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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » UKIP sought to make Oldham a referendum on Corbyn but it ended up being a vote on itself
Over the past few days I’ve had three conversations with people who were in Oldham for the by-election and which are the basis for this post which seeks to explain why we all got it so wrong. Just look at the PB competition forecasts or the betting history and you realise that it wasn’t meant to be a LAB victory with an increased majority.
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FN in France
Marmite parties with most voters disliking the taste.
Mr. Song, I think that explains a large part of UKIP's shortfall, but I think a lot of it is bound up with the leader.
Farage should've gone.
Will we get the same standard of evidence for this claim we had for there being lots of tactical voting for the Tories in Newark (i.e. none)?
Cheap oil means lower transport and energy costs for us all.
It’s also good news for me. I expect to pocket $100 in American greenbacks from Alex Salmond, the ex-SNP leader who bet the entire Scottish economy on Brent crude remaining at $113 a barrel.
Last year I bet Alex, a former professional oil trader, it would plunge below $50 a barrel at some point in 2015. It did so almost immediately and has kept falling since.
Mr Salmond was confident prices would bounce back.
So Wee ’Eck, as he is known North of the Border, bravely or foolishly offered double-or-quits that it would be back above $50 by close of play this year.
With just 13 days of trading left it hovers just above $39 — and experts expect it to fall as low as $20.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/suncolumnists/trevorkavanagh/6802419/Trever-Kavanagh-Alex-Salmond-gamble-on-oil-prices-did-not-pay-off.html
There are no issues "like" immigration - a code for racism. It is sui generis
Labour List suggest that Labour ran a model campaign, with the right candidate and three canvasses (in a supposedly tough Parliamentary by-election, I should hope so, too). More interestingly, perhaps, they also suggest that what the Kippers are doing in such seats are picking up the "angels in marble" from the Tories which in turn implies betting value in going high on Tory lost deposits in 2020. How many did they lose last time?
For 72% of his ten years as Conservative leader David Cameron has been more liked - or less disliked - than his Labour or Lib Dem opponents – and still has a higher average approval score than any other leader during that time
https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/12/13/decade-david-cameron/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldham_West_and_Royton_by-election,_2015
This horse has been alleged as being at the starting gate before, and remaind firmly in the stable.
Other than anti-immigration/anti-europeanism the kippers have no coherent policies that appeal.
But the big problem I think Ukip have is they don't appeal to voters on local issues. I'll be honest, I couldn't give two hoots as to who runs Woking Borough Council. So long as our rubbish is collected and the roads are kept in a decent condition then I'm happy. The Lib Dems do care about these things and that's why they won't go away, no matter how much we might mock their national performance.
One thing I will say to those gloating over FN's performance last night. Every time such parties get stitched up by a voting system the resentment towards the mainstream will grow even stronger. One thing that I hadn't anticipated in May was that by voting Ukip I now have the nice feeling that if the Tories mess things up then it won't be my fault.
As long as Ukip and FN have no power - they cannot be blamed when things go wrong.
See my comment FPT:
"I note the misinterpretation by the BBC and others about the result of the French regional elections. The FN did better than ever in round 1 and increased their number of votes (from 6.0m to 6.8m) in round 2 (27-28% of the total vote in each round). The only reason they didn't win was tactical voting and withdrawal of the socialist candidate in certain regions, resulting in an increase in the vote for conservative parties from 6.9m in round 1 to 10.1m in round 2. In 2 regions where all 3 main parties remained in contention (Bourgogne-Franche-Comté and Centre-Val de Loire), both runners-up were within 5% of the winner.
There is only so far one can go in tactical voting to defeat an insurgent party in FPTP systems, even when there is a second round if there is no outright winner in round 1. At some point a tipping point will be reached and the insurgents will sweep the board, as happened in Scotland in May 2015 when the number of SNP seats leapt from 6 to 56. Please note that I am in no way comparing the politics of the SNP to the FN - I would view such a comparison as SNP GOOD (as they usually are - witness their united vote against the Syrian bombing), FN BAD. "
For every 100 Oldham voters who voted Labour in May, 73 did in December.
For every 100 Oldham voters who voted UKIP in May, 73 did in December.
Neither party invigorated their previously won vote more or less than the other.
The Tory number was about 31 out of 100, if I recall.
Basically, Tory voters did not bother and that has created false assumptions about how well or badly Labour and UKIP did and what it all means.
"The FN actually increased its votes in the second round to more than 6.8 million, from 6.02 million on 6 December as more people voted. But the FN share of the vote went down slightly from 27.73% to 27.36%.
The Republicans increased their share from 26.65% to 40.63% and the Socialists from 23.12% to 29.14%.
The overall turnout increased from 22.6 million on 6 December to 26.2 million on Sunday."
TBH, I'm long past being interested in Oldham tea leaves.
UKIP lost its chance of going main stream when Nigel continued as leader....
On the previous thread I said that as it stands Ukip has no chance of making progress but ditching Nigel is not the be all and end all some suggest. There are undoubtedly lots of people who can't abide him, for various reasons, but these people are highly unlikely to vote Ukip anyway.
Within the party there are an awful lot of intelligent, well intentioned, serious people, unfortunately they don't fit the media agenda or make good tv programmes. Ukip's challenge is to be rid of the undeniable fruitcakes which won't be easy.
There is no reason why muslims or anybody else should want to remain in the EU assuming they're resident here, we have to stop alienating people and communicate more like Douglas Carswell and Suzanne Evans.
Nigel has done a wonderful job, without him the party would be nowhere, but all good things come to an end. But let's not forget his right hand man in the campaign was a muslim.
But most people don't self-identify as extreme. They don't feel comfortable associating with people who they're told are extremists. And, as Mike suggests, if an election is framed as "now's your chance to be represented by an extreme party!", people think "um, I don't know about that". And if they also seem a bit amateurish and short of policies on other issues, it cements the impression of the sort of obsessives whom you nudge away from, even if you sort of agree with them.
Marine Le Pen realises that, which is why she's distanced herself from her father with his down-playing of gas chambers and the like. But she still bangs on about immigration and Muslims, just like Farage does. Ultimately, a far-right party will only succeed when it *also* appears to be interested in non-far-right issues, both because people care about those too and because it helps shed the impression of extremism and eccentricity.
Had it been Ukip against a Jeezarite candidate, many Labour voters would have switched or sat on their hands.
Evans would improve things for Ukip. Being female, she'd get less vilification from the soft left and LDs. The Jezzarites would go misogynist, but it might rebound.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3358625/Inside-Britain-s-Sharia-courts-EIGHTY-FIVE-Islamic-courts-dispensing-justice-UK-special-investigation-really-goes-doors-shock-core.html
Now, UKIP supporters can either spend the thread whingeing about the way that political opponents describe them or they can start wrestling with the strategic problem that they face. Their call really.
But I was talking about public perception. Lots of people who aren't very interested in politics and sort of agree with UKIP and the FN on immigration feel that the parties are extreme and they therefore don't feel comfortable voting for them. The difficulty is to change that to seem mainstream without selling out on what's important to you. The answer IMO is to talk more about non-core issues. People get that UKIP would do something about immigration and Europe. But they're also worried about lots of other things, and they think UKIP is uninterested in those.
It's a warning to the left too. People are not that hostile to the idea that big business needs curbing, Britain spends too much on military adventures and trade unions do a useful job. They're pleased that the left is pro-NHS and interested in ordinary living standards. But if we go on and on about our pet subjects, they think we're basically obsessives, and they don't want that.
A difficulty, as in in many aspects of politics, is the media. Farage can get front pages any time he likes by saying something drastic about Muslims. But if he announces a major new policy on education or taxes or health, it's barely reported at all. So it's tempting just to go about the stuff that makes the headlines - but it's ultimately fool's gold.
But the reality is this was a seat UKIP never had a chance of winning or even going close in. People got carried away with the media perception that it might be close, and now use that false supposition as a stick to beat Ukip with, when the truth is the result should have surprised no one
Are Ukip an extreme party?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35091362
To some extent Kippers themselves do this when they run the "we say the things others don't dare to say" line. That's a way of saying "we're extreme and that's good".
After your odd alliance with Jezza, you seem to have resurfaced on planet Earth. Of course, you're entitled to your views on Jezza, but it's good to see a more dispassionate piece.
I think you're right. As a fellow OAP, I meet many people who have sympathy for most of Ukip's views, but the final act of voting for them is a step too far. Oldies always have had more socially conservative views, but the split nowadays seems unusually high. Perhaps that's the effect of facebook and twitter where the loons seem to go out to play.
What do you think to Suzanne Evans taking over? Instant de-tox? Or a gimmick?
BTW, I was a socialist at seventeen, but I got better gradually.
http://tinyurl.com/hdgrpcn
https://twitter.com/TSEofPB/status/676333674300862464
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/oldham-west-by-election-nigel-farage-accuses-labour-turning-campaign-nasty-1531339
Let me stop you right there.
UKIP couldn't seek to make a cup of tea. They don't have that resonance amongst the voters, or cohesive voice, or credible narrative to build on. They are an idea, vaguely formed, of being anti-EU, anti-immigration, anti-what have you.
And are led by a donkey.
Remember the Tony Blair Labour landslide of 1997? Well, that involved a swing of about ten per cent from the Conservatives to Labour. If that happened again - even a political earthquake on the same Richter scale as New Labour - and Labour still got nowhere in Scotland, they would take 92 Conservative seats and the Labour benches would add up to 324. But that would give them a working majority of just three. So instead of the Blair landslide majority of 177, they'd be on a knife edge and having to turn to the Liberal Democrats and Northern Ireland's Social Democratic and Labour Party for help all the time.
http://bit.ly/1SWHpP7
The FN still fails to pick up meaningful quantities of transfers. Twice this year it failed to add anything - percentage wise - in the second round of voting.
Even when the FN got 42% in the first round (as it did in the first round of Pas de Calais), it was not able to up its share in the second round. Essentially, none of the Socialist vote - despite the very left wing policies of Mme Le Pen - preferred the FN to the Republicans.
There's another lesson from the FN I think people need to learn: the left wing anti-European vote opportunity is a big one. (See Syriza, Podemos, that bunch in Portugal).
They are pro-nationalisation, pro-trade barriers, pro-farm subsidies, pro-government spending...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-35091734
I don't really know how this all happened. I've some friends in their late 60s/70s who aren't socially conservative - but feel the country has changed too much culturally, and want it stopped. They vote UKIP or reluctantly Tory. Others are ex-Labour and detest multiculturalism/immigration affecting their childrens' chances/education and vote Kipper - these would rather die than vote Tory.
The only political Kipper activist I know is the stereotypical old grumpy man from the hang'em and flog'em school - who's pissed off about everything... Country Gone To The Dogs.
That's what modern politics is all about, smearing opponents as opposed to good governance.
However, in doing so it repels Eurosceptic libertarians.
The problem UKIP, the LDs and to an extent Labour have is trying to position themselves against a Conservative Party which now seems to be the "all things to all people" Party.
Cameron's desperate desire to be liked and his transparent fear of unpopularity has led to inertia and stagnation and Government by "not wanting to upset too many people" or rather Government to keep the Conservative poll rating up.
It's hard for Opposition parties to stake out alternative positions when the Government tries to hold all positions at once. Apart from those areas where there is a clear majority among public opinion for some form of action (Government by opinion poll or focus group), not taking a decision becomes the policy.
We also have the prospective successors to Cameron dancing round the head of their own pin - does any one of them try to break out by publicly endorsing a policy (any policy will do) which will differentiate them from Cameron ? The problem they have is that as long as Cameron is seen as generally being "okay" (competent and trustworthy but fairly ineffective) taking a contrary position is hugely risky.
In effect, we've reached a form of political inertia - the Government coasts along pretending to do a lot but not doing very much at all and certainly nothing to offend its coalition of supporters. Labour has tried to strike out in a different direction but it's not a place where anyone much wants to go and neither the LDs nor UKIP are seen as relevant.
We are 7/60 of the way to the next election so an incredibly long way to go and plenty of time for things to change and perhaps to change very quickly.
"It's going to be close, it could well be within a few hundred votes," Farage added.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/oldham-west-by-election-nigel-farage-accuses-labour-turning-campaign-nasty-1531339
I wonder why?
The Guido Monday cartoon is normally rubbish, but this one made me chuckle...
http://order-order.com/2015/12/14/richs-monday-morning-view-145/
Or is he all fart and no follow through ?
When you're courting votes, you have to come to the voters, not vice versa.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23597233
So was BongoBongoLand. I'm not bothered by such stuff - but when you've an Achilles Heel - best not to stab oneself in it.
But they DO have a point. Those in South Thanet who did bother to vote against Farage - to ensure that he was gone from British politics - must feel they can't actually achieve anything by voting.
It blatantly wasn't, and that comment certainly set the agenda on here, and is continuing on this thread even though it was not accurate
'In July 2013, Godfrey Bloom, Member of the European Parliament for Yorkshire and the Humber for the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) was filmed referring to countries which receive overseas aid from the United Kingdom as "Bongo Bongo Land". UKIP later banned use of the term, and while Bloom refused to apologise for his remarks, he later stated that he regretted "any genuine offence which might have been caused."'
http://tinyurl.com/nm5wfco
The agenda wasn't set just by Ian Warren. There were a lot of nervous Labour canvassers and a lot of journalists who found a lot of disaffected Labour supporters (cf John Harris's vlog for the Guardian).
While I agree with you that UKIP should never have been expected to win, I did expect UKIP to make progress in this seat. If UKIP are going to break the mould, they should have been adding more than a percent or two onto their general election vote here. A swing against them is not progress.
As I said below, the fact that this result was so poor is in an odd way helpful for UKIP. It removes excuses and forces them to reconsider their strategy.
Am all in favour of a free press but sometimes I do wish they'd do their flaming job, do some digging and ask some bloody questions - there are plenty of dots to be joined up and the story is well worth telling - instead of acting like lazy PR agents for whoever turns up with a plausible fairy story.
The flaws in that thinking were:
a) There is no imminent threat of Corbyn's Labour winning an election; last winter it was thought that Miliband's Labour might;
b) The Tories have their majority, they are no longer beholden to Lib Dem support;
In that situation, what motivation is there for Tory support to back UKIP in a constituency level Stop-Labour-Coalition?
Generalised grumbling and well-targeted criticism are not - per se- enough.
Who can forget this classic:
Ding Dong Merrily on High
The Tories are Imploding
Ding Dong Merrily on High
Their poll rates are still falling
EU Referendum, Third Heathrow Runway
Tax credit cuts, Asylum seekers and of course who'll follow Dave
The Tories are in Crisis
Or this standard:
Thursday Night, Election Night
All is Quiet, No posts in Sight
The PB Server's Crashed and TSE's wild
Mike Smithson's in the bar with a pint of mild
Look, the first result's through..
Southport's been held by John Pugh
This year sees this cheeky new offering:
Once in far off Westmoreland
Stood a lonely Lib Dem called Tim
After the 2015 election
Somehow he knew it was up to him
The fightback's on but it will take time
We'll be back in power by 2099
For those wanting something more upbeat:
It's Christmas with Corbyn
Just let those Tories sing
It's Christmas with Corbyn
What presents will he bring ?
It's Christmas with Corbyn
Enjoy a vegan mince pie
But everybody's happy now
Jeremy's smart and wears a tie...
It's Christmas with Corbyn
There's great shows on tv
A gaffe-filled chat with McDonnell
Or even Kerry McCarthy
Eagle or Benn would make better leaders
Dan Hodges still complains
But no one listens to him every more
"You're a Tory" they all claim
It's Christmas, it's Christmas with Corbyn
Hip Hip Hip Hip Hooray
Every Tory says
It's Christmas Day...
I reckon they will radically change after the referendum with a new leader or possibly merge into a new party featuring cons and labs
UKIP voters, unlike supporters of any other parties, tend to say they can imagine supporting the British Armed forces taking over the powers of government
Do you think there could be any situation, however unlikely, in which you could imagine the British Armed Forces taking over the powers of government?
Net 'yes'
OA: -28
Con: -30
Lab: -32
LibD: -44
UKIP: +4
https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/10/17/very-british-coup/
WRT FN being defeated, they did increase their tally of seats in Regional Assemblies from 118 to 356. Most parties would be fairly content with that degree of defeat.
UKIP have got to the position they are in by highlighting immigration but I simply don't believe it is an issue that can take them past the point they are at now. I believe they are suffering exactly the effect we saw yesterday in France with FN and I believe it is ultimately a losing strategy.
Interestingly, according to the same poll, most Conservative voters would favour the armed forces taking over the government if it sought to abolish the monarchy.
The big parties are quite good at that. Also, the late Michael Meacher, unlike some MPs in safe seats, actually put work in locally so the party wasn't starting with the 0% contact rate that we still encounter in some by-elections. (I'm no ruthless deselector, but if I were chief whip I'd recommend the deselection of any sitting MP who doesn't maintain a contact rate of at least 30-40%).
Kippers are very enthusiastic and committed campaigners, what they don't have is voting history, therefore the canvassing is very hit and miss in terms of targeting. Postal votes are increasingly a factor, ukip simply have no record of this type of thing.