Not quite getting 10% for the Greens was disappointing but it’s worth noting that this is almost four times what we got at the general so it’s not quite a kicking.

Interestingly the Lib Dems, who spent a lot of effort slagging off the Greens, lost votes (16.2% to 13.97%) whilst the Greens went up massively (2.7% to 9.74%) with a campaign that the Lib Dems had claimed was ludicrous.

Anyway, I’m feeling bitter and twisted because UKIP beat us (the Greens) but I shall console myself with the fact we took a council seat off the Tories in Brighton last night.

The hilarity lies in Labour’s humiliation

But the interest (if the GE follows suit) is the increase in both UKIP and Greens – the rise of the “others” – and why people switched to them as opposed to the Libs

cjcjc: you’re right that the big picture is Labour’s catastrophe from 44.9% to 18.16% that is so so bad.

The Lib Dem Norfolk blogger had been boasting about the huge number of different leaflets the LDs had delivered (someone else said it wasn’t unusual for a voter to get forty different leaflets) and I think the results shows that shoving large amounts of paper through people’s doors isn’t actually politics, that’s the pizza business.

I agree with cjcjc, except insamuch as obviously I don’t find the drop in Labour’s support hilarious.

The Tory margin of victory is disappointing but not altogether unpredictable: what may be more significant for the GE is the extent to which the Green and UKIP vote held up from the Euros. The Greens raised media expectations very high, (a natural consequence of a long-term campaign to overtake the Lib Dems in the area, I suppose) but it’s still a pretty good result for them.

Yes Labour had a bad result. But the swing was about the national swing anyway. Shouldn’t they have done better given the MPs expenses scandal and anger of Gibson?

#3 If volume of leaflets is having a diminishing impact beyond a certain stage, that can only be a good thing. Clearly being able to deliver say monthly communications as opposed to annual ones shows to some extent a greater commitment to an area and willingness to engage with the electorate (provided it isn’t a surrogate for doorstep work and geunine face-to-face communication). Being able to deliver 40 leaflets in 30 days rather than, say, 8, does no good at all.

And saw this on Twitter: Seven out of ten people who voted for Labour at Norwich North in the 2005 General Election didn’t vote for Labour yesterday. That’s a big swing to other parties, not entirely to the Tories

Sorry but Don’s right, the Libertarian turn-out is hugely funny.

And let us not forget, if Gibson hadn’t have walked this seat would still be Labour.

Big up Craig Murray for putting money where his mouth is and besting (even if slightly) the BNP.

JimJay

I think the results shows that shoving large amounts of paper through people’s doors isn’t actually politics, that’s the pizza business.

I’ll second that. On Monday I think we got 16 different election leaflets through the door in one go. I can imagine that if I wasn’t such a political nerd they’d have all gone straight in the recycling bin unread.

As for my initial thoughts on the results, unfortunately they’re not printable. I’m still trying to get my head round the news that I’ve now got a Tory MP……

Grrrrrrr.

But the swing was about the national swing anyway.

16%? Blimey, we’ll take that as a national swing…

Norwich doth not make the nation.

The Labour vote was 21,000 in 2005, the Tory vote from yesterday was only 13,500. Obviously there has been a huge drop in the Labour vote, but it is also worth noting that the Tories polled 15,000 in the GE in 2005, so there hasn’t been a massive increase in support for them, even taking into account the low turnout.

Hmm…UKIP are really growing aren’t they? Damn, they’ve been able to turn themselves from Kilroy’s joke party…

Sigh.

“I think the results shows that shoving large amounts of paper through people’s doors isn’t actually politics, that’s the pizza business.”

Very true but god help if you try and tell the Liberal Democrats that!

Whatevs as they say…

But the swing was about the national swing anyway.

Sunny Hundal

David Cameron would be swept into 10 Downing Street with a Commons majority of 218 if the Norwich North result was repeated across the country at the next General Election, Press Association analysis shows.

The Tories would have 434 MPs, with Labour on 107, Liberal Democrats 79 and others 30.

The Independent

Gosh, I hope Sunny’s right…

That’s a big ask.

Norwich doth not make the nation.

Well, only UKIP and the Greens actually gained votes on last time, although I’m disappointed we didn’t pick up all the 3000 votes the Liberals lost.

UKIP are the big winners here, methinks, and Craig Murray should now go back to his day job, whatever that is.

Hmm, I suspect there are plenty of voters, even amongst those who want a Tory government, who don’t want the Tories to have a majority of 200-250.

I don’t quite share Sunny’s view. The majority was slightly higher than I expected, but not much. I expect Tories to be more motivated to vote atm and I’m not terribly surprised that 13,500 of their 15,000 voters at the last election turned out. I did think the Labour vote would be more like 8k than 6k, although the Gibson, swine flu and Craig Murray factors may have had more impact than I’d imagined as I haven’t travelled out there, so it was pure guesswork.

What is more pertinent than the Tory vote for me is the make-up of the UKIP vote. Normally it’s assumed that it’s mainly Tory voters, and hardline Eurosceptics who wouldn’t vote for any other party. I’m going to go out on a limb pending further research and say that at least half of the UKIP vote was people who voted Labour in 2005.

UKIP are th big winners?

How’d you figure that?

And leave Craig Murray alone you big fanny, he’s a good chap.

Ahhh, my maths is shit. I should be working in the City (*dudum tishhh*)

The libertarian vote is pretty funny though.

I think it is very telling that the Tories (who have been most implicated in the expenses scandal proportionately) romped home in what you might have thought would be a referendum on the scandal.

I think this tells us that expenses is not likely to be the killer issue come the general election that many thought. I have blogged about this here:

http://markreckons.blogspot.com/2009/07/norwich-north-chloe-smiths-victory-what.html

The ‘swing’ from the centre-left is a direct consequence of their natural supporters staying at home – and each time this happens centre-left parties respond by … moving further right in pursuit of those who still vote, leaving behind a mass of disenchanted voters! As we have seen again with Clegg’s ditching of commitments on tuition fees/social care, the centre-left has no confidence in its convictions and is doomed to lose support as it crawls ever rightward. It didn’t help the Lib Dem campaign in Norwich North, that Clegg announced the u-turns on the eve of the election – completely undermining the Lib Dem candidate who had been campaigning on just those issues!

It’s interesting that Labour voters seem to have non-voted rather than going Tory.

That suggests the best ‘not being utterly destroyed’ tactic for Labour in the General Election is turnout-based: be as lefty and as vehemently anti-Tory as they possibly can, accept that all close marginals are going to be lost, but drag the core vote out kicking and screaming.

“Yes, you hate us, but this election *really fucking matters* and if you don’t come and vote for us then they *will* win and they *will* be even worse”…

“Sorry but Don’s right, the Libertarian turn-out is hugely funny.”

I bet its those damn anarcho-capitalists refusing to legitimate a political system with their vote! Still, at least it is a low point from which to take-off from!

Fair play to the Libertarian candidate – 18 years old and came across well in a radio interview. Fact is though that they’re very much a party of the blogosphere. I wouldn’t know they existed if I didn’t read political blogs.

Tories only got 39% although I suspect come the GE they’ll get a load of UKIP votes back.

No doubting this was disastrous for Labour and a bit of a shock for the Lib Dems. Greens probably a bit miffed too.

BNP didn’t do that well either.

For me a couple of things stand out in this result. First of all, the Left in British politics have disengaged from mainstream politics and descended into the faction fighting that characterized the mid to late Eighties. For the Lib Dems and the Greens to be battling for third place not only looks like two bald men fighting over a comb, it also looks like two men in a rubber life raft helping to pull a consignment of rusty nails on board too.

I wonder what the Greens gain from a Tory landslide next year? Cameron’s greenwash has all but gone. By the time he is in power, every public transport initiative will lie in tatters and roads will spread like wildfire. Fighting the good fight is futile if the longer and harder you fight the easier it is for your enemies, (rather than your opponents) win. Go onto any Tory website or public message board and look at what the Tories actually think of the Global Warming “myth”(their term, note mine). Ask yourself how is splitting the progressive vote going to help the environment?

Perhaps the most worrying thing is the way we on the left have stopped taking the fight to our opponents. We never seem to engage the Tories any more. I wonder if that is because we gave up the ideology or we gave up fighting. We are happy to sit in left wing debating Ghettoes, but never seem to get involved in mainstream debates. The type of places where ‘normal’ people go. Why is that? Anyone got any ideas?

The Labour has all but given up the ghost. They never seem to attack the Tories position on anything. The careerists have been standing up to kick lumps from Gordon Brown in an attempt to damage him enough for him to be dragged out of number 10, but where were these people when the unpopular policies were introduced? I cannot remember too many (with a few exceptions) (ex-) front benchers campaigning for tighter regulation on banks or stronger employment laws, so why start now?

Labour have too many people invested in a significant Tory victory to be bothered getting in the trenches for the future. (James Purnell et al?)

Why isn’t every MP, Minister etc warning about the imminent repeal of the minimum wage? Or the destruction of family tax credits or the privatisation of the Health service or the closure of schools? Could it be that want to see Gordon Brown defeated?

I hear turnout was 45%.

Can we extrapolate from this that the turn-out at the general will be even lower than it usually is, and that it’s the left that will suffer? The Tories seem to have forgiven even their most blatantly corrupt MPs, while disgusted Labour voters simply won’t turn out to vote. The Lib Dems and the Greens will fight each other, the Lib Dems demanding that the Greens should stand aside in their favour (while continuing to believe that campaigning = pushing paper through doors). UKIP will scoop up the hard-line right. The Tories will get in on the same kind of small-minority-of-the-electorate vote that gave Labour a landslide. It’s all very depressing.

“We are happy to sit in left wing debating Ghettoes, but never seem to get involved in mainstream debates. The type of places where ‘normal’ people go.”

ConHome?

@22 “That suggests the best ‘not being utterly destroyed’ tactic for Labour in the General Election is turnout-based: be as lefty and as vehemently anti-Tory as they possibly can”

I suspect it’s too late for that.

I’m all for the government actually turning to the left but 13 years into New Labour an election fought *as if* Labour was on the left isn’t actually going to be very convincing is it? In terms of vote catching I’d have thought putting the most positive spin possible on the things Labour’s actually done would be stronger, if unsatisfying for lefties like me.

Addressing the reason for why Labour supporters are staying at home is going to take longer than a year even if Lbour started now, which they wont, but it’s also worth saying that all three major parties lost votes this time, and for both Labour and Lib Dems this was by a significant margin.

“I wonder what the Greens gain from a Tory landslide next year?”

Nothing. That’s just going to happen and there’s nothing to be done.

We are going to take two seats off Labour though, but that wont increase the Tory majority one bit.

We are going to take two seats off Labour though

Which ones?

I feel a bet coming on…

cjcjc:

I’ve already got my money on via the good offices of Mr Ladbrokes…

Brighton Pavillion and Norwich South

Sadly I don’t think we’ll win more than that.

The question is, do you really think you can take Norwich South after yesterday’s defeat? I know the Greens are far, far stronger in Norwich South as opposed to Norwich North, but if you’re only getting around half of what you achieve in non-Westminster elections – and in a by-election, at that! – is Norwich South, and indeed perhaps Brighton Pavillion, really realistic?

john b, re.Labour’s GE strategy:

“Yes, you hate us, but this election *really fucking matters* and if you don’t come and vote for us then they *will* win and they *will* be even worse”…

Toynbee”s been road testing this line for a least a year or two – plus it’s pretty much what she, as well as Peter Hain, did at the last GE. Labour supporters/voters already know the Tories are scum-suckingly evil people who eat babies washed down with Bollinger (or whatever: I exaggerate, but not by much), so they have no intention of voting for them or any interest in seeing them win the next GE – but there has to be more to voting Labour than saving New Labour’s sorry arse yet again.

I hope you have higher quality candidates there than the charming sounding Mr Read!

http://timesonline.typepad.com/oliver_kamm/2009/07/the-greens-and-norwich.html

@33 “The question is, do you really think you can take Norwich South after yesterday’s defeat? I know the Greens are far, far stronger in Norwich South as opposed to Norwich North, but if you’re only getting around half of what you achieve in non-Westminster elections – and in a by-election, at that! – is Norwich South, and indeed perhaps Brighton Pavillion, really realistic?”

Where’s that number from?

If you’re referring to the fact that Norwich as a whole gave us something like 22% at the Euros that’s because it’s both constituencies: the one where we do no work at all and the one where we have a majority of city and county councillors. The south is the latter and made up almost the entirety of that 22% so this result doesn’t actually have much bearing, except incidentally.

We actually win first past the post elections there all the time so whilst nothing is certain I don’t think the stats you’re quoting have traction.

@35 both candidates are lovely.

@RichardtheOriginal “Fact is though that they’re (LPUK) very much a party of the blogosphere. ”

Agree, and it’s a shame. They do, in the long run, deserve to do a lot better. I have tried to suggest this to various libertarians, and that perhaps it’s not a total coincidence that loads of other smart, nerdy people who use the internet a lot hold similar views to them, and that maybe this doesn’t necessarily represent a rising of the floods of public opinion. Total brick wall job. Very smart, nerdy people often have crap empathy is, I think, the explanation, and they tend to assume in absence of strong evidence to the contrary that other people think like them.

Which leads me neatly onto the Lib Dem result being absolute bobbins. If anybody wants to see what ensues when you suggest to a bunch of Lib Dems that maybe they should stop mindlessly shoving paper through everyone’s door, go and have a look at the comments to the top entry on my blog.

Good point Alix

@36: I’m referring to the county council elections, where you got something like 17% in the north and 33% in the south (I separated them out). I don’t have the exact figures to hand, regrettably, but I’ll try and find them later.

Of course, local and Parliamentary results aren’t always correlated directly. If they were, UKIP would be in with a bloody good chance of winning a seat in Norfolk. Still, if you’re only getting about half of your local vote – and that’s with aboslutely everything going near-perfectly, really – then the chances of winning FPTP seats don’t seem all that high.

(Also, if anyone is interested, I’ve blogged a few thoughts on the results here: http://irritabilityincarnate.blogspot.com/2009/07/norwich-north-by-election.html. Please forgive me if such a link is against the rules.)

@39 Thanks for the clarification.

I can’t guarantee it will happen of course but seeing as we get more votes than the other parties in the south of the city I think realistic is the word.

We don’t have much of an infrastructure in the North but we’re pretty awesome in the south. I think it’s up to the other parties to prove otherwise.

I’m liking the absolutely risible result for the BNP.

@2 cjcjc: But the interest (if the GE follows suit) is the increase in both UKIP and Greens – the rise of the “others”

This is a long-term trend that’s being going on for half a century.

@13 rantersparadise: UKIP are really growing aren’t they? Damn, they’ve been able to turn themselves from Kilroy’s joke party

Actully UKIP are quite sensible on digital rights issues — they were against software patents, and Farage is is favour of Open Source/Free Software.

Hi Don,

Just thought I’d add a few of my own thoughts before I go to the pub:
-I’d agree that it’s altogether an awful result for Labour, I think a lot of it was down to levels of campaigning. From what I’ve seen, there wasn’t a huge amount of enthusiasm among local activists for fighting the election. I don’t think we had anything close to the resource that the Lib Dems and the Tories had.
-I think the disappointing Green vote is due to two things, firstly, the Lib Dems launched a very personal campaign against Rupert Read, I don’t think anyone’s ever gone on the offensive to that level against the Greens before. Secondly, the Greens base is in largely in Norwich South, while they’ve got some hold in the North of the city they haven’t got much in terms of campaigning resource on the outskirts (as far as I know).

@42 Cabalamat: My concern about UKIP in terms of non-economics issues isn’t that its official policy isn’t good (it can be at times, as with DRM, and as with 42 days I believe), it’s that the party seems to be split between the people coming up with the ideas and the people ignoring them in favour of authoritarian conservatism. It’s an imperfect example, but take Bob Spink on 42 days, for instance.

Good to hear about the pathetic number of votes received by the BNP; can’t believe only 12 votes separate him from Craig Murray though.

@36

“If you’re referring to the fact that Norwich as a whole gave us something like 22% at the Euros that’s because it’s both constituencies: the one where we do no work at all and the one where we have a majority of city and county councillors. The south is the latter and made up almost the entirety of that 22% so this result doesn’t actually have much bearing, except incidentally.”

But didn’t you chaps launch your byelection campaign with much fanfare to the effect that (I paraphrase): the Green’s fabulous local and Euro results in Norwich North meant you were best placed to gain the seat? And now after finishing 5th with less than 10% of a reduced turnout you are conceding that you never had much activity or resources in NN and that those high percentages quoted were really reflections of elsewhere??

Hey, maybe you are a political party after all!

Tim J @30

But what if you don’t? What if you only manage to split the Labour/Liberal vote and let the Tories win by forty or fifty seats? No offence to the Green Party, I know they have solid policies and they want and indeed, deserve a solid platform, but I wonder at the strategy of fielding candidates in a FPTP General election. Local elections and PR (scotland/Wales and London EU), but your two so far mythical MPs will do nothing in the face of 400 4×4 owning hooray Henrys, will they?

“Glenn Tingle (UK Independence Party) 4,068″

Tee Hee!

11.8% I think it was?

Plus we won a County and District Council by election last night as well.

Being serious just for a moment, the person or people I think will be most worried by this result are the pro-EU Tories. (As in, those Tories who are pro EU, like the Cameroons).

The thought that UKIP might drain off votes is going to seriously scare them.

@48 Yes, it’s true that there’s every opportunity that the Greens will split the left-wing vote and let the Tories in.

However, going down the road of exclusively focusing on ‘what will achieve ?’ is really rather a dangerous one. It breeds complacency, and only serves to strengthen the two-party system in the long-term.

Personally, I would rather suffer a few years of Conservative government, and have the left use that time to build themselves up (and Parliamentary elections, no matter how you look at it, are helpful in building up such a movement) and be in a position at a later date to oppose the Conservatives and indeed New Labour, rather than simply resign myself to a cycle of two-party governments on the logic that the red-clad one might be slightly better on the whole than their blue-clad opponents.

There’s also the problem that if the non-Labour left allow Labour a free run, it serves primarily to entrench Labour. And the question really is this – is that such a good thing? I am personally of the view that either a new left movement needs to be built up, or the Labour Party needs to be won over to the left. Neither of those will happen if we strengthen the partisan power of the two big parties.

Of course, much of this depends on your personal political persuasion. Yet, if you are of an anti-New Labour/Cleggite LD leftist persuasion – as I am, and as much of the Green Party will be – the choice is essentially whether you are willing to sacrifice yourself to fight a more insidious enemy. And, personally, I don’t believe a few years of Conservative government is a big enough threat.

I’m reminded of a teaching from AJATT, a Japanese self-teaching system (which essentially says total immersion in Japanese language is the way to go). It’s along the lines of “Don’t opt out of Japanese immersion when in a ‘serious’ situation. When you’re on a plane, reading the safety instructions, don’t say “Hmm, this is a serious situation, I’d better not stick to the English.” It’s no good learning the language if you can’t use it in serious, real contexts.’.

It applies to the liberal left both inside and outside the Labour Party; there’s no point saying ‘this is serious, if we run for Westminster, we could cause the election of Conservatives over Labourites. Best not get involved.’. If such movements aren’t ready to assert themselves in such situation, how can they have any credibility whatsoever?

Just my two pence.

I was of course referring in my previous post to @47, not what is now @48. Damnable pingbacks.

@46

“But didn’t you chaps launch your byelection campaign with much fanfare to the effect that (I paraphrase): the Green’s fabulous local and Euro results in Norwich North meant you were best placed to gain the seat?”

Squirrel Nutkin: well, you’ve hit a nerve there. I personally never said anything like that – my line was roughly we’ll be doing well to get third place, however some of my colleagues were more, cough, exuberant and frankly embarrassing seeming to imply as you say that we might win the seat, which as far as I’m concerned was completely unnecessary.

In my view people should only claim they can win if they can. So you’re right some people were hyping it up and others, like myself, were not happy with that and after the first week of the campaign those people were no longer presenting such a dangerously over optimistic outlook.

Thankfully that approach was never in any press release or leaflet (as far as I’m aware anyway).

In all fairness, there’s nothing wrong with being optimistic. The problem comes when you try to turn optimistic opinion into indisputable fact; for instance, going from ‘we are well-positioned to win here’ to ‘YOU MUST VOTE FOR US WE ARE THE ONLY OPTION’. There were echoes of that in the Green NW Euro campaign, and of course in countless Lib Dem efforts.

What surprises me most about the result is that so many voted FOR NuLab.

What exactly have the Lib Dems achieved in the last 25 years?

In 1983 The Lib Dem/SDP got about 26/27% of the vote at the general election. They have not got anywhere near that figure since, despite unpopular Tory and Labour govt’s. They claim to be in favour of PR yet they have failed completely to form coalition govt’s in either Scotland or Wales. In Wales they managed to screw up the negotiations so badly that Labour entered into a partnership with Welsh Nationalists. (something that would have been unheard of 5 years before.) Surely the party of PR should be better able to negotiate with other parties.

The Lib Dems only claim to fame (and it is not something they should be proud of) is that by splitting the vote they have managed to conspire to allow Britain to be govt by either Tory or Labour with huge majorities (140 for Thatcher in 1983 and 102 in 1987, and well over 170 for New Labour) despite that neither of these parties got near 45% of the vote.

Now they are pushing themselves as a tax cutting party having been for raising taxes. Their play to be the pro European vote has failed miserably.

Joseph Edwards

Yes I understand all of that and I agree with you. Those votes are not the exclusive use and property on Labour. I have come to detest New Labour; I have published my views on here a couple of times. We need political movements that keep the ‘main’ ones honest. I say this as an SNP voter.

I just wonder about the strategy of fighting seats that will allow those Parties who are your natural enemies gain power, especially in the type of battle that the greens find themselves in.

Wining a Parliamentary seat is the ‘goal’ that the smaller Parties think will win them credibility. Well it never did Rosy Barnes, Roy Jenkins and the SDP any good did it? Their contribution to politics was a big fat zero, (or, at ‘best’ Tony Blair). They are now a footnote in history. The thing is, a small cadre of Greens sitting in some corner of the chamber will not change a single of legalisation if the Tories win a landslide. Two minutes at the end of a debate on roads or cutting the railways won’t make an iota of difference in the wider scheme of things.

In my humble, I think the Green Party main priority should be in local and devolved Chambers around the Country. Those who are in local Government are able to make an admittedly smallish difference to what is happening around the Country.

I would take issue with you regarding time in opposition is good for a Party. Labour spent eighteen years in opposition and look what they became.

@55 Jimbo

I do understand your point about electoral success in such a manner not leading to change necessarily; allow me to back up your point by pointing to the fact that the election of a Constitution state senator did little for the party in the US, and on a higher level a socialist senator has done nothing for American socialism.

However, personally (and I don’t think the Greens agree with me on this one), it’s not necessarily what they do in Parliament, it’s that the attempt to (and success in) getting them in is where the good lies, as it energises the left and helps to enhance their voice by giving them a common purpose and common organisation, at least for a time.

And, of course, it does definitely keep Labour on their toes. The problem with challenging them at a local level is that although relatively speaking the Greens gain a lot, Labour really lose very little if they’re still unchallenged at Westminster. Local election results are somewhat overhyped in their importance, IMHO.

Should Westminster be the party’s primary purpose? Of course not; yet, there is something to be said for not ignoring it completely.

Regarding your opposition point – indeed, it’s not necessarily a good thing, but it can be. Labour can react in different ways to period of opposition – sure, there was 1979-1997, but at the same time there was 1935-1945. Is it a gamble? Perhaps, but it’s a gamble that we may need to take.

Anybody out there interested in what the candidates actually looked and sounded like, might be interested in this clip at http://www.putanhonestman.org/index.php

The Craig Murray campaign managed to get the evidence that their chap was the clearest speaker and best debater up on the web about an hour before the polls closed. Ho-hum… Anyway, what use are those skills in today’s House of Commons?

The Monster Raving Looney Party got more then double the vote of the UKLP maybe the LP should consider a merger & call themselves The Looney Libertarian Party it would be an apt description.

54 One shouldn’t assume that in the absence of the Alliance, their supporters would have gone Labour. If anything, their voters were slightly more inclined to the Conservatives than Labour.

One united Left wing party in this country would not be permanently guaranteed a majority.

Whatever people take from this Tory victory, the numbers were well down – more so for NuLab than anyone else, but down they were. Rounded whichever 20%.

People did not vote en masse!

Now, if I were the leader of a political party I would be asking the serious, yet simple question – why?

To us plebs it is obvious – regardless of the joy of the Tory support or the dismay of the NuLab support. The difference here was the low turn out – and come a general election the party that gets those people out have a chance of a win.

The numbers are there to look at and analyse – a smack in the teeth for NuLab, yes – but if NuLab moves way over to the left – as people want, you really don’t know what could happen.

The party that attacks the banks and bankers/City and looks to attack both working-class, middle-class poverty and insecurity has a real chance of winning power come the next GE.

If the status Quo sits – the Tories are in with a landslide. Until the next recession in about – late 2012.

Labour’s problem is that there are very few large organisations employing thousands of unskilled and semi skilled pople apart from the government. Employment has become dominated by the self employed and those working in small and medium enterprises. Neither Labour nor the Tories are particularly attractive to the self employed /SMEs. The Tories are the party of the investment banker/city lawyer not the local landowner who has had ties with an area for generations.

The increase in legislation adversely impacts the work of the self employed /SME not the labour voting government employee or “City ” employed Tory voter. The increasing H and S legislation, screening /vetting /insurance premiums/local government control infuriates those who organise local events -scouts/guides, carnivals etc,etc. I have known people who used to teach evening classes in local schools go private because they are fed up with local council regulations.

Any political party who can obtain support from the self employed/SME (SE/SME) who takes an active part in the local community could attract plenty of votes . At the moment , I would suggest UKIP is beginning to attract SE/SME and if they adopt such people as candidates who have a repution for local community activity( running sports clubs, scout/guides, drama groups etc , etc)they could take the craftsmen/foremen vote from Labour and the SE/SME vote from the LDs and Tories.

Labour is largely impractical, whose politicians are largely impractical and lives in a paper reality. Look at the problem with tax credits. Could not Labour have just modified child benefit? Many SE/SME just do not think labour has spent the money well. When shopkeepers tell me that schoolchildren cannot add up 6 items using pen and paper, then they do not consider education has improved.

If Labour could return to a more practical , realistic, down to earth politics which enabled the aspirational, hardworking and honest working/lower middle classes a promise of a better quality of life, then they could win. After 65 years of the welfare state , the labour party alienate many aspirational , hardworking and honest working class/lower middle classes who work in the private sector; by believing that the money on 2 or 3rd generation welfare dependent families is their tax money well spent. In addition, many working class/lower middle class people see in the increase in white and middle class employment with thir index linked pensions 25 day holidays /yr and consider that tax is being wasted.

Historically , the working class tory has existed because the left wing white middle class has often been disparaging about their traditional view of life; their vote could now go to UKIP . If Labour want to win; they need to reconnect to the aspirational, hardworking and honest working/lower middle classes who often have more traditional social views than metropolitan left wing middle classes; then they need to change. People like this are often well respected in the community and if they vote Labour , then they can often persuade others to do so.

Chloe Smith (Conservative) 13,591
Chris Ostrowski (Labour) 6,243

There were 14,543 votes wasted by the electorate on candidates who were no hopers in the contest. The total is larger than the Conservative winning share. I cannot help but wonder what the result would have been but for all the wasted votes? It still may have been a 2 to 1 victory for the Tories over labour. There again, it may have been a case of neck and neck with the votes being equally shared.

@62 That’s got to be the most idiotic comment I’ve read for a long time.

WE DON’T ACCEPT YOUR RIGHT TO A DUOPOLY! Get it??

@62 Why not say there were 20,786 wasted votes in the election as it was always obvious that the Tories would win this one? Could have saved a lot of money & hassle. Could have been like filling a vacancy for leaderof the Labour Party.

@60 Will Rhodes

“Now, if I were the leader of a political party I would be asking the serious, yet simple question – why [there was a 20% lower turnout]?”

I think the answers simple I’m afraid. It’s a by election and by election turnouts are always lower because many people see them as a second class election because you’re not voitng for the government.

45% isn’t bad for a by election to be honest and I’d assumed there was going to be a large abstention because of Ian Gibson. That doesn’t seem to have happened.

@62 jailhouselawyer

“I cannot help but wonder what the result would have been but for all the wasted votes?”

Riots at the rigged election perhaps? The storming of the town hall demanding people’s votes are counted? Sounds fun.

Votes cast for candidate that don’t win are not wasted – they are cast by voters for the party they feel best represents them. If you want to advocate STV go ahead but right now it sounds like you’re arguing that parties don’t have a right to stand if they can’t get first or second place (although how you know this before the election, who knows).

@62: I already wrote about this earlier, but to summarise: the fact that the Conservatives may be somewhat worse than Labour is no reason to enable a duopoly. The left can’t be thinking in such ridiculously short-sighted terms; if we actually want to change things, backing out whenever we have an opportunity, even if that opportunity is to grow rather than to gain power, so that the Tories don’t slip in is not going to help at all.

@32

> Brighton Pavillion and Norwich South Sadly I don’t think we’ll win more than that.

You’re probably right, but I reckon we’ve an outside chance in Oxford East. Emphasis on “outside” though, and I have a record of being overoptimistic.

55% of the electorate in Norwich North decided not to vote for any of the candidates.

All of the main candidates saw large reductions in their votes from the general election despite the media hype about the importance of the general election.

The winning candidate scored 39% of a 45% turnout. That’s 18% of the elctorate. Hardly a mandate.

Despite all the hype and a real increase in their vote the Greens scored only 5% of the electorate’s vote – in a race they were claiming they could win.

I wonder if many people have just had enough of the lot of them?

Here is the nearest thing to an official Number 10 opinion poll on Mr Brown’s popularity. The following two petitions were started at roughly the same time on the official Number 10 website.

For

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/support-the-PM/

Against

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/please-go/

Note that many of the names in the “For” petition look a bit unlikely. Number 10 quickly remove the spam names from the other petition to keep it as short as they can. However, the ratio against Mr Brown is huge!

There is still time for you to vote here, so make the most of it.

Also, if you agree with this petition, please tell others about it, and tell them to spread the word as well. This is the way to get it really moving.

“I wonder if many people have just had enough of the lot of them?”

Actually Jim Jay says that 45% was a rather good turnout for a by-election. Anybody have any quotable data to confirm that?

I love 62′s view, it’s either an opinion of complete democracy in elections, or of absolutely zero democracy.

Under first past the post the only thing that counts is the gap between who finishes first and second. Which is why it is really designed for 2 party politics. Once you get other parties between them getting over 20% of the vote you end up with the weird , distorted situation we have had for the last 30 years. Governing parties getting gigantic majorities on just over 40 %

In fact, it’s interesting to speculate how low could a party go in terms of % of vote ,and still win an out right majority. Say party (A) got 20% of the vote, and another 8 parties got 10% of the vote each ,how big would party A’s majority be? 50 seat majority? And is it right that 80% could vote against the party who becomes the govt?

Whoever wins the next election ,one thing is certain. The vast majority of the people will not have voted for them.

@70 Strategist: Jim Jay’s incorrect.

Let’s just take the by-elections from this Parliament, for simplicity – there have been thirteen since the last general election.

Now, there are a few indicators that can be used. Firstly, the raw turnout figure. Norwich North, at 45.9%, is seventh out of thirteen – plumb in the middle. Not exactly impressive when you consider that many of the elections below it were safe seats (Ealing Southall, Sedgefield, Livingston, Haltemprice and Howden), while every single ballot above it was in some way competitive bar maybe Henley.

But hey, raw turnout isn’t a great indicator; it’s quotable, but it isn’t great. How about the change in turnout? At -15.2%, again, Norwich North comes…er, seventh, in the middle. And although the names are a bit different this time, what I said earlier applies; hell, it lags far behind the other big Labour calamities such as Crewe and Nantwich (-1.8%0, Glasgow East (-5.9%) and Dunfermline and West Fife (-12.0%).

The best measure, if you’re going to be really accurate, has to be the proportion of voters who stayed home this time but voted last time. And admittely, Norwich North DOES do better on this one with its 24.9%.

Shame it only goes up one ranking, to sixth.

The Norwich North turnout, in general for a by-election, was average. For a fiercely competitive election? It was bloody awful.

While the Libertarian Party’s share of the vote was disappointing (especially in comparison to how well we did in Wisbech South), it’s hardly any cause for alarm on our part. New party with no brand recognition, very young candidate, limited resources… We’ll learn our lessons and next time we’ll do better. And the time after that, and the time after that. Because we’re not going away, and we have no reason to stop until we have a Libertarian government, no matter how long it takes.

On the other hand, I would be worried if I was a “Lib” Dem. You really should be doing better than this, with both the Tories and Labour being so unpopular. You could probably do better if you were a liberal party – but you’re not. It seems quite a few Lib Dems have realised this recently (including one former councillor) and are coming over to us.

@73 Thanks for the data & analysis, Joseph.

“The best measure, if you’re going to be really accurate, has to be the proportion of voters who stayed home this time but voted last time. And admittely, Norwich North DOES do better on this one with its 24.9%.”

Sorry to be thick, but please can you explain this a bit more? How do you arrive at this figure?

And sorry to be thick again, but are you saying that the data really does support a conclusion that there was a greater stay away from the polls than might have otherwise have been expected, suggesting that a positive voter boycott (from disgust with Labour/the expenses scandal/whatever it may be) was an important factor rather than more general apathy?

On a wider point, I am always a little amazed that nationally significant by-elections generating masses of concentrated local political activity (visits by party leaders etc) and the opportunity for ordinary voters to make a direct impact on the national political discourse get such lower turnouts than General Elections where that constituency may go almost entirely unnoticed. Which goes to show I suppose how far removed all political activists are from the level of non-interest and alienation from politics most people are at.

@Citizen Stuart

Are you stalking me online or something Stu

It seems where ever I might post about the UKLP you then post & I’m not telling you where I post

Anyways the Lib Dems are doing fine we get MPs elected unlike the UKL:P who lose their deposit

“Sorry to be thick, but please can you explain this a bit more? How do you arrive at this figure?”
Basically, 1-(new turnout/old turnout). So, in this case, it was 1-(45/60) or thereabouts; 25% of the voters who HAD turned out last time turned out this time.

“And sorry to be thick again, but are you saying that the data really does support a conclusion that there was a greater stay away from the polls than might have otherwise have been expected, suggesting that a positive voter boycott (from disgust with Labour/the expenses scandal/whatever it may be) was an important factor rather than more general apathy? ”
I wasn’t particularly focusing on that when I put out the data (I was more working on refuting that this was a high-turnout election), and it would be limited in use given that it only focuses on this Parliament. What I will say, though, is if you compare to results from, say, 1997-2001, this sort of drop in turnout is around what is generally expected, and indeed is lower than many similar by-elections in that period.

Sorry, that should of course be “did not turn out” rather than “turned out” in the first paragraph there.

@46:
This is false, as far as I can tell. If you actually read the Greens’ Norwich North literature (as opposed to ‘paraphrasing’ (i.e. lieing about) it, they simply never claimed that they were ‘best-placed’ to take the seat. They said things like that the momentum was with them; that they were now in with a shot of doing unprecedentedly well, etc. In other words: they said true things, not false things.

The Greens have every right to stand against any party or candidate that fails to put a human rights, social justice and environmentalist agenda in front of itself. We have every right to stand as a party that opposes public service cuts and to take on the bollocks consensus that cuts are a neccessity.