Labours glorious felching victory

[stevejh]

Still searching for the number of postal votes. It wouldn't surprise me if there were quite a few.

[Puggit]

Ozzie Osmond said:

Ooooops! It's a UKIP landslide!

Please accept my apologies.

Let's try and educate you again - no one is claiming a UKIP landslide...

But...

Every party lost a lot of votes, except UKIP who doubled their's - and this result, in the face of Cameron's 'veto' last week is a very good improvement for them.

If you can only weakly troll - perhaps being amongst people that do understand politics and maths isn't the right place for you? Maybe head back to the MaxPower forums?

[Andy Zarse]

Ozzie Osmond said:

Ooooops! It's a UKIP landslide!

Please accept my apologies.

Apology accepted.

And what is it then for the LibDims?

[scenario8]

Outside of internet fora that may or may not be wanting to find the poll was rigged, I haven't found any complaints about the conduct of this election from the digging around I've been doing this morning. Can't it just be the official vote count is a fair reflection of the will (or lack of will) of the local electorate?

Time will tell if there was a significant postal vote - or if that possibly significant vote contained an unusual or significant level of dodgy doings. As of yet I can't find anyone vaguely official bleating about it.

Incidentally this Labour win is currently the third story on BBC News 24, second on Sky News and I'm sure will be dropping further as the day goes on. That sounds about fair.

Does everything have to be conspiratorial?

[don4l]

Ozzie Osmond said:

Ooooops! It's a UKIP landslide!

Please accept my apologies.

However, you cannot escape the fact that UKIP more than doubled their share of the vote, while the LibDems more than halved their share.

Conservative voters stayed at home because many of them feel disenfranchised by Cameron's left of centre policies.

Don
--

[dandarez]

Look at it this way:

It was an EXTREMELY LOW turnout

But UKIP increased it's vote from last time by nearly 30%.

[Andy Zarse]

scenario8 said:

Does everything have to be conspiratorial?

I accept that you've not found any evidence for or against, but the suggestion is not really conspiritorial based previous evidence/prosecutions in Labour areas with large asian populations.

Any (conservative) candidate who raised the issue prior to the polling day would be insane; afterwards looks like sour grapes.

Clearly Labour were always going to win, but a swing of 8% on half the GE turn out has a distinctly rodenty smell to my mind.

[MarkRSi]

Bing o said:

They really need to have a minimum turn-out to make a vote valid. 29% is a joke.

I think changing the voting system would be a good start, Alternative Vote anyone?

[Fittster]

MarkRSi said:

Bing o said:

They really need to have a minimum turn-out to make a vote valid. 29% is a joke.

I think changing the voting system would be a good start, Alternative Vote anyone?

No, still get politicians in charge.

People have twigged that your representative won't actually represent you they way they said they would when asking for your vote.

Forget being 'represented' and make democracy work by reducing the power of politicians by moving to a system of direct democracy.

[Derek Smith]

Puggit said:

Let's try and educate you again - no one is claiming a UKIP landslide...

But...

Every party lost a lot of votes, except UKIP who doubled their's

Could you educate me about doubling 991 as well please. 1271 seems to me to be about a third more.

By-elections historically mean little. They are often a protest vote. Staying away can be seen as a form of protest, one that does not necessarily occur in general elections. A 29% turnout seems to me to be a massive protest.

The difficulty is in deciding what the protest, if it is indeed that, is about. I feel certain that Cameron expected some return from the use of his veto, some form of endorsement, but, apparently, this didn't materialise.

In essence a by-election is often of little importance and this one particularly so.

Voters might have felt the need to show the government what they think but just 280 extra voting for UKIP, and thus for exit from the EU, cannot have been inspiring. In this case, numbers is everything, percentages are all but irrelevant.

Staying away from by-elections is a perfectly valid form of instruction to the government. They lost. Will they learn from it?

The LibDems' decision to go with the Tories has proved a disaster. They are now in a situation where they have to follow the dictates of their 'partners'. They cannot afford a GE yet the longer they stay in the coalition with little or no influence the more damage they will sustain.

No matter how you cut it, it is good news for labour. They might have felt that the veto would inspire the voters but that hasn't happened.

If anything the meagre increase in the UKIP vote must be something of a disappointment to them.

And I'd like to try a bit of educating myself: there's no possessive apostrophe in theirs.

[Fittster]

dandarez said:

Look at it this way:

It was an EXTREMELY LOW turnout

But UKIP increased it's vote from last time by nearly 30%.

So it's a land slide for the 70% who rejected all candidates and the system. The MP for Feltham and Heston can hardly claim to represent the people of the constituency.

[scenario8]

Derek Smith said:

No matter how you cut it, it is good news for labour.

To be honest I imagine even Labour will have forgotten about this by-election within a month.

This has got to be one of the most momentously unimportant and insignificant elections in recent times. Unless something is uncovered about election rigging - which would be a surprise.

I am slightly puzzled that UKIP didn't better benefit from the disaffection of those that had previously voted Conservative. But that's about it for me. This election is already fish and chip wrapping.

On another point, I still prefer indirect representative politics via an MP as part of a broader democratic process rather than letting the X Factor society text in support for NHS reforms or FS legislation.

[Pesty]

Jasandjules said:

they are all the same s**e just painted a different colour.

Its not as if today cameron announced a new policy that is just gordon browns from a few years ago is it.

Oh wait.

[frosted]

Fittster said:

So it's a land slide for the 70% who rejected all candidates and the system. The MP for Feltham and Heston can hardly claim to represent the people of the constituency.

If the Tory won there with the same numbers this thread would be full of well done Dave posts . Young people don't vote so I think the 30% turn out was mainly old people and not Asians but anyway , I'm wasting my breath

[king arthur]

Does this mean Millipede might stay leader of the Labour party for a bit longer?

[Andy Zarse]

frosted said:

If the Tory won there with the same numbers this thread would be full of well done Dave posts .

I doubt it. If that happened, which it wouldn't anyhow, it would clearly be through blatant corruption and we'd all be absolutely up in arms about it.

So yes, you're wasting your breath.

[Pesty]

frosted said:

not Asians but anyway

Why would you say that? dont asians vote?

[don4l]

Derek Smith said:

Puggit said:

Let's try and educate you again - no one is claiming a UKIP landslide...

But...

Every party lost a lot of votes, except UKIP who doubled their's

Could you educate me about doubling 991 as well please. 1271 seems to me to be about a third more.

They more than doubled their share of the vote.

.........2010...... 2011
Lab...21,174....12,639
Con...16,516.....6,436
LibD...6,669.....1,346
UKIP.....992.....1,276

Of the major parties, only UKIP gained more votes than in the general election. I would think that they are very pleased with that result.

The LibDem vote has collapsed. All in all, a good result, IMHO.

Don
--

Edited by don4l on Friday 16th December 12:52

[BruceV8]

king arthur said:

Does this mean Millipede might stay leader of the Labour party for a bit longer?

I hope so. Just seen Jacob Rees-Mogg on The Daily Politics saying that as far as the Tories are concerned, the longer Millipede is leader, the better. He then went on to say how much he admired Ed Balls but
I suspect a bit of Machiavellian disingenuousness in that.

[otolith]

Derek Smith said:

No matter how you cut it, it is good news for labour.

In the sense that any other result would have been disastrous. If, as the opposition, you can't win a by-election in a safe seat during a recession while the government is forced to impose austere policies, you're screwed.