Bradford West - what a shocker!

Yesterday's Bradford West by-election was supposed to be a straightforward hold for Labour. They had held the seat comfortably for a long time and with their nearet rivals suffering a post-budget, alleged fuel crisis slump in the polls, surely nothing could go wrong.

It was also meant to be a last hurrah for Respect/the George Galloway vanity project. They had been suffering a decline in the polls almost as bad as the BNP's and were facing being wiped off Birmingham city council this May and reduced to a couple of councillors in Tower Hamlets (where local politics is decidedly "odd").

The voters of Bradford didn't read the script however and Galloway took the seat with a massive 10,000 vote majority and a 36.6% swing since the General election (the second largest post-war swing, topped only by Simon Hughes win in Bermondsey). It's also the first time in over a decade that the main opposition party have lost a seat in a by-election.

Normally, I quite enjoy seeing the big parties come a cropper and seeing safe seats fall. Normally it restores my faith in democracy, but I find it difficult to see this as a good thing. Here are my reasons:

- George Galloway is an egotistical demagogue who spent most of his last stint as an MP shamelessly promoting George Galloway away from the Commons rather than doing his job in it. (I'm sure I don't need to remind anyone of his Big Brother antics.

- I understand that he spent most of his victory speech last night, as he did in 2005, shamelessly attacking all and sundry and implying some sort of conspiracy to stop him getting elected. (In truth, if there had been anything dodgy about this election I rather suspect it would have worked in his favour rather than against him).

- Respect are not some cuddly anti-war party. They play on the worst kind of sectional interests and stir things up in order to get votes and power in the muslim community. In some ways, they stoke the same fires as the BNP. (I also wouldn't be surprised to see some kind of backlash boost for the far-right in response to this result). This is not a result which aids a harmonious Britain for either muslim or non-muslim.

That said, although it's a disastrous result for Labour and scarcely better for anyone else it is a one-off and its wider political implications can be easily over-stated. And hopefully the voters of Bradford will take the opportunity to kick George out again at the earliest opportunity.

Edinburgh City Centre by-election

There's go to be a by-election in Edinburgh. The sitting SNP councillor for the City Centre ward is resigning to go to Harvard. Normally,  council by-election wouldn't be all that interesting, certainly not enough to warrant its own blog post. However, there are two things that make this interesting:

1. Should the SNP lose the seat and the Lib-Dems not gain it, then the ruling Lib-Nat coalition in Edinburgh will no longer have enough seats to control the council and will need to bring on board the Tories or the Greens, (unless the Libs decided to ditch the Nats and hook up with Labour - not likely at the moment!).

2. More interestingly, City Centre ward is perhaps the closest 5-way marginal seat in Scotland. The results in 2007 were:
SNP 20.3% (elected)
Con 20.1% (elected)
LD 19.7% (elected)
Lab 17.9%
Grn 16.8%
By the time the Green candidate was eliminated, he was only 18 votes behind the Labour candidate (who was a sitting councillor). Transfers from the Greens then took the LD candidate over the threshold for election. The surplus from the LD then saw the SNP candidate elected and kept the Tory far enough ahead of Labour to be elected.

Of course, a lot has changed since then. The Lib-Dem vote, in particular, can be expected to have dropped quite sharply as they experience the backlash of nationally being in coalition with the Tories. The Tory vote has also probably dropped (although their New Town vote in this ward is probably quite loyal). Labour's vote should have risen, but in Scotland generally they find themselves in a bit of shell-shock after their drubbing in May. The SNP generally seem to be on the rise, but might themselves suffer a wee bit for being in coalition locally with the Lib-Dems. The Greens were disappointed not to pick up more seats in May, but did increase their vote across Edinburgh and finished ahead of the Lib-Dems on the list in all Edinburgh constituencies except Western.

So putting all that together what is likely to happen. On first preferences, the SNP will probably finish first and a little bit further ahead. Then it could end up being very close between the Tories, Labour and the Greens, with the LDs probably dropping to 5th. After that supposition gets even more tentative. Currently transfers from the LDs are likely to break more in favour of the Greens, probably followed by the SNP and then Labour and the Tories. This might stretch the SNP lead. Then...
If the Greens are eliminated next, their transfers would probably also favour the SNP, then Labour and finally the Tories. Meaning the Tories would be next to go. Most of their votes probably wouldn't transfer but the ones that would, would break in the SNP's favour. Result SNP victory.
If the Tories were eliminated after the LDs, again most votes probably won't transfer. Those that do would heavily favour SNP, with probably the Greens marginally ahead of Labour. If the Greens went next, the SNP would clearly beat Labour, but if Labour went next, their transfers might break in the Greens' favour although probably not by enough to catch the SNP.
If Labour were eliminated after the LDs, their transfers would almost certainly ensure that the Greens were ahead of the Tories, although to stand any chance the Greens would need to be ahead of the SNP too at this stage, as Tory transfers will probably favour the SNP.

So, by far the most likely outcome is an SNP victory. Surprisingly, the party with the best chance of beating them is the Greens, but only if they can get ahead of Labour early on and even then their chances are slim. In reality, they will probably be content with a strong showing putting them in a good place for one of three seats that this ward will elect next May.

Of course, if the current thinking prevails and this election in the city Centre of Edinburgh is held in August in the middle of the festival then absolutely anything could happen!

Elections - who will be the happiest?

So the votes are all counted (except Northern Ireland) and there were some predictable features - the failure of the referendum, the collapse of the Lib Dem vote. Others were more surprising - the SNP gaining an outright majority, the conservatives making gains in the English local elections. Who will be the happiest?

1. SNP A no brainer really. Watching the seats fall was the closest to the experience of the '97 landslide there's been since. An outright majority at Holyrood is a remarkable achievement. Of the four big parties, the SNP are the best to govern at the moment. My main concern is that large majorities (of whatever party) without an effective opposition tend to produce bad governments - the SNP need an effective opposition to sharpen and balance them. Labour are clearly in no position to provide that, so its going to be down to the Tories, but with only 15 seats that's going to be tough.

2. Conservatives Their vote held up reasonably well in Scotland, they progressed in Wales and finished the second largest party and they won the referendum. They gained seats and councils in England - far fewer than Labour, but this was an election where they were supposed to lose seats by the hundreds, so their achievement is more remarkable.

3. Labour Overall, it will have been a slightly disappointing night - they obliterated the Lib Dems in the English metropolitans, but failed to take the number of seats that they would have hoped for overall. They made progress in Wales, but missed the outright majority. They won the Leicester South by-election, but without the huge bounce they enjoyed in Barnsley. But the major fly in the ointment was an absolute disaster in Scotland, losing seats that they previously thought they owned by right.


4. Greens Will be disappointed by their failure to gain extra seats at Holyrood, despite promising pre-elections polls. Also failed to gain their first Welsh Assembly member, but in both cases increased their vote. They also did better than expected in the English locals, where they were expected to struggle against a resugent Labour, they held most of their seats and made gains elsewhere to finish 13 seats up overall and the largest party in Brighton (the first time ever they've been in this position).

5. UKIP Failed to build on promising by-election performances. Missed out on gaining a Welsh AM. Disappointing result in Leicester and finished with only 7 councillors elected across England - exactly the number of seats they were defending. Treading water.


6. Plaid Cymru Totally failed to emulate the SNP's success - finished down 4 seats in Wales and in 3rd place. Disappointing.


7. BNP  Defending 13 council seats in England - won just 2. Vote in Wales almost halved. In almost terminal decline, but probably thankful they aren't the... 


8. Lib Dems Surprisingly, what looked like being their worst result at the start of the years - Wales - actually turned out to be their best - they only lost 1 seat. In Scotland, their vote collapsed and they were reduced from 16 seats to just 5, with Orkney and Shetland being the only constituencies held and with no representation at all in 4 out of 8 regions (remarkably including Lothians). In England, they lost over a third of their councillors up for election and lost countrol of 9 out 19 councils. Their best result was arguably in Leicester South where they held on to second and only had a 4% drop in their vote.

UKIP victory in Barnsley

Of course, they didn't actually take the seat (by a long way) but compared to expectations they must be the most delighted with their performance in the Barnsley Central by-election yesterday. So here are my idiosyncratic placings for how I think the parties did compared to expectations yesterday:

1. UKIP placed 2nd (their best ever result in Westminster poll), beating not only the Lib Dems, but also the Tories and not only saving their deposit but almost trebling their share of the vote to 12.2%

2. Tony Devoy (Independant) He had stood last May and got around 1.6%. Yesterday he increased that 5.2%, beating the Lib Dems and saving his deposit in the process and independants usually do badly in by-elections where the big parties can devote all their energy to it.

3. Labour They won the seat very comfortably (as they were always going to) and their share of the vote (Around 60%) is around par for the course under the circumstances - well up on last May, around back to 2005 levels, but well down on what they have achieved here in the past.

4. English Democrats 2.2% from not standing before is a decent performance (especially in a crowded populist right-wing field) and they managed to beat the Loonies this time.

5. BNP Disappointingly held their deposit and came fourth (ahead of the Lib Dems), but encouragingly their share of the vote still fell by almost a third since last May.

6. Official Monster Raving Loony Party For the second by-election in a row they avoided the wooden spoon.

7. Michael Val Davies (Independant) An independant from Devon standing in Yorkshire was always a bizarre idea, so 60 votes and last place is about what could be expected.

8. Conservatives The collapse in the Lib Dem vote was predictable, the Tory collapse was less so. On the one hand they stayed in third place, on the other hand their share of the vote halved to a lower level than it was during the 1997 Labour landslide.

9. Liberal Democrats 6th place and a lost deposit is one of the worst Lib-Dem by-election performances ever. Disastous. Their candidate (who stood in Barking against Nick Griffin last May) seems to specialise in telling people not to vote BNP rather than getting them to vote for him (Labour must love him).

So, overall, a good night for UKIP but whether that can be turned into seats at any level remains to be seen. A bad night for both the coalition partners, but in an election in which neither were ever in contention, I doubt that they will be too worried... yet.

Barnsley Central

The second by-election of the parliament takes place next week in Barnsley Central following the conviction of sitting Labour MP Eric Illsey for expenses fraud. Despite the reasons for the election, there is absolutely no way that Labour will lose the seat. They had a majority of 30% in May last year and that was a very poor result for them. This is ultra-safe Labour territory.

That said here's a guide to what the parties will be looking for.

Labour (May 2010: 47.26%). We shouldn't judge Labour's expectations by the result in May. As mentioned above, Labour have previously polled 77% in this constituency. Now they are in opposition with both the other main parties in a coalition which I can't exactly see going down a storm in this part of the world, I would say that anything under 60% would be a disappointing result for them.

The Coalition parties were neck-a-neck here last May, just 6 votes between them. Both will be heading backwards. I would expect the Tory vote to hold up a little better here than the Lib-Dem one - those who voted Tory (rightly or wrongly) will probably be less unhappy about the government they have ended up with. For the Libs it might be a struggle to stay in double figures percentage-wise.

BNP (May: 8.94%) The BNP almost doubled their vote here last May and comfortably saved their deposit. Again, I would expect them to be heading backwards - the likes of the BNP traditionally do better under a Labour government than a Tory one, the party is in something of a mess nationally and they no longer have the angle of being a protest against the government here - it being a safe opposition seat. In their favour, they have a female candidate, and women are supposed to do better than men in by-elections for some inexplicable reason. They will be hoping to save their deposit again and stay ahead of the other right of tory parties. Lets hope they do neither.

The other right of Tory parties. UKIP almost saved their deposit in May and will be hoping to break that 5% barrier this time with the only other female candidate out of 9. The English Democrats have no track record in the constituency, so its hard to call, but they will at least be hoping to beat the Loonies this time (unlike Oldham East and Saddleworth). Personally I think they will struggle to make ground against the higher profile parties in a crowded right field.

Official Monster Raving Loony Party will be hoping not to come last (which would make it two in a row avoiding the wooden spoon)

Independants - there are two independants - one Tony Devoy is local and stood here in May and got 1.6%. He describes himself as True Labour. As with the BNP - he's lost the protest against the Labour government angle - protesting against a Labour opposition is less effective, so will probably be heading backwards. The other indy is from Devon and is probably on a hiding to nothing here.

So my prediction:

Lab 65.2%
Con 12.6
LD 9.3
UKIP 5.6
BNP 5.1
Local Indy 1.0
Eng Dem 0.7
OMRLP 0.4
Indy from Devon 0.1