority during key votes in the house.

There was a key vote last night. The opposition was too busy scoring points internally to effectively oppose (and wasn't even sure it wanted to)

A fair point - it does seem to be farce after farce for Labour at the moment.

[Mr E]

Axionknight said:

A fair point - it does seem to be farce after farce for Labour at the moment.

The fellow at the end though, he seemed to have a bit of stuff about him. Fancy Osborne vs Benn in a couple of years?

[s2art]

rs1952 said:

s2art said:

Jimboka said:

PS
A lot of conservative voters would vote for alternative rather than 1 MP no hopers UKIP

Why would they bother to vote at all then? The only way they can stop Labour is to vote UKIP. But as has been said, they could vote Labour to extend Corbyns time as leader, UKIP or Labour are the only intelligent options for them.

As we have seen in the recent past when a certain Reckless Mark couldn't even hold the seat in a GE that he previously won as a tory and then took as the UKIP candidate in a by-election, UKIP are primarily seen by many of the electorate as a party for a protest vote. Some on here may think otherwise, but the evidence doesn't appear to back them up.

There are people around who see UKIP as BNP-lite, and they aren't going to loge their protest vote with them. Other protest vote candidates are available.

You are confusing protest voting with tactical voting. For a Tory to vote for UKIP to keep Labour out is tactical voting and has nothing to do with protest voting.

[Axionknight]

Mr E said:

Axionknight said:

A fair point - it does seem to be farce after farce for Labour at the moment.

The fellow at the end though, he seemed to have a bit of stuff about him. Fancy Osborne vs Benn in a couple of years?

Not really no.