Creighton (Independent) – 67
Curran (Socialist) – 555
Curran (Labour) – 10,912
Duke (Green) – 232
Howitt (Freedom 4 Choice) – 65
Mason (SNP) – 11,277
McLeish (Solidarity) – 512
Rankin (Conservative) – 1,639
Robertson (LibDem) – 915
SNP Gain from Labour
2005 result; Lab 61, SNP 17, LibDem 12, Con 7, Socialist 4
An excellent night for the SNP, a surprisingly good one for the Conservatives (again), a pisspoor LibDem performance and a disaster for Labour.
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Posted by antonylittle
Having seen and read a lot, I’d set the following bars:
SNP; winning the seat would be a fantastic result and a political earthquake. Coming within 2000 votes would be good, 3000-2000 Labour majority fine. If Labour hold on by more then there may be some sould searching.
Conservatives: They start 4th with only 7% of the vote and should be squeezed in classic by-election style. The Tories should be happy with 6-8% of the vote and more than 10% of even coming third would be an excellent result.
LibDems: Once again there has been lots of LibDem ramping. An utter disaster would be coming 4th, an OK result would be holing their share of the vote and any increase can be spun as good.
Labour: A tough one; a low turnout will cut Labour’s majority but they must win here by more than 3,000 or so for them to have a good result. A three figure majority or less will be poor for the party and losing it would be a disaster.
We’ll see what happens . . .
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Posted by antonylittle
Labour had a candidate but no campaign in Henley.
Labour have a campaign but no candidate in Glasgow East.
Labour have no candidate and no candidate in Haltemprice & Howden.
No wonder Brown doesn’t like elections.
(With thanks to the original poster on )
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Posted by antonylittle
This on the ultra-loyal LibDem Voice site clearly indicates why the Liberal Democrats have learnt nothing from their by-election batterings; the results were poor for them because they spinned their chances, ramped them up and then looked utterly foolish when it all went wrong. Now they’re at it again in Glasgow; admittedly not claiming they are going to win, but not far off it. But the idiotic thing is the claim about the Tories not bothering – Cameron has visited, as has IDS. We’ve selected a first class candidate too and I understand from friends that things are in full swing. The voters of Glasgow will see through it, and when the results come in the LibDems will once again have egg on their face.
I ask again: Why can’t the LibDems be honest?
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Posted by antonylittle
I’m sure it won’t make the news, but the result from the Diss by-election was:
John Cowan (Labour Party) 63 votes (3.4%)
Eloise Ellis (Conservative) 1041 votes (55.6%)
Trevor Wenman (Liberal Democrat Party) 768 votes (41%)
This is significant in many ways. Firstly Diss is a bellweather seat, which the Tories gained one seat in a by-election 2 years ago and then again at the 07 council elections with exactly the same swing. And yet last night, after a year in power at South Norfolk the LibDems made no advance against the Tory tide.
Again the LibDems were proclaiming a tight result and it’s so close here … hardly … the Tory majority of 14% was the same as it had been a year ago; nothing changed.
The LibDems again threw the kitchen sink at this election and to no avail; with the exception of North Norfolk, the LibDems are against the wall both locally in Norwich and Norfolk and also nationally.
For those who call upon Rennard, Clegg and the LibDems to change their campaign techniques they should look at Diss as well as Henley.
And secondly is the Labour result; Diss is as urban as South Norfolk gets (which is why it should have been better for the LibDems) and they could only muster 63 votes? Oh dear.
A group of us from Norwich and Norfolk have been to Henley to help in the parliamentary by-election to replace Boris. And … wow.
It is a fantastic corner of the country; picturesque, gentile and with sky high house price. This former seat of Heseltine and Johnson is really part of the Tory heritage; and it shows.
Apart from the quality of conversation you can only get when you jam that number of Tory activists together for a 3 hour car journey, the first amusing moment of the day was the branch of Timpsons (of Tory victor in the Crewe by-election fame) proudly displaying their “John Howell – Conservative” signs. Quality effort there!
A few thoughts on the day; certainly not comprehensive and just what we saw. We drove through Henley (and, apparently for some time Reading too – well done driver!!) and also spent the morning and afternoon in 2 reasonably sized villages outside of Henley. I am not transposing this on the whole constituency; just as we saw it.
The Tory by-election machine is very well ordered. The sector office was a few minutes from the station and that site must have taken some getting. All the walk sorts were ready, bundled and ready to go. We signed in and were turned around in minutes; except after lunch when there was so much help a queue formed out of the door. There is a lot of high quality literature going out and the administrative support is good; much better than any by-election I have bene to before.
The poster war is being won, and won decisively, by the Tories. What is surprising is where we saw posters. There is one massive LibDem poster up in the centre of Henley, across from the Thames. Other than that we saw nothing – and the poster effort is normally the sign of the LibDems on a roll. Even in the villages we were delivering to some mixed areas, and certainly parts you would expect any LibDem campaign to focus on. The Tories have visable signs and plenty of sites. Indeed, the most irritating point of the day was walking up a massive driveway, to find a tiny A4 Tory poster in the window!! The Tories are also – importantly – beating the LibDems in houses as well as fields.
The parties are macthing each other leaflet for leaflet. We delivered a newspaper in the morning; and mine sat on top of a freshly delievered LibDem newspaper. In the afternoon we delivered a glossy brochure, which sat upon a new LibDem Focus leaflet. However, I saw no LibDem activists at all during the day, whereas we did pass other Tories. Again, the site of the famed LibDem by-election machine is being able to “control” the constituency with literature and they clearly haven’t done this. And one other thing.
The LibDem campaign is actually more negative than I had read about. All of their stuff is aimed squarely against Howell; and in some cases it is very nasty. The Tories have, thus, gone for a straight bat positive campaigning approach. The only person I actually spoke to all day (well, the only elector of Henley anyway) said they had been turned off by the LibDem campaign and whilst not totally behind Howell they would vote Conservative because they were, at least, campaigning positively. Good news; but only one person, I know. The LibDem literature is a good standard but the message and the themes are, in my opinion, all wrong. They ought to stand back and look at what they are doing.
There was an amazing amount of Tory activists, and young activists. At the pub at lunch time, it was like reliving the conferences when I was 18 or 19; I knew a large number of people there and we are now 10 years on, mostly PPCs and feeling that we are the generation that will shape the future of the party. Great food, everyone was upbeat and ready to take on the world. Quite frankly if there had been a by-election in Jarrow the people there would be working flat out for a Conservative gain. The team work and positive attitudes are a stark contrast to that which I knew even 5 years ago; amazing what 49% in the polls does for you.
A great day … so, a prediction? Before today I was quite worried we were heading for Bromley territory. But now if it goes wrong it wouldn’t be for the wrong strategy, candidate or campaigning. In fact, if it did go wrong it would prove that negative campaigning and playing very, very dirty does work. However I believe it won’t. I think a cut Tory majority on a much reduced turnout. And I will awake early Friday morning to see how wrong I am!!!
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Posted by antonylittle
I am off this weekend to help with the Conservative campaign and thought I would do some research before I went to get up to date with some of the issues. On visiting , he advised me to go to website, which he thinks is boring. For what its worth, I agree but the LibDem one is almost as bad. Funnily enough the first story on this “boring” Tory website is that a Henley Primary School has the LibDems of using them as a pawn – including pretending that their candidate has visited the school (he hasn’t), that results are poor (they are above average) and that they are under funded (they are not).
The LibDem campaign seems to have had a bad week; their latest has a big picture of Boris Johnson right above an article attacking the Tory candidate and suggesting people support the LibDem (who, apparently, up to 5 weeks ago lived in Portsmouth). Why use the picture of Boris unless you are suggesting implicit support? I cannot see any other interpretation than an attempt to mislead, although LDV are trying their best as always!
I’ll report back later on the by-election as I see it.
There is a lot of speculation that Boris Johnson, newly elected Conservative Mayor of London, will step down immediately as MP for Henley, Oxfordshire, despite a Times claim on polling day that said he would cling onto both jobs.
I think this would be a mistake and that Boris must step down immediately. The public are very suspicious about politicans, and more so when they appear to hang onto jobs for the sake of it. The news that Independent MEP for the Eastern Region Tom Wise has been recorded saying he is surprised how much money he can screw out of the EU should shock, but not surprise us. If you have the time and energy to do both – for example, a county and district councillor – then that is fine (although you’g have to have very nice constituents to manage that and hold down a full time job!) but you cannot possibly represent a constituency as an MP and be Mayor London.
Do it, Boris, resign. Go out on a high, give the people of Henley the chance to vote for new Conservative representation. It’ll look good on you, on the party and on politics itself.
The Conservatives did not have a great result in the Alysham by-election on Thursday. Parents Evening at school prevented me from getting there but it is clear that we ought to look long and hard at why this has happened.
There will be those who seek to claim that this puts the new Broadland constituency candidate Keith Simpson under pressure (and, in part, it should do) but we ought to remember that in “normal circumstances” the results across Norfolk were good for the party only last May.
The Liberal Democrats were all-but wiped out in South Norfolk, they lost another seat in Norwich and went down (again) in Broadland. Meanwhile, the Conservatives had total domination in Breckland and also in West Norfolk. We also picked up seats in North Norfolk and made another gain in Norwich.
This result – whilst poor – isn’t a disaster because the LibDems won’t be able to treat every seat like Alysham next time around.
You only need to look at Clavering – a by-election gain for the Tories from the LibDems last May, held on the same day at the main local elections. Without the ruthless focus (no pun intended) from the LibDem by-election machine it was easily won by the Conservatives.
All we need to do it to create a by-election force as good as the LibDem one. I think we could do it and all it would take is a little political will…
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Posted by antonylittle
Norwich Conservatives went mob handed to help our colleagues fighting a tough by-election in Aylsham for the county council seat. This is an odd contest, with two of the district councillors going head to head … the LibDem candidate who topped the poll last May and the Conservative Ian Graham who also won election in the 3 seat ward. It was ultra close in 2005 – just 29 votes saw the Liberal Democrats gain the seat.
We were canvassing the Norfolk Homes area of the town and the result was very encouraging. Conservative supporters were very “out and proud” (as I had found in North Norfolk the week previously) and were happy to shout about the party’s prospects. We spoke to probably half a dozen opposition supporters (I gather Labour just isn’t an option round this way). However there were a big group – maybe a third – who claimed just not to have made up their minds. Now either this is the classic LibDem answer to a Tory canvasser … and I must admit that some were so obviously Liberal that I put “L” on the canvass card despite their protests that they were undecided … or this election has totally failed to catch the imagation of local people.
I have never understood the point of fibbing on the doorstep. However, if the reaction that up to a third of people are really undecided it says a lot about the weakness of the party attachment in the naughties.
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Posted by antonylittle
