Oldham by-election

[Filo]

A bit of a kick in the knackers for the coalition eh

In the General election Labour won the seat by a hundred or so votes, with a candidate that allegedly cheated, you would think the electorate would turn their backs on cheats and vote for another party eh?

But what Happens? Labour win the seat in the by-election by a whopping 3,558 votes, that tells you everything about what the people think of the coalition, a tight marginal seat turned into an overwhelming victory!

[RedJ]

We also need to remember that some Conservative voters will have gone Lib Dem purely to try to keep Labour out, which will have been one reason for their collapse and the Lib Dems getting so many.

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

Has a party ever really come in and kept it's vote as high as during the election?  Those in power always seem to suffer (no surprise as the tough decisions always affect someone and the media does their best to cause a bad situation).

[The Red Baron]

I can't help thinking this result might quite suit Messrs Cameron and Clegg.

It was always going to be a Labour victory- after all, they managed to hold the seat last May and the candidate was untainted by the scandal that caused the by-election.

The real fear for Cameron and Clegg was that the Lib-Dem vote would collapse, dropping them into 3rd or even 4th place. This would have caused Lib-Dems to become even more nervous about their prospects if they stayed in the coalition. It might have also made the Tories think they could do better without their \"allies.\"

As it is, the Lib-Dems haven't done too badly, so will be persuaded to stick with the coalition. The message for Tory dissidents is clear- break up the coalition and you face defeat at a General Election.

Ed Miliband can certainly take satisfaction from the result, but in my view it makes it more, rather then less, likely that the coalition will continue for some time to come.

[BillyStubbsTears]

It's blindingly obvious what happened. The national opinion polls are consistently showing that, since May, the Lib Dem support has collapsed from 23% to about 10%. The Tory vote is rock solid at the same level it was at in May. And Labour has gone up by 10-12%.

It would be remarkable if Oldham hadn't reflected that trend.

 So, what happened yesterday is obvious.  10-12% of Lib Dem voters switched to Labour. The ONLY reason that the Lib Dem vote held up is that a similar number of Tory voters switched to vote Lib Dem for tactical reasons to defeat Labour.

That is deeply bad news for the Lib Dems. Their support has collapsed and they are seen by Tories as very much on their side - so much so that for the first time I can ever remember, Tories have voted for them in droves. Keep this up and it will be easier and easier for Labour (correctly) to paint the Lib Dems as the Tories' bitches.

The Lib Dems are royally screwed. They are the lightning conductor for all the bad feeling against the Govt. They will not get their AV later this year because they wi be the only party supporting it - since they are as popular as an SS Major at a Bar Mitzvah, that in itself will guarantee that people vote against AV. And, come 2015, the Tories won't vote tactically for them ad they did yesterday. Or if it looks like they would do, that makes Labour's job even easier in portraying the Lib Dems and Tories as identical.

75 years waiting for power. 5 years providing cover for a manically right wing Govt. Then back to the wilderness for a century. What is the fcuking point of the Lib Dems eh?

[Sprotyrover]

labour would have lost the Olham by election if they had been in power!!!.unfortunatley any Government would have to force us to swallow a bitter pill at the moment.(unless labour intended to print more money of course).

I'm not a Tory but folks on here need to remember who got us into this Mess in the first place and by mess I mean the sittuation whereby we have increased public sector pay and the pension burden to breaking point.

[RedJ]

I like the SS simile, BST :-) very interesting one!