Sean Fear’s local by-election review
June 30th, 2006-
Nobody can win in West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire is unusual in having evolved a multi-party system in local elections. This is unusual under first past the post elections, as there is pressure on the voters to choose between two alternatives, in order to provide one party with an overall majority.
Four out of five Metropolitan borough councils, Leeds, Bradford, Kirklees and Calderdale, are now under No Overall Control. What’s more, there is little prospect of that changing in future elections. In addition to the three main parties, both the Greens, and the British National Party, with ten and eight councillors respectively, have substantial support in this part of the Country, and can expect to win additional seats in future elections. Making an overall majority even harder to obtain is the fact that Independent candidates also poll well here, holding sixteen council seats in these five boroughs. Local politicians, who are used to winning power outright, or losing it, must now get used to working in coalitions with parties with whom they may have little in common.
It is likely that West Yorkshire, with its support for parties outside of the mainstream, and its coalitions, represents a growing trend in this country. It was striking that last night, Independent candidates were able to defeat the Labour machine in the Blaenau Gwent by-elections. At the same time, in Bromley and Chislehurst, minor party candidates won sixteen per cent of the vote, and one of them, Nigel Farage of UKIP, even beat the Labour candidate into fourth place.
Last night’s local by-elections produced nothing like the degree of excitement generated by the Parliamentary by-elections. However, there was a strong swing to the Liberal Democrats in Canterbury, and quite strong performances by the British National Party in four seats they were contesting for the first time.
Canterbury CC - Sturry South: C 474, Lib Dem 318, Lab 89, Ind 24. Con Hold.
East Staffordshire BC - Shobnall: Lab 581, C 441, BNP 291, Lib Dem 102. Labour hold.
Epsom and Ewell BC - Ruxley: Residents 313, C 292, Lab 152, Lib Dem 66, UKIP 42. Residents’ Hold.
Lincoln CC - Moorland: C 640, Lab 569, BNP 254, Lib Dem 96, Ukip 46. Con Hold.
Tameside MBC - Denton South: Lab 900, C 346, BNP 316, Lib Dem 115, Green 47. Lab Hold.
Tameside MBC - Stalybridge North: Lab 773, C 427, BNP 283, Green 137, Lib Dem 75. Lab hold.
Wealden District - Uckfield DC: Lib Dem 381, C 211, Green 60. Lib Dem hold.
Sean Fear, a Tory activist, writes a regular column on local elections.
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I know Denton and Stalybridge well and the size of the BNP vote is very depressing. As I mentioned before the loser is politics as a whole at the moment, (people perceive this to be the tories and labour, hence the B&C result). If the new answer is, for many, the BNP then all responsible need to take a good long look at how they can regain that lost trust.
The Tameside results are interesting in that they demonstrate the incredible patchiness of Lib Dem support. Closely sandwiched between Lib Dem strongolds of Stockport and Oldham (and even manchester these days) and also where Mark Hunter MP cut his political teeth on the Council, they are hit into the pavillion like underarms lobbed to Sri Lankan openers.
The Tameside site seems to call them bi-elections! Do they know something we don’t?
http://www.tameside.gov.uk/elections/index.htm
3 - has anyone calculated the swing both ways?
4 -
4. so why didn’t the Libdems win there?!
The size of the BNP vote in the East Staffs vote was depressing. Esp considering some of the houses it came from.
I have a ward to deliver in next week as there is another by election in Swadlincote within South Derbyshire.
3. The Labour candidate in our by election call it a bi election!!
BY ELECTION RESULTS 29TH JUNE 2006
Tameside MBC, Denton South
Lab 900 (52.2 –9.3)
Con 346 (20.1 –18.4)
BNP 316 (18.3 +18.3)
LD D Barber 115 (6.7 +6.7)
Green 47 (2.7 +2.7)
Majority 554. Turnout 20.5. Lab hold. Last fought 2006.
Tameside MBC, Stalybridge North
Lab 773 (45.6 –2.2)
Con 427 (25.2 –8.2)
BNP 283 (16.7 +16.7)
Green (137 8.1 –10.7)
LD P Ball-Foster 75 (4.4 +4.4)
Majority 346. Turnout 18.8. Lab hold. Last fought 2006.
Canterbury City DC, Sturry South
Con 474 (52.4 –23.1)
LD 318 (35.1 +23.3)
Lab 89 (9.8 –2.8)
Ind 24 (2.6 +2.6)
Majority 156. Turnout 41.29. Con hold. Last fought 2003.
East Staffordshire DC, Shobnall
Lab 581 (41.0 –8.3)
Con 441 (31.2 +5.9)
BNP 291 (20.6 +20.6)
LD M Rodgers 102 (7.2 +7.2)
Ind [0.0 –25.4]
Majority 140. Turnout 31.0. Lab hold. Last fought 2003.
Epsom & Ewell, Ruxley
RA 313 (36.0 –7.1)
Con 292 (33.6 +15.5)
Lab 152 (17.5 –11.6)
LD M Derrett 66 (7.6 –2.1)
UKIP 46 (5.3 +5.3)
Majority 21. Turnout 19.5. RA hold. Last fought 2003.
Lincoln City DC, Moorland
Con 640 (39.9 –15.9)
Lab 569 (35.5 –8.7)
BNP 254 (15.8 +15.8)
LD J Price 96 (6.0 +6.0)
UKIP 46 (2.9 +2.9)
Majority 71. Turnout 28.05. Con hold. Last fought 2006.
Wealden DC, Uckfield New Town
LD J Hey 381 (58.4 +4.2)
Con 211 (32.4 +9.6)
Green 60 (9.2 +9.2)
Lab [0.0 –23.0]
Majority 170. Turnout 32.46. LD hold. Last fought 2003.
Uckfield TC, New Town
LD A Parker 328 (50.0)
Con 173 (26.4)
RA 123 (18.8)
Green 32 (4.9)
Majority 155. Turnout 32.46. LD hold.
Please note:
The figures for percentage change are based on the details of the results from the last time that there was an election in the ward by statute in the May (or sometimes June) elections, rather than by any by-election. We use the figures in The Local Elections Handbook by Colin Rallings & Michael Thrasher.
The Party-defending seat is the party that the former Councillor (who has died, resigned or been disqualified) belonged to when she or he was elected not the one that she or he may have subsequently belonged to as a result of any defection.
4. The Bar Charts today show post-Bromley that all the Lib Dems (except Charlie Kennedy of course) are in the Bar!
8 woody662. Mock not ….. In the new equal opportunity Conservatives Party bi-elections may become compulsory !!
3 of the 4 BNP results appear to support the view that BNP intervention hurts the Tories more - the position in Shobnall is unclear without knowing more about the independent last time. Of course, people who switched from Tory to BNP may earlier have switched from Labour. Whatever, their relative success in all four is, as ukpaul says, another indication of alienation from the mainstreeam system.
11. Jack, is that the same Tory Party that is A-listing, as the Titanic was A-listing after being hit by an iceberg? I see Bernard Jenkin in being fingered as the fall-guy for present Tory woes concerning candidates. He’s turned down too many wmen the Recessmonkeys say. Disgraceful!
Any idea what the odds are for another Tory leadership election within 12 months? Will it be a lover of Mark Macgregor?
I live in Lincoln, though not in that particular ward. That BNP result is really shocking - I had no idea that there are so many racists here.
13.”Any idea what the odds are for another Tory leadership election within 12 months? Will it be a lover of Mark Macgregor? ”
The lover of MM wants to stand as Con leader?
15 Andrea. I thought that all ‘modern’ Tories loved Mark MacGregor. It’s only Ian Dunkin Donut who’s promised to go off somewhere (UKIP?) in a hissy fit if he’s allowed to move forward in the Modern (sic) Conservative party.
14 - I think that’s the point, they’re not racist but they have no other way of showing their alienation from mainstream politics than giving the most shocking vote possible. In other areas lib dems may well be a non establishment party so get that vote and in others the Greens but here it’s the BNP.
Last night’s elections also showed this trend, the government beaten by independents in one and the incumbent party given an almighty scare by a party coming from third place in the other.
In the heat of the who ‘won’ that’s the message which should really be addressed, what are those in power (whether it be in a seat or in government) doing to alienate voters in such a manner?
17. Or, more to the point, what are they doing to stop the progresive trivialisation of politics and alienation?
Answer: very little.
18 - Trivialisation is just one factor amongst many, the most poisonous one being the vindinctive attitude of parties to each other.
14. It’s a conveniant myth (or lazy piece of negative ampaigning) put out by the mainstream parties that everyone who votes BNP is racist. Some are, perhaps most, but a substantial number are voting for them because they are different and are promoting their policies - as opposed to knocking their opponents (as an aside, I believe that a large part of the decline of the duopoly over the last 50 years is down to mutual negative campaigning - both parties say the other is useless and the public believe them).
Of course, many of their policies are easy answers to complicated questions and wouldn’t work in practice, but that’s no excuse for not debating the issues. If there’s one good thing that might come out of a more multi-party system, it’s that negative campaigning will have less effect and indeed become less possible. It worked in Bromley because there were two candidates in it. If there are three or four, you can’t attack everyone at once.
20. There’s simply no excuse for voting BNP. Yesterday’s election in Lincoln was a five-way contest. I can almost accept someone voting BNP (out of frustration) when 1, or more, of the mainstream parties hasn’t fielded a candidate - but certainly not when there are 4 mainstream candidates to choose from.
Just manipulating some figures and, you know what, it can be fun!
Swingback from by elections to general elections but this time between tories and lib dems. I only went back to 1979 but it’s enough I think. Tried to ignore anomalies such as the lib dem who defected to labour on the eve of the by election and the post-Betty Boothroyd election.
1979-1983
Avge 15.66% swing Con to LD
Actual in 1983 6.3%
Swingback – 9.4%
1983-1987
Avge 13.13% swing Con to LD
Actual in 1987 1.3%
Swingback – 11.8%
1987-1992
Avge 5.05% swing Con to LD
Actual in 1992 -2.1% (to con)
Swingback – 7.0%
1992-1997
Avge 13.03% swing Con to LD
Actual in 1997 5.1%
Swingback – 7.9%
1997-2001
Avge 4.41% swing Con to LD
Actual in 2001 0.2%
Swingback - 4.2% (easily the lowest figure, possibly down to the very low starting point for the tories)
2001-2005
Avge 9.98% swing Con to LD
Actual in 2005 1.4%
Swingback 8.6%
Figures haven’t been cleaned up but you get the gist.
Feel free to check them someone.
So what do we have so far since 2005?
Avge 4.83% swing Con to LD
Suggesting that while there is a chance there will be no swing to the tories the likelihood is that it will be a 3 to 4% swing and a possibility of a 7% swing.
I hope that lib dems realise the folly of taking this method as gospel. Although figures may not lie to you they can be selected so as to be economical with that truth.
I might look at the lib dem/lab figures at some point.
Interesting set of by-election results - not much to report other than some not entirely unexpected pro BNP swings is that in all bar one of the contests the Lib Dem vote rose (even in weak seats).
The last few months has seen Lib Dem votes slumping in (mainly) weaker areas and holding up OK where they are stronger. These results suggest nationally the recent policy announcements and ticking up in polls are being reflected on the ground.
14 - Oli worked really hard in Moorland and thoroughly deserves to win. In Lincoln the Conservatives are benefiting from an excellent post-General Election bounce with huge increases in their supporter base.
Tories to control the council in 2007
20 - Do people who vote for the BNP know that they are voting for people who say things like this:
“I am well aware that the orthodox opinion is that six million Jews were gassed and cremated or turned into lampshades. Orthodox opinion also once held that the earth is flat…I have reached the conclusion that the ‘extermination’ tale is a mixture of Allied wartime propaganda, extremely profitable lie, and latter day witch-hysteria.” - Nick Griffin
or perhaps?
“I’m not in politics for cheap cheers; if I was I could probably have had a safe Tory seat years ago. I’m in it, among other things, because I want to help stop the immigration which is destroying this and every other white nation in the world. Then I want to see that deadly tide turned. I want to see Britain become the 99 per cent genetically white country she was just eleven years before I was born, and I want to die knowing that I have helped to set her on a course whereby her future genetic makeup will one day not even resemble that of January 1948, but that of July 1914. Nothing will ever turn me from working towards that final vision.”
- Nick Griffin
If people who are not racist are voting for the BNP, perhaps they ought to know what they believe in - or is that negative campaigning?
25 - Paul Lloyd - agree entirely, the starvation of publicity as practised by the BBC towards the BNP does not appear to be working - is it time for Nick Griffin to appear on QT so these questions can be asked?
“If people who are not racist are voting for the BNP, perhaps they ought to know what they believe in - or is that negative campaigning? ”
If it isn’t backed up by a positive alternative, yes. It’s not enough to ‘not be the BNP’.
In any case such BNP voters *know* that they are racists and, quite often, criminals but vote for them as a protest nevertheless. The idea that people are blissfully unaware of the nature of the BNP is difficult to believe. Parties pick up all sorts of unusual votes when they are being used as a protest, it’s sending a message that matters and the more beyond the pale the recipient of that vote is, the better.
Good article Sean. I agree - the trend is to anti-politicians, and the people voting BNP are the same as the people voting Respect in this case.
There was a bit in John O Farrell’s “Things can only get better” when he described canvassing in a Euro election, and the best reason he could come up with to get people to vote Labour was that it was the best way to annoy Maragaret Thatcher. We’re now into an era when the best way to annoy the establishment is to vote BNP - or to vote for one of the other “none of the above” parties.
Without wanting to bait Lib Dems, it’s also a tide that the Lib Dems have surfed very successfully for some time, especially in by-elections - they’re still seen as a ‘none of the above’ option. I’m not trying to say that’s the point of them, nor that it’s not a legitimate position to take, but for a lot of their voters that’s a large part of their attraction.
I’m both depressed and enthused by this. Depressed because I believe that most politicos - even those who are wrong - try to be, and are, a force for good. But enthused because the rise of true independents - like in Wyre Forest - must be energising for democracy. Here I’ll invite you to fill in the lengthy discourse on the pros and cons of STV yourself.
Could it be somethign to do with the nature of Lib Dems in tameside adn its leadership or lack of it, the Labour party and also the Ashton electorate
30. Two points: firstly, a large proportion (and possibly a majority) of people who vote BNP are barely politically active. They haven’t voted for a decade and possibly longer. They are fed up with politicians being ‘all the same and offering more or less all the same policies’. They are not particularly bothered what the BNP policies are, still less what they might do if Nick Griffin was in No 10 because they know full well it’s not going to happen. In fact, unlike parties of power who have trouble getting people to vote for them unless they stand a chance of winning, the prospect of the BNP winning puts off some who might otherwise vote for them (in as far as they want to send a message, but not get lumbered with a BNP councillor). The point they want to make is that they have concerns about law and order, immigration and associated issues and don’t like being told that not only are such concerns unmerited - though to a large extent they are - but that it is illegitimate to even discuss them.
Secondly, they are picking up votes because they are seen and believed to care about ‘people like them’. I don’t know about Lincoln, but in Bradford their campaigns were based on pavement politics - meeting people and getting round the houses. This is in estates that have not seen another politician in years and where the assumption is that ‘the Tories hate us and Labour takes us for granted’. Neither is true but without rebuttal both can be sold. So as well as the policy message, they are sending one about perceived abandonment.
You quote Nick Griffin above. He is indeed an upleasant man and there are more unpleasant men like him in the BNP. It is fortunate that it is so - imagine what the BNP might do these days with an Oswald Moseley at the helm.
Griffin seems to be quite adept at brushing off those views as youthful mistakes.
BNP supporters are a mix of people who are anti-politician, social conservatives, and genuine racists. Unfortunately, the word “racist” has been so overused as to have lost much of its force. So a lot of people just shrug when informed that the BNP is a racist party.
Paul - in the case of the BNP you are right (which is why I said that there also needed to be an alternative to build on the negative). There is, however, a world of difference between showing up someone as a holocaust denier and going on about where they live or what jobs they do.
22. UK Paul, your figures show an overall 12.2% swing from Tories to LD since 1979. Is this correct?
who’s the bloke in the photo??? he’s creepy looking
7 - why, because only the ignorant working class can be expected to be racist?
you people are awful
1979
CON 43.9
LIB 13.8 (30.1% lead)
2006
CON 32.3
LD 22.1 (10.2% lead)
It actually seems to be 9.9%. Two reasons, mainly a missing minus sign for 1987 plus 0.2% for using figures for 2005 which were for UK and not GB)
1983
CON -0.4
LIB +12.2 (+6.3% swing)
1987
CON -0.2
ALL -2.9 (-1.3% swing - aha, a missing minus sign, should be to con! Swingback is now 14.4%(!) a real outlier compared to the others)
1992
CON -0.5
LD -4.8 (-2.1% swing to con)
1997
CON -11.3
LD -1.1 (5.1% swing to lib dem)
2001
CON +1.2
LD +1.6 (0.2% swing to lib dem)
2005
CON +0.5
LD +3.8 (1.6% swing to lib dem, not 1.4% when using GB figures, swingback is 8.4% not 8.6%)
Adds up to 9.8% to lib dem, the actual figure is slightly higher in reality owing to the rounding down done.
Just noticed that the Tories came FIFTH in Blaenau, which is a FIRST for them, if you know what I mean…. Labour’s FOURTH in Bromley equals their previous worst ranking (Richmond,1989)…
So a DOUBLE worst-ever-result for the Tories under Dave the Wonder-Boy…. keep it up!!!
ukpaul, please just keep juggling with those numbers in your playpen, until you throw a double-SIX, then you can be happy that you’ve won your silly game….
Better still, find a playmate to play with…..
Pot. Kettle. Black! I’m having fun, just the same as you.
Honestly, I’ve always been interested in stats, it’s just that I’m very wary of the results that they throw up, and especially in politics as I’ve seen them become so debased as currency by the way in which they are used and manipulated.
I’m slightly surprised that the BNP did so well in Lincoln… and in that particular bit (I am a native too though haven’t lived there for years).
Now living in the West Country there are places I would expect the BNP to appeal… not the scorchingly eurosceptic and socailly conservative seaside towns but the inland areas where people earn little, house prices are high and immigration is clearly not going to improve either of these matters. Campaigning here is a tall order though…
The really heartening thing about the BNP is that most of the people in it are so dim they will never be a serious threat.
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