So the byelections are done and the expected UKIP surge took place.

Clacton was pretty much in line with expectations, and the two polls, UKIP winning with just under 60%, the Tories down to under 25% and everyone else squeezed. Turnout was over 50% which is quite high for a byelection.

Middleton was at variance - Labour held but only just. Where polling had shown UKIP overtaken the Tories, it had suggested Labour would be some way ahead, gaining about 8-10% share . What happened was that Labour vote share stayed the same, and UKIP picked up the extra 10% . Turnout was 36%, which is more typical.

So, the clear winners are UKIP. They have been able to not only gain the expected seat in their stomping ground of south/east coastal towns that tend to be Tory, but came within 618 votes of a win in a northern working class town that usually votes Labour.

The obvious losers are the coalition parties. As has been the case in other byelections where they wete not defending a seat or in close contention, the Lib Dems collapsed. Clacton was particularly bad for them. The tory vote share was less than half that of 2010 in both constituencies, and one can surmise that this was lost to UKIP.

Labour did not do well either. From second place to third in Clacton, and with a halved vote share, was probably not so bad given that they were a long way behind to start with and there was a clear squeeze effect. But Middleton was much closer than would be desired, and while that followed a particularly pointed campaign by UKIP.

As to the implications for the next few months, the first is that it boosts UKIPs chances for the next byelection, as polling there already shows another likely gain from the Tories and Labour may be less able to make headway even if the right wing vote is split.

In the medium term, a lot depends on events, but if UKIP have any more MPs lined up to defect, they could be springing more byelections between now and May.

The real question is whether UKIP can maintain support into the General Election and if they cannot, which party/parties would gain from the 'unwind'.

I must say I was surprised by the narrowness of the margin in Heywood and Middleton. We've seen bold predictions of UKIP inroads into the Labour heartlands before and they never really amounted to much, so I assumed it would be largely similar this time. What seems to have happened is that a lot of Labour voters made the switch to UKIP, along with a lot of Tories of course, but the Lib Dem switchers to Labour cancelled out the loss of traditional supporters so that Labour maintained their share of the vote.

Quite what to read into it all remains to be seen of course.

Sassenach wrote:I must say I was surprised by the narrowness of the margin in Heywood and Middleton.

I thought it would be nearer 10% (which was a lot lower than the polls suggested, at about 18-20%). So it was a surprise.

We've seen bold predictions of UKIP inroads into the Labour heartlands before and they never really amounted to much, so I assumed it would be largely similar this time. What seems to have happened is that a lot of Labour voters made the switch to UKIP, along with a lot of Tories of course, but the Lib Dem switchers to Labour cancelled out the loss of traditional supporters so that Labour maintained their share of the vote.

The lower turnout does make it a bit harder to be absolute. I've looked back at elections in the area since 1983 (there was a boundary change in 2010, but it does not appear to be significant in terms of changing the area), and there are a few oddities:

It was one of just over a dozen places where the Liberal Party stood after the Liberal Democrats were formed. Before then the SDP had been standing, but from 1992-2005 there two 'centrist' candidates. The Liberal was getting steadily higher votes each time (while still losing his deposit).

It has also seen BNP candidates. In 1983 (when the party was a fringe 'moderate' split from the National Front), and then again in the last two elections, the BNP put candidates up and they did relatively well - 7% in 2010. By contrast UKIP did worse than their national average vote in the last two elections. But if you assume that most BNP voters who voted would back UKIP if their preferred party did not stand, UKIP was starting from a base of 10% in Middleton.

The Greens stood for the first time since the seat was formed, and took 3% of the vote. I would expect any of that from previous voters would be more likely to be former Labour and Lib Dem supporters.

H&M has a slightly lower than average turnout in General Elections, meaning that about 30,000 people were non-voters in 2010. While about 17,000 more abstained this time, it would only take a chunk of 'non-voters' who have suddenly found a party to back to make a big impression.

Quite what to read into it all remains to be seen of course.

Byelections are strange things. Turnout, and especially the motivation for turnout, differs greatly from a General Election. They also tend to be more locally focused. There there was not only a sexual abuse scandal involving Muslims (which was in Heywood, part of the constituency but often reported as in Rochdale as it is in the same borough), but also recent public revelations about a sexual abuse scandal involving Cyril Smith (Liberal MP for Rochdale between 1972 and 1992). UKIP definitely used the former to attack Labour directly during the campaign, and off the back of the Doncaster report this definitely had traction. Whether that would be repeated in other areas which did not have the same specific history, or at a General Election remains to be seen.

Labour supporters, particularly in northern working class areas with 'safe' seats, are less likely to turn out generally - and more so in a byelection from my experience and observation.

Liberal Democrat supporters are just not voting at the moment - and a fair number of them up to 2010 were really opposing the two main parties. I would not be surprised if UKIP were getting some of those votes as well, especially from those who only went LD for Cleggmania

Tory voters are more reliable, but it certainly seems that many are using byelections to signal something by voting UKIP. You may be right in that many will go back 'home', but perhaps not. But I do agree that some Labour support joined them.

In terms of votes, rather than percentage share the three main parties each lost a similar number since 2010:

Labour 18,499 to 11,633, -6,866
Tories 12,528 to 3,496, -9,032
Lib Dems 10,474 to 1,457, -9,017

And UKIP gained 9,801 votes compared to 2010. What we are seeing in polls is that UKIP intentions seem to be highly motivated to turn out.

Douglas Carswell has revealed today that he's already had a conversation with a potential switcher from Labour. Now this could well just be a cheeky bit of bullshit, but you never know. Care to speculate on who it might be ? My money would be on Austin Mitchell. He's one of the few openly eurosceptic Labour MPs, a political eccentric and his seat, Great Grimsby, is one of the top UKIP target seats for the next election so he has the incentive.

Sassenach wrote:Douglas Carswell has revealed today that he's already had a conversation with a potential switcher from Labour. Now this could well just be a cheeky bit of bullshit, but you never know. Care to speculate on who it might be ? My money would be on Austin Mitchell. He's one of the few openly eurosceptic Labour MPs, a political eccentric and his seat, Great Grimsby, is one of the top UKIP target seats for the next election so he has the incentive.

I can only think of one other - Frank Field - but his seat is safer.

I can't really see it happening, but I must say I hope it does. What great fun that would be. Everything would be thrown into chaos and all predictions for the election would have to be re-examined. UKIP's parliamentary contingent of Carswell, Mitchell et al would be hilarious as well. All they'd need is Jacob Rees Mogg to make the jump and they'd have almost the full set of eccentrics. Maybe they could recruit Lembit Opik too...

Frank Field's seat is far too safe, I agree. Looking at it he got 62.5% of the vote in 2010. UKIP didn't even put up a candidate. By contrast, Mitchell only has a majority of 714. Interestingly, if theWikipedia entry can be believed, the defeated Tory candidate from 2010 has now switched to UKIP and is running again.

Sassenach wrote:I can't really see it happening, but I must say I hope it does. What great fun that would be. Everything would be thrown into chaos and all predictions for the election would have to be re-examined. UKIP's parliamentary contingent of Carswell, Mitchell et al would be hilarious as well. All they'd need is Jacob Rees Mogg to make the jump and they'd have almost the full set of eccentrics. Maybe they could recruit Lembit Opik too...

While Opik is odd, he's not likely to have much reason to support UKIP. Rees-Mogg, on the other hand, who has been calling for an electoral pact (given he sits for a marginal constituency where the Lib Dems are not being wiped out). And he is weird (he makes father Jacob look positively

Frank Field's seat is far too safe, I agree. Looking at it he got 62.5% of the vote in 2010. UKIP didn't even put up a candidate. By contrast, Mitchell only has a majority of 714. Interestingly, if theWikipedia entry can be believed, the defeated Tory candidate from 2010 has now switched to UKIP and is running again.

On the other hand, Mitchell is a member of the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs. While they are largely Eurosceptic, they come to that position from opposition to the free market rather than national or immigration concerns.

Also, Mitchell has announced (if Wikipedia is correct) that he will not be standing again about 6 months ago. As he's just turned 80 and had a second heart attack last year, that's not a big shock. Now, he may switch before May simply because he can and no-one has any leverage over him any more, but the more I look at it, the less likely I think it would be him, if any, Labour MP were to defect

Hmm, actually looking at the wiki entry again, it seems that the declared Labour candidate for Grimsby is Melanie Onn, which presumably means that Mitchell is retiring. Guess it can't be him then, can't imagine the last act of his political career would be a pointless change of parties.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... ector.html

Maybe I was right after all. Still seems like a very weird thing to do for a man who's standing down at the next election.

So it seems like a couple of Labour backbenchers are trying to put pressure on Miliband to resign. Not before time I'd suggest. It's not quite too late for a change of leader. If Ed could be persuaded to fall on his sword it would likely be worth an extra 3 or 4 points for Labour in May, and that could be enough for a majority.

I can't see it happening though. The PLP just doesn't do that kind of thing, and in any case there's every chance that it would be screwed up and they'd wind up with Balls or Harman or somebody taking over in his place, throwing away all the advantage they might have gained.

The timing was terrible.

Firstly, because it really is too late unless two conditions are met:

1) Ed Miliband resigns (which he clearly isn't going to without a lot more pressure), and
2) There is an obvious successor who will get enough PLP support to not require a ballot of the whole party. I can't think of one.

Secondly, the Tories were about to enter a tough period over Europe. Best to let the Tories tear themselves apart with no distractions over the European Arrest Warrant, the £1.7bn extra demand from the EU, the likely UKIP win in Rochester & Strood, the back and forth with Merkel etc over the possibility (or not) of significant reform of internal migration rules...

However, a lot of this seems to me to be low level grumbling that always happens, exacerbated by recent poll narrowing and the rise of UKIP & the SNP - and given a focus by a media who love to meddle. They do the same with any party when someone (however prominent) complains about the leadership. But here it is odd - we know that there are about 20 Tory backbenchers who hate Cameron and want him out. So why a couple of Labour ones are the big story I'm not sure. Perhaps there really was a coup in the background that was smoked out or was testing the water, and (hopefully) has been put to bed.

Labour is indeed less likely to dump a leader in the run up to an election. And in reality, the Tories are likely to at a time like this. IDS was deposed two years ahead of an election. Thatcher over a year ahead. The last leadership change shortly before an election was held. 6 months ahead? The only times it was that close to an election in the modern era were Churchill in 55 and Macmillan in 63 - both due to ill health rather than a desire from below to change.

Similarly to the discussion we had over the possibility of a putsch against Cameron after a Scottish 'Yes' vote, the benefits of a change are not that great. Any poll boost may be temporary or illusory - it may backfire at the voting booth to have been so 'desperate' to jettison a nice well meaning guy, and yes, if the replacement is worse it's utterly pointless.

It would be a poisoned chalice in the current political climate, where if you lose an election the leader pretty much has to resign (I think the last losing leader of the main two parties to stay on after a loss was Kinnock in 92, and before that Wilson in 70 - unless you count Heath getting a second chance in 1974). Who is going to step forward to effectively gamble the rest of their career.

But here it is odd - we know that there are about 20 Tory backbenchers who hate Cameron and want him out. So why a couple of Labour ones are the big story I'm not sure.

Because Labour really ought to be miles ahead at this point and instead they're flatlining in the polls. Ed Miliband is a huge part of the reason for that.

Sassenach wrote:Hmm, actually looking at the wiki entry again, it seems that the declared Labour candidate for Grimsby is Melanie Onn, which presumably means that Mitchell is retiring. Guess it can't be him then, can't imagine the last act of his political career would be a pointless change of parties.

I think Austin Mitchell has put that rumour to bed now:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 61754.html

Veteran Labour MP Austin Mitchell has dismissed Ukip’s chances of winning the Great Grimsby constituency at the general election, saying that Labour would win the hotly contested seat “even” if it had selected a “raving alcoholic sex paedophile” as its candidate.

Sassenach wrote:

But here it is odd - we know that there are about 20 Tory backbenchers who hate Cameron and want him out. So why a couple of Labour ones are the big story I'm not sure.

Because Labour really ought to be miles ahead at this point and instead they're flatlining in the polls. Ed Miliband is a huge part of the reason for that.

The polls are pretty much where they were 3 months ago - Labour a little ahead, mostly, with some neck-and-neck or with Tory leads.

What seems to be happening is Labour are losing some support to the Greens (perhaps some of these are people who were Lib Dems in 2010?), while the Tories are not getting anything back from UKIP. I'm not sure much will change between now and 7 May.

We;ll see. My guess is that the Tories will gain a little between then and now, enough to win the popular vote but certainly not enough to let them get a majority (or even necessarily to end up as largest party given the inherent bias in the constituency boundaries). It seems likely that there'll be some late switchers from UKIP as polling day approaches.

I also wonder whether the incoherence of Labour's policies might come into focus a bit when we get nearer to polling day. I'm not wholly convinced that policies make very much difference to voting intentions, but nevertheless the Labour policy platform so far does seem to be filled with nothing but vapid populist gestures.