Labour win Oldham East by-election by 3,000 votes on on 48% turn out

[editor]

Who the fuck votes for Lib Dems now?

Labour have won the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election with a majority of more than 3,000.

Labour held off the challenge of the Liberal Democrats, who came in second place while the Conservatives vote fell by more than 7,000 as they came third.

Turnout was 48%, considerably lower than at the 2010 general election.

The by-election was called after a special court found ex-Labour minister Phil Woolas lied about his Lib Dem opponent in May's poll.

Labour won the seat by just 103 votes in May from the Liberal Democrats but the result was later declared void by three judges.

Mr Woolas was barred from standing for public office, triggering the first by-election since the government was formed in May.

The by-election is the first significant opportunity that voters have had to pass judgement on the policies of the coalition government and Ed Miliband's performance as opposition leader.

'Broken promises'
Shadow education secretary Andy Burnham told the BBC that Labour had "really got its message through" on the door steps during the campaign and the public had shown their anger over the coalition's "broken promises".

Norman Lamb
For the Lib Dems, Norman Lamb said if the anticipated result came to pass, it would be a "very creditable result" for the party now that it was in government.

He said the party's vote appeared to have held up, contrary to predictions that it would "collapse".

The result reflected the fact that the Lib Dems were having to make "difficult decisions" in government, he added, particularly over student tuition fees and VAT.

"It is not a good time for the Lib Dems to be fighting an election but we have appeared to have done very well," he said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12187965

 

[binka]

i just did some rough maths based on comparing share of vote and it looks to me like about 4,700 tories voted lib dem this time. which they wont do next time will they? which could put the lib dems down on 6-7k which is about half of what they got at the last election. i know theres other things to take into account but it doesnt look good for them.

 

[strung out]

                   [b]2011     2010[/b] 
Labour:          14,718   14,186
Lib Dems:        11,160   14,083
Conservatives:    4,481   11,773
UKIP:             2,029    1,720
BNP:              1,560    2,546
[B][I]Turnout:            48%    61.2%[/I][/B]

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

Lots of people are acting like it is good that race hate liars got off the hook. WTF is that about?

 

[shagnasty]

I think we will see more of this con libdem vote switching.A lot of tory votes switched to libdems

 

[ernestolynch]

What's the green-TORY on about race hate?

 

[DotCommunist]

oh dear, tebbit will be foaming at the mouth* about the 'wild men of the TUC'

*slightly more than is normal for him

 

[goldenecitrone]

Lots of people are acting like it is good that race hate liars got off the hook. WTF is that about?

Did you want the Lib Dems to win? Cunt.

 

[ernestolynch]

.

 

[co-op]

i just did some rough maths based on comparing share of vote and it looks to me like about 4,700 tories voted lib dem this time. which they wont do next time will they? which could put the lib dems down on 6-7k which is about half of what they got at the last election. i know theres other things to take into account but it doesnt look good for them.

How did you get to that figure? I can see that some tories will have gone over to the libs but haven't they mostly sat on their hands?

Wonder if those 4000+ tories who did vote would have put the lib-dems down 2nd on an AV ballot?

 

[embree]

Lots of people are acting like it is good that race hate liars got off the hook. WTF is that about?

No, the Lib Dems flopped

 

[magneze]

i just did some rough maths based on comparing share of vote and it looks to me like about 4,700 tories voted lib dem this time. which they wont do next time will they? which could put the lib dems down on 6-7k which is about half of what they got at the last election. i know theres other things to take into account but it doesnt look good for them.

How do you work that out? (Genuine question)

 

[The39thStep]

Greens took a hiding

 

[Cobbles]

Who the fuck votes for Lib Dems now?

Wasn't their share of the vote actually higher than at the general election? - so the answer's quite a few.

I presume that Labour managed to entice their traditonal voters off the sofa by offering free chips'n cheese in the lift to the polling station as well as promising a free SKY+ upgrade and 2 Layzee-boy recliners to the long-term workshy, I mean "unwaged" if they ever get back into power.

 

[Tankus]

Across the borough (Oldham) there are 18,600 public-sector employees — a total of 24.9 per cent of the entire workforce. Oldham’s reliance on the public sector is only superseded by Bury at 27.65 per cent with 17,200 workers. All other areas across Greater Manchester are less reliant on the sector

not rocket science to work out the result ...is it ?

 

[Fedayn]

Any decent amalysis of the BNP vote, especially given the BNP/UKIP vote was over 10%.

 

[The39thStep]

Don't eat that chips and cheese combo up there. Its actually a very mixed area in terms of wealth and the Council and when its not under NOC its either Lib dem or Labour with a strong Tory opposition.

I had a twenty on Lab/LibDem/Tory tricast at 2/5

 

[Tankus]

and just in case the 18,600 didnt get the message

just before polling day

About 2,000 jobs are to go at Manchester City Council because of government spending cuts, the authority has said.

The Labour-run council said it needed to reduce its workforce by about 17% after changes to local authority grants left a huge hole in its finances.

Officers need to find £110m of savings in 2011-12 - £60m more than they expected last year.

The council said it wanted to avoid compulsory redundancies.

However, it said it needed to reduce the workforce "quickly".

All staff are being asked to consider voluntary redundancy or, for those aged over 55, early retirement.

When it announced changes to local government grants in December, the government said no council would face cuts of more than 8.9%.

But Manchester City Council said it was among the five worst-hit authorities in England, and in reality faced a 25% cut over the next two years.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england...ester-12177853

 

[belboid]

Any decent amalysis of the BNP vote, especially given the BNP/UKIP vote was over 10%.

BNP vote fell by 40% (or by 1.2%, depending how you look at it). UKIP got there vote out, probly on a vague hope of beating the tories into fourth. No great shakes.

 

[magneze]

Wasn't their share of the vote actually higher than at the general election? - so the answer's quite a few.

I presume that Labour managed to entice their traditonal voters off the sofa by offering free chips'n cheese in the lift to the polling station as well as promising a free SKY+ upgrade and 2 Layzee-boy recliners to the long-term workshy, I mean "unwaged" if they ever get back into power.

Parody

 

[Fedayn]

BNP vote fell by 40% (or by 1.2%, depending how you look at it). UKIP got there vote out, probly on a vague hope of beating the tories into fourth. No great shakes.

Aye, just found it interesting that in Oldham-where the BNP vote has so often been the talking point didn't even result in a save deposit.

 

[The39thStep]

Any decent amalysis of the BNP vote, especially given the BNP/UKIP vote was over 10%.

No but they held an unopposed demo re PK's unmasking of the sexual jihad. Actually they did have a protest involving about twenty of them but that seemed to be a North west call out including Liverpool. Claim they put out 17000 leaflets but they haven't got much of a branch there anymore.

 

[Santino]

Wasn't their share of the vote actually higher than at the general election? - so the answer's quite a few.

I presume that Labour managed to entice their traditonal voters off the sofa by offering free chips'n cheese in the lift to the polling station as well as promising a free SKY+ upgrade and 2 Layzee-boy recliners to the long-term workshy, I mean "unwaged" if they ever get back into power.

Ooh, that's got me just hopping mad! Your gross caricature of reality has really invoked a strong emotional response in me! Gah!

 

[killer b]

not the total wipeout i was hoping for. where did it all go wrong?

 

[binka]

How did you get to that figure? I can see that some tories will have gone over to the libs but haven't they mostly sat on their hands?

Wonder if those 4000+ tories who did vote would have put the lib-dems down 2nd on an AV ballot?

there may be a flaw in my logic but last time the tories came third with 26.4% of the vote. im making an assumption that this is mostly their core vote. this time they took 12.8% of the vote which is 13.6% less. if you take the tory turnout of 4481, divide it by last nights share and multiply it by last years share it gives you 9242 votes (this is the number im assuming they would have got last night if their share of the vote had held up.) 9242 - 4481 = 4761 votes shifted from tory to lib dem. now im sure there are some flaws in this logic, it doesnt take into account people who voted tory last time and voted for another party other than lib dem this time but i think its interesting anyway

 

[butchersapron]

It's a fair inference given the pre-election polling that indicated tories switching to the lib-dems.

 

[butchersapron]

Seems to me the logic is pointing directly towards an informal electoral pact - the voters are ahead of the parties on this - . They don't need to pretend like Clegg and Cameron are, they know they can't kick lumps out of each other. Av would be handy for that wouldn't it?

 

[belboid]

it wont last tho, tories will be fucked off they have written themselves off in what should have been a winnable seat. In most other places, outside of a by election, I can see most going 'the liberals are collapsing, we'll overtake them and make this into a winnable seat for us, not them.' Libs wont be so lucky again.

 

[butchersapron]

Thing is, i expect the party to react as you say, but it's by no means sure the voters will.

 

[WouldBe]

Correcting for turnout I get

     2011 2010
Lab 43.4% 32.0%
Lib 32.9% 31.8%
Con 13.2% 26.6%
UKIP 6.0%  3.9%
BNP  4.6%  5.7%

So looks like Lib dems have gained more percentage of the votes and a massive swing from Conservative to Labour.