By-elections 12 February

[Tony Otim]

Partly, perhaps, the Conservative vote share in the ward has been slightly misleading with the independants switching in and out of the Conservatives - has most of the indy vote really been a Conservative vote. Whereas Labour have been hurt by the LDs and Greens standing and getting a reasonable amount of support, so perhaps a proportion of the Labour vote was only Labour because there wasn't another left-ish option.

[Tony Otim]

On the other hand it's a very good performance for Labour in Harlow. Slightly disappointing week for UKIP all round.

[Sibboleth]

Feb 13, 2015 13:57:59 GMT The Bishop said:

Well, that was a good Tory result and a bit of a Labour flop in Shropshire. Any possible reasons?

Well known Tory candidate (backed by the Independent - ex-Tory - councillor for the division as well), not very well known Labour candidate. This is Shropshire, profile can matter massively in local polls, particularly when (as in this event) turnout is abysmal. The Green and LibDem candidates are both Oswestry Town Councillors, incidentally. Oswestry town has also been an organisational disaster for Labour since factional problems in the late 90s basically destroyed the Party there (a county council seat was held off the back of GE turnout - and pretty much GE turnout alone - in 2001 and 2005) and things don't seem to have improved much; we've reached the surreal point where Labour may be better organised in Ludlow than Oswestry. The Labour candidate in 2013 would have polled better, but he's the PPC for North Shropshire now.

[Rural Radical]

Feb 13, 2015 15:23:57 GMT Sibboleth said:

Feb 13, 2015 13:57:59 GMT The Bishop said:

Well, that was a good Tory result and a bit of a Labour flop in Shropshire. Any possible reasons?

Well known Tory candidate (backed by the Independent - ex-Tory - councillor for the division as well), not very well known Labour candidate. This is Shropshire, profile can matter massively in local polls, particularly when (as in this event) turnout is abysmal. The Green and LibDem candidates are both Oswestry Town Councillors, incidentally. Oswestry town has also been an organisational disaster for Labour since factional problems in the late 90s basically destroyed the Party there (a county council seat was held off the back of GE turnout - and pretty much GE turnout alone - in 2001 and 2005) and things don't seem to have improved much; we've reached the surreal point where Labour may be better organised in Ludlow than Oswestry. The Labour candidate in 2013 would have polled better, but he's the PPC for North Shropshire now.

Sad, but true I'm afraid

[Khunanup]

Feb 13, 2015 15:23:57 GMT Sibboleth said:

Feb 13, 2015 13:57:59 GMT The Bishop said:

Well, that was a good Tory result and a bit of a Labour flop in Shropshire. Any possible reasons?

Well known Tory candidate (backed by the Independent - ex-Tory - councillor for the division as well), not very well known Labour candidate. This is Shropshire, profile can matter massively in local polls, particularly when (as in this event) turnout is abysmal. The Green and LibDem candidates are both Oswestry Town Councillors, incidentally. Oswestry town has also been an organisational disaster for Labour since factional problems in the late 90s basically destroyed the Party there (a county council seat was held off the back of GE turnout - and pretty much GE turnout alone - in 2001 and 2005) and things don't seem to have improved much; we've reached the surreal point where Labour may be better organised in Ludlow than Oswestry. The Labour candidate in 2013 would have polled better, but he's the PPC for North Shropshire now.

Seeing as the Green candidate was their PPC couldn't the Labour PPC have stood too?

I actually did a bit of leafleting up there last Sunday for the by-election and saw nothing from Labour at all. There was Green stuff put out, Tory posters but no sign of Labour activity. From a standing start we were pretty happy especially as the Greenie had a bigger prior profile than our candidate. Apparently Labour were furious at the count but from what you say and from our impression they only had themselves to blame.

If Ludlow is better organised than North Shropshire (bearing in mind Labour's lack of activity in Ludlow with them being well outstripped by the Greens) they must really have some problems...

[Merseymike]

If this doesn't give us a kick up the arse. ....but often things do decline in what are essentially unwinnable seats and it's not always easy to turn things around. It's not only us - the LD's collapsed in Harlow and Tory votes in most of the mets are often derisory