****
In the 2005 general election 20, 315 people voted Labour in the Harwich constituency in north Essex. Almost all of this constituency - everything but the town of Harwich itself - now makes up the Clacton constituency so spectacularly caputured by UKIP defector Douglas Carswell. In 2010 Labour still took 25% of the vote - which if you've been to Jaywick or St Osyth shouldn't really be a surprise. Yet Labour made no effort at all to fight the recent by-election with the result that its vote sunk to less than 4,000.
It seems to me that Labour is about to repeat this approach in Rochester and Strood - a place that had a Labour MP up to 2010. And the media seems set on letting Labour get away with fighting a seat that, were this a normal by-election causes by death or resignation, the party would have had every expectation of winning or coming close to winning. The truth about Rochester and Strood is that it's not a sort of Kentish version of Buckingham or Wokingham - it's a pretty working class place and Labour is hanging its support there out to dry, handing it over on a plate to UKIP.
If I were a cynic, I'd suggest that Labour essentially giving up on contesting seats where iit had MPs in the last decade reflects their running the dangerous game of wanting UKIP to damage the Conservatives. The problem is that, across much of the South, the consequence of this approach will be that UKIP will become - for the time being at least - the main opposition to the Conservatives. And along the Thames estuary - perhaps the few places in the south where Labour remains strong - the party will die out.
Odd really.
....
Showing posts with label by-elections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label by-elections. Show all posts
Sunday, 19 October 2014
Friday, 6 June 2014
Newark and the angst of tactical voting
****
Yesterday the Conservative candidate romped home in the Newark by-election. In one respect this should have been entirely predictable. A safe seat (albeit one that elected a Labour MP in 1997) shouldn't be a problem for even the occasionally creaky Tory by-election machine. But there are a couple of factors that make the outcome especially pleasing for the Party - the reason for the by-election in the first place and the populist surge that is UKIP.
I'm sure lots of people will analyse the result to death. Comment will be made about how UKIP's tornado (or is it earthquake, I get my natural disaster metaphors mixed up) turned out to be nothing more than a stiff breeze. And others will point and laugh at the Liberal Democrats. Wise observers will also ask how it was that Labour did so badly in a seat like this? Surely an opposition heading for government would be winning by-elections like this not coming a distant third?
But I'm not going to do such an analysis. I'm going to talk about tactical voting. Mostly because there's some folk saying that non-Tory residents of Newark voted Tory to keep out UKIP. Now I've never voted tactically but I recall the endless machinations on the centre-left about the practice. Indeed the Liberal Democrats made it into something of an art form completely with creatively presented bar charts (sometimes illustrated with jolly little cartoon horses) - lend us your vote Labour folk, the Lib Dem chap would say. And those previously Labour voting people would weigh up their options and vote tactically.
When Stephen Ross won the Isle of Wight for the Liberals in 1974, the Labour vote dropped from 23% of the vote (and second place) to just 11% of the vote and a poor third. This was in an election that Labour (more-or-less) won nationally. And we'll see that pattern repeated again and again in subsequent years with the main beneficiaries being the Liberal Democrats. This became such a significant campaign that the Mirror could publish a guide to tactical voting ahead of the 2010 election:
It is perhaps ironic that the Mirror's campaign might have led in part to the circumstances that resulted in a coalition as Labour voters in Solihull and Wells prevented Conservative gains in those towns. But that's as maybe - yesterday we're told that some people who'd regularly vote Labour or Liberal Democrat chose instead to vote Conservative so as to prevent a UKIP MP being elected. For the former, the angst must have been painful. Can you imagine that, having been weaned on the utter evilness of Tories you find your pencil hovering over the Conservative candidate's name on the ballot paper! The agony!
It's different for Liberal Democrat voters - the party was built on protest, on not being the other two, on tactical considerations. This means that most Liberal Democrat voters are voting tactically - either because the local MP is such a nice chap (the Tim Farron method) or else because they hate the other party, be it Labour or Conservative, enough to want to stop them winning by voting for someone you disagree with.
In the run up to this Newark by-election, to the extent that Labour and Lib Dem folk were engaged at all, I'd read twitter comments agitatedly pondering tactical voting - for a Conservative. I suspect this is a massive breakthrough for the Conservatives - UKIP has succeeded where sleigh rides and hugging hoodies hasn't and has made the Conservatives seem decent, honourable centrist politicians. That Labour voters are even considering a tactical Tory vote is a major shift in outlook and, I suspect, very bad news for Labour in places where UKIP are strong. If stopping UKIP becomes the theme will voters plump for the sitting MPs in Thanet, Thurrock and Great Yarmouth?
...
Yesterday the Conservative candidate romped home in the Newark by-election. In one respect this should have been entirely predictable. A safe seat (albeit one that elected a Labour MP in 1997) shouldn't be a problem for even the occasionally creaky Tory by-election machine. But there are a couple of factors that make the outcome especially pleasing for the Party - the reason for the by-election in the first place and the populist surge that is UKIP.
I'm sure lots of people will analyse the result to death. Comment will be made about how UKIP's tornado (or is it earthquake, I get my natural disaster metaphors mixed up) turned out to be nothing more than a stiff breeze. And others will point and laugh at the Liberal Democrats. Wise observers will also ask how it was that Labour did so badly in a seat like this? Surely an opposition heading for government would be winning by-elections like this not coming a distant third?
But I'm not going to do such an analysis. I'm going to talk about tactical voting. Mostly because there's some folk saying that non-Tory residents of Newark voted Tory to keep out UKIP. Now I've never voted tactically but I recall the endless machinations on the centre-left about the practice. Indeed the Liberal Democrats made it into something of an art form completely with creatively presented bar charts (sometimes illustrated with jolly little cartoon horses) - lend us your vote Labour folk, the Lib Dem chap would say. And those previously Labour voting people would weigh up their options and vote tactically.
When Stephen Ross won the Isle of Wight for the Liberals in 1974, the Labour vote dropped from 23% of the vote (and second place) to just 11% of the vote and a poor third. This was in an election that Labour (more-or-less) won nationally. And we'll see that pattern repeated again and again in subsequent years with the main beneficiaries being the Liberal Democrats. This became such a significant campaign that the Mirror could publish a guide to tactical voting ahead of the 2010 election:
This is a Labour paper with a long tradition of supporting Gordon Brown's party, but we are urging some of you to vote Lib Dem this time.
Below is a guide which shows how Labour and Lib Dem supporters can vote tactically in 71 key marginal seats to stop the catastrophic cuts Mr Cameron would begin if he wins the General Election.
It is perhaps ironic that the Mirror's campaign might have led in part to the circumstances that resulted in a coalition as Labour voters in Solihull and Wells prevented Conservative gains in those towns. But that's as maybe - yesterday we're told that some people who'd regularly vote Labour or Liberal Democrat chose instead to vote Conservative so as to prevent a UKIP MP being elected. For the former, the angst must have been painful. Can you imagine that, having been weaned on the utter evilness of Tories you find your pencil hovering over the Conservative candidate's name on the ballot paper! The agony!
It's different for Liberal Democrat voters - the party was built on protest, on not being the other two, on tactical considerations. This means that most Liberal Democrat voters are voting tactically - either because the local MP is such a nice chap (the Tim Farron method) or else because they hate the other party, be it Labour or Conservative, enough to want to stop them winning by voting for someone you disagree with.
In the run up to this Newark by-election, to the extent that Labour and Lib Dem folk were engaged at all, I'd read twitter comments agitatedly pondering tactical voting - for a Conservative. I suspect this is a massive breakthrough for the Conservatives - UKIP has succeeded where sleigh rides and hugging hoodies hasn't and has made the Conservatives seem decent, honourable centrist politicians. That Labour voters are even considering a tactical Tory vote is a major shift in outlook and, I suspect, very bad news for Labour in places where UKIP are strong. If stopping UKIP becomes the theme will voters plump for the sitting MPs in Thanet, Thurrock and Great Yarmouth?
...
Friday, 14 February 2014
On by-elections...
****
His Grace asks us to:
So taking his exhortation I shall do just this - try to understand why nearly three out of four electors in Wythenshawe and Sale East didn't bother to vote in yesterday's by-election.
His Grace suggests that this abstention gives greater credence to the Russell Brand argument against voting (which, I understand, is that voting only encourages them and let's have a revolution instead, so much more fun). And that the lack of public interest in voting yesterday - despite having had a waste bin full of leaflets rammed through the letterbox - reflects public disillusionment with democracy.
For my part I take a different lesson from His Grace's text, the low turnout simply reflects the wisdom of the population. After all yesterday's by-election was in a safe Labour seat, its result would change nothing for the electors and certainly not the nature or direction of government. So, given that Manchester yesterday wasn't a place to venture out into without good reason, people went about their normal day and, in the evening, chose to stop in and watch telly rather than stagger down to the church hall for voting.
Indeed, had there not been over 10,000 postal votes (much to the chagrin of Mr Farage), the turnout would have been even lower!
The point we all ignore is that people had the option. I'm pretty sure that most of the 72% not voting knew full well there was a by-election. And they chose not to go and vote. It simply wasn't something that was important to them.
This is wonderful. Really wonderful - people are comfortable enough in their lives that they do not feel the need to play their tiny little part in democracy. And when we go and ask them why they didn't bother they'll give those familiar answers - politicians are all the same, voting doesn't change anything, Labour always win here so no point in voting. Or perhaps just the simple statement - I never vote.
Some people are bothered that the act of voting doesn't really change anything (I would argue that this isn't really true but that doesn't matter for this discussion) and fret about raising turnout - hence the easy to corrupt postal voting system. They are wrong, the fault doesn't lie with electors but with us politicians. We have lost control of things we used to control. We too often raise our hands and shrug, "nothing I can do really" when faced with a real problem for real people.
So people are wise. They know that replacing one politician with another at a by-election isn't really a big deal. And they stay home in the warm doing something that isn't politics.
...
His Grace asks us to:
Consider the turnout - 28%.
So taking his exhortation I shall do just this - try to understand why nearly three out of four electors in Wythenshawe and Sale East didn't bother to vote in yesterday's by-election.
His Grace suggests that this abstention gives greater credence to the Russell Brand argument against voting (which, I understand, is that voting only encourages them and let's have a revolution instead, so much more fun). And that the lack of public interest in voting yesterday - despite having had a waste bin full of leaflets rammed through the letterbox - reflects public disillusionment with democracy.
For my part I take a different lesson from His Grace's text, the low turnout simply reflects the wisdom of the population. After all yesterday's by-election was in a safe Labour seat, its result would change nothing for the electors and certainly not the nature or direction of government. So, given that Manchester yesterday wasn't a place to venture out into without good reason, people went about their normal day and, in the evening, chose to stop in and watch telly rather than stagger down to the church hall for voting.
Indeed, had there not been over 10,000 postal votes (much to the chagrin of Mr Farage), the turnout would have been even lower!
The point we all ignore is that people had the option. I'm pretty sure that most of the 72% not voting knew full well there was a by-election. And they chose not to go and vote. It simply wasn't something that was important to them.
This is wonderful. Really wonderful - people are comfortable enough in their lives that they do not feel the need to play their tiny little part in democracy. And when we go and ask them why they didn't bother they'll give those familiar answers - politicians are all the same, voting doesn't change anything, Labour always win here so no point in voting. Or perhaps just the simple statement - I never vote.
Some people are bothered that the act of voting doesn't really change anything (I would argue that this isn't really true but that doesn't matter for this discussion) and fret about raising turnout - hence the easy to corrupt postal voting system. They are wrong, the fault doesn't lie with electors but with us politicians. We have lost control of things we used to control. We too often raise our hands and shrug, "nothing I can do really" when faced with a real problem for real people.
So people are wise. They know that replacing one politician with another at a by-election isn't really a big deal. And they stay home in the warm doing something that isn't politics.
...
Sunday, 24 February 2013
Why a Conservative win in Eastleigh might be the worst thing for the Party's future.
****
The most worrying thing for my Party is the prospect that we might actually win the forthcoming by-election in Eastleigh. Don't get me wrong folks, one fewer Liberal Democrat in Parliament would be a blessing for the nation but the Conservatives need to face the truth about their organisation, membership and structures.
This isn't about whether the Party wins the next election but about whether it survives at all. Or indeed deserves to survive. Everywhere I look, the Party's 'grassroots' are looking pretty parched and uncared for. This isn't about policy scraps over Europe, gay marriage or whatever but about the outlook of the London operational leadership.
There is no doubt - and the appointment of Lynton Crosby confirms this - that the brief from the Party leadership to what we used to call the 'professional party' is entirely tactical. The entire focus is on the 2015 General Election and the whistles, gongs and bells that must be blown bashed or rung to secure victory. And the concentration here will be on destructive politics - blackening the opposition, cat-calls and dog whistles.
It may work. Part of me hopes it does, for another Labour government - even a Labour-led government - would likely kill what small hope remains for the nation. But the Conservative Party has to look to the 2020 election and beyond. Has to ask how it is going to rebuild the supporter base that made it the world's most successful political party of the last century. For it wasn't any politician that made this party. It was two million active members - the Party's achievements, the rebuilding of Britain in the 1950s, the rescuing of the country in the 1980s, were possible because of those members. Without them there would have been no Macmillan, no Thatcher.
If we win in Eastleigh. Because of scandal in the Liberal Democrats, because of local anger over housing or because our whistles worked better than our opponents. If we win in Eastleigh the leadership will be vindicated in their disparaging exploitation of the Party's remaining members. Nothing will be done to build support in our big cities, no campaigns to attract new young members will be run and local control - mostly removed under William Hague - will remain a distant memory.
As Paul Goodman - who rather gets this problem - put it:
If we win Eastleigh on Thursday this lesson will be ignored - the grubby business of tactical campaigning will be seen as the way to proceed. And a little more of the Party's base will decide to stay home and watch telly rather than attend the branch meeting, deliver leaflets or run a coffee morning.
....
The most worrying thing for my Party is the prospect that we might actually win the forthcoming by-election in Eastleigh. Don't get me wrong folks, one fewer Liberal Democrat in Parliament would be a blessing for the nation but the Conservatives need to face the truth about their organisation, membership and structures.
This isn't about whether the Party wins the next election but about whether it survives at all. Or indeed deserves to survive. Everywhere I look, the Party's 'grassroots' are looking pretty parched and uncared for. This isn't about policy scraps over Europe, gay marriage or whatever but about the outlook of the London operational leadership.
There is no doubt - and the appointment of Lynton Crosby confirms this - that the brief from the Party leadership to what we used to call the 'professional party' is entirely tactical. The entire focus is on the 2015 General Election and the whistles, gongs and bells that must be blown bashed or rung to secure victory. And the concentration here will be on destructive politics - blackening the opposition, cat-calls and dog whistles.
It may work. Part of me hopes it does, for another Labour government - even a Labour-led government - would likely kill what small hope remains for the nation. But the Conservative Party has to look to the 2020 election and beyond. Has to ask how it is going to rebuild the supporter base that made it the world's most successful political party of the last century. For it wasn't any politician that made this party. It was two million active members - the Party's achievements, the rebuilding of Britain in the 1950s, the rescuing of the country in the 1980s, were possible because of those members. Without them there would have been no Macmillan, no Thatcher.
If we win in Eastleigh. Because of scandal in the Liberal Democrats, because of local anger over housing or because our whistles worked better than our opponents. If we win in Eastleigh the leadership will be vindicated in their disparaging exploitation of the Party's remaining members. Nothing will be done to build support in our big cities, no campaigns to attract new young members will be run and local control - mostly removed under William Hague - will remain a distant memory.
As Paul Goodman - who rather gets this problem - put it:
In the crucial Midlands and Northern marginals the Conservatives must win in 2015, councillors are losing their seats and membership is falling, as it is elsewhere: the national figure may be as low as 130,000. The Tories have made much during the by-election of learning from President Obama’s victory last year, but his triumph was achieved by a combination of computer-held data and boots on the ground.
One would have thought that Mr Cameron would make a priority of reviving his party membership. Instead, he has drawn the opposite lesson from the decline of political parties. Like Tony Blair, he has sought to define himself against his own party...
If we win Eastleigh on Thursday this lesson will be ignored - the grubby business of tactical campaigning will be seen as the way to proceed. And a little more of the Party's base will decide to stay home and watch telly rather than attend the branch meeting, deliver leaflets or run a coffee morning.
....
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