Parliamentary By-Elections - Rumoured and Ramped

[Deleted]

no sign in Joyce's statement that he will give up though

[Deleted]

I'd also predict an SNP gain in Falkirk if there were to be a byelection. The biggest consolation for Labour though is that the SNP may be a bit short on decent potential candidates who aren't already at Holyrood.

[Deleted]

Unless other things are going on in falkirk apart from Joyce himself why would the SNP being the government in Scotland gain there.

We have seen in other seats with MP's of controversy that they were held by the same party

[The Bishop]

Because it has long been one of the better SNP areas in the central belt, anyway??

A gain in a by-election would be by no means nailed on, but I would be surprised if the bookies didn't make the Nats favourites.

[Deleted]

That, and that the SNP invariably do better in these sorts of Labour/SNP battlegrounds in Westminster by-elections than in Wesminster general elections, and that anti-SNP protest voting for Labour doesn't seem to be in fashion yet.

[Tony Otim]

And since Labour managed to create a problem for themselves here with Dennis Canavan, the voters of Falkirk have rather got into the habit of not voting Labour other than at general election times - Labour have never won the equivalent Scottish parliament seat in 4 attempts and the SNP won the popular vote in Falkirk council last year (albeit narrowly and taking one less seat than Labour).

[Tony Otim]

Mar 16, 2013 19:58:54 GMT Andrew_S said:

I think UKIP would beat both the Tories and LDs in a Falkirk by-election, possibly saving their deposit as well.

I suspect they might beat one but not both. Saving their deposit would be possible. Don't see them breaking double figures and it might depend who else stood.

[piperdave]

Mar 16, 2013 19:58:54 GMT Andrew_S said:

I think UKIP would beat both the Tories and LDs in a Falkirk by-election, possibly saving their deposit as well.

The stats from both Falkirk SP seats in 2011 showed getting around 200 votes in each constituency, approximately 0.8% of the vote. The Lib Dems were up over 2% so not out of the realms of possibility to overtake them depending on the precise nature of the contest, but the Tories would likely be closer to 8% as there are some blue pockets around the town. I'd expect the SNP and Labour to carve up 85% if not 90% between them though at any time.

[Tony Otim]

In some ways the Conservative vote in much of Scotland is more resilient than in many other parts of the UK because it's never really recovered in the last 15 years.

[erlend]

I'd guess that the Conservatives would beat UKIP in a Falkirk byelection by a good ratio (at least 2 to 1) and would also hold their deposit. For the Lib Dems it would clearly be tougher but I think we might beat them.

[Deleted]

How swift we forget about such things...

[Andrew_S]

The reason I think UKIP would do relatively well in a Falkirk by-election is because they polled 1,283 votes in 2010 which was a pretty good performance for the party in a Scottish seat:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falkirk_(UK_Parliament_constituency)

[The Bishop]

That could be true in a quite literal sense - hopefully not, though.....

[Deleted]

PORTSMOUTH KLAXON

[Pimpernal]

First

[Davıd Boothroyd]

I'm not seeing anything.

[Pimpernal]

Hancock is to face Police investigation...

[marksenior]

In which country ? There is no byelection called for the constituency of Portsmouth South in the UK .

[Deleted]

think he refers to this

www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/politics/portsmouth-south-mp-mike-hancock-to-face-investigation-1-4937174

obviously only allegations and no reason to resign (yet)

[marksenior]

Mar 26, 2013 16:12:51 GMT Pimpernal said:

Hancock is to face Police investigation...

No he isn't , the police investigated this 3 years ago .