Oldham East and Saddleworth tells us nothing new

As exciting as by-elections are, this one didn’t really tell us anything new. Labour has been steadily climbing in the polls from around 30% at the election to around 42% now, and it was always likely that they would perform better than they did in May. That the big 17% leads suggested by opinion polls before the election never materialised was expected, but a win of 10% was exactly the kind of result that Ed Miliband needed in order to calm his Party’s nerves.

Senior figures like Miliband and Yvette Cooper have stressed that while it gives Labour some momentum, the Party has a long way to go before it is in a position to win a general election. They are right to be cautious. The polls suggest that Miliband is not regarded as a great prospect and while people are now less certain that the coalition’s economic policies are the right ones, they still don’t believe Labour would be any better.

It’s also important to note that despite Labour’s claims to the contrary, this wasn’t necessarily a vote against the coalition’s economic agenda: if you add the Conservative and Lib Dem vote share it comes to 44.7%, which is more than Labour’s 42.1%.

The Lib Dems actually gained a larger share of the vote than in May: up from 31.6% to 31.9%. This was probably because of tactical voting by some Conservatives, but their effective and determined local campaign does show that the Party is still alive. Clegg will be relatively satisfied that his Party avoided a bigger defeat, and while he’ll be afraid that May’s local elections will be unpleasant, he’ll also argue that national poll ratings that have them around 10% are likely to mean nothing at the next election.

The Conservative high command will be satisfied. They decided a long time ago that this by-election was not one that they could win and that it served the long-term health of the coalition better if the Lib Dems came through unscathed. They’ve achieved this aim. Their only worry will be that their weak campaign in Oldham will simply encourage those backbenchers who are concerned that the coalition panders to the Liberal Democrats. Baroness Warsi has, perhaps unwisely, told them to shut up and stop whining, but there is little chance of that happening.

Weekly Round-up - 16-01-11

Westminster politics got underway again this week and provided us with plenty of action to kick-off 2011. The week’s most amusing story was the news that Tory MP Mark Pritchard, who is Deputy Chairman of the 1922 Committee, got into an altercation with John Bercow and ended up shouting ‘You are not fucking royalty’ at the Speaker before storming off. It’s another indication of just how much the Speaker has fallen out with his former party.

The big news of the week was, of course, the result of the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election. Yet as exciting as it was, it didn’t really change anything. Labour, and particularly Ed Miliband, needed a comfortable win: they got it. The Lib Dems needed to show that their support had not totally collapsed and that they could still compete: they did that. The Tory high command just needed the Lib Dems to survive in order to ensure the stability of the coalition: which is exactly what happened. No party will be particularly unhappy with this result.

The story that dominated the first half of the week was bankers’ bonuses. This came to its head on Wednesday with a very competitive PMQs after Chancellor George Osborne had been called to the House for emergency questions on Tuesday. Ed Miliband – who has had a pretty good week for once – embarrassed the PM by pointing out that the Tories’ website still proudly displayed his election pledge to limit bankers’ bonuses to £2,000. Yet despite early hits, Miliband is still a PMQs’ amateur and, unwilling to depart from his prepared script, failed to kill off Cameron and let him back in to steal a draw.

The Government also managed to overcome some backbench resistance to defeat an amendment to its EU Sovereignty Bill, but left itself in an unhappy position by proposing a piece of legislation which is detested by the very people it was designed to appease. We also found out that the decision on Control Orders is to be delayed until next week because of ongoing cabinet disputes.

YouGov also released figures this week that placed The Conservatives on 36%, 7% behind Labour on 43%. While they may be an anomaly, these figures did reinforce recent ComRes figures that showed Labour with an 8% lead. Interestingly, while Labour support has risen since May it is steady around 42%, and these big leads are occurring because of a fall in Conservative support.

The big news for the economy this week came from the MPC, which decided to keep interest rates at 0.5%. It hopes that this will create the right environment for economic growth, and is choosing to focus on this rather than efforts to rein in inflation. There was also some good news from credit rating agency Moody’s, which said that the UK’s AAA rating was safe.

In Europe the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Baroness Ashton, suggested that the arms embargo to China should be lifted for the good of the European economy. This came after a visit by Chinese Vice-Premier – and probable future PM – Li Keqiang to various European capitals. Given the shock that reverberated around Western defence circles after new stealth fighter technology was unveiled just before US Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ trip to China, it is highly unlikely that the US and UK would be keen on such a move.

YouGov Polling 13-01-11
Conservative  41%
Labour  41%
Liberal Democrat  8%
Government Approval  -17%  

Poll overload before by-election

A new ComRes poll has given Labour an 8% lead over the Conservatives, and is sure to dominate the early news tomorrow. While it needs to be taken with a pinch of salt it does reflect a general shift in the headline polls towards Labour. The Tories have been around 40% or so for a few months now (see UKPR average taken on 6th Jan - right) and they’ve just started to drop away in a few polls but given the margin of error this can’t yet be seen as a definite trend. Labour, on the other hand, has climbed steadily, from their 30% figure back in June to around 40% now.

Yet I think there needs to be a note of caution in the way Labour reacts to these figures. Most polls over the past month have had Labour and the Conservatives essentially level pegging around 40%, with Labour maybe slightly in front. Their figure of 42% fits the trend, but as yet the drop in Tory support to 34% does not. This is especially true because recent polling has indicated that Cameron is still widely regarded as a better PM than Ed Miliband, and that the Tories are trusted more on the economy.

It’s also dangerous for Labour to get its hopes up too much before the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election. I believe polls suggesting that Labour has a 17% lead over the Liberal Democrats will prove to be inaccurate. Labour will win, but it won’t be by that margin. And don’t forget: these figures all suggest Labour should win handsomely, and expectations have increased to match. Ed Miliband will now be in real danger of losing what little confidence his backbenchers have in him if he fails to pull off a convincing victory.

Weekly Round-up - Festive Edition

The Christmas break has been punctuated by a couple of big stories. At the end of last year we had the Telegraph’s sting of a number of Lib Dem MPs, including Vince Cable. We also saw a big political battle over the hike in VAT to 20% on 1 January.

Other stories have rumbled on over the holidays, with Conservative MPs increasingly uneasy with their leader’s approach to the Lib Dems and the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election. Angus Reid conducted an interesting poll showing that the Coalition would struggle if if fought as one in 2015 because Lib Dem voters would desert it. Ed Miliband has changed up his press team and looks to be making more of an impact, although there is a long way for him to go.

The NotW hacking scandal came back again to ruin Andy Coulson’s New Year, and the Coalition has got itself in a bit of a mess trying to decide what to do with Control Orders. Half of Westminster decamped this week to Oldham for the by-election, which is expected to return the Labour candidate, Debbie Abrahams, and David Chaytor became the first MP to be sentenced for his expenses claims. He was given 18 months in prison.

YouGov Polling 06-01-11:
Conservative 39%
Labour 43%
Lib Dem 7%
Government Approval: -20%

Tory ambitions in Oldham East by-election

Obviously we won't know until Monday if there will be a by-election in Oldham East and Saddleworth, but it seems as if the Tories fancy their chances and are already looking to steal the seat away from both Labour and the Lib Dems. 

Baroness Warsi - whose job title appears to be Party Chairman with special responsibility for relentlessly attacking the opposition - has come out and said that the Conservatives will field a candidate and will not stand aside for the Lib Dems. 

The Lib Dem candidate who brought the action against Labour's Phil Woolas, Elwyn Watkins, lost by only 103 votes. The Conservative Party candidate, Kashif Ali, was a further 2310 votes back. See the table below:

So do the Tories really have a shot at winning this seat?

First impressions would be yes, because in May this election was a three horse race, and it is conceivable that if Ali stands again and runs a good campaign he could take 1000 votes from Watkins and 1000 from Labour and win. 

But on closer inspection there is much for the Tories to be wary of here. The swing towards the Conservative candidate was a huge +8.7 per cent at the last election. He would have to not only maintain this but improve on it to win.

Much of that swing was at the expense of Phil Woolas, the Labour candidate and a former Home Office minister, who suffered a -10.7 per cent swing. He will (almost certainly) not be standing again in the by-election. Instead there will be a new Labour candidate, who will distance themselves from Woolas and the previous government. 

They will also benefit hugely from Labour being out of power and in opposition. There is no groundswell of anti-Labour - and perhaps as importantly, anti-Brown - sentiment like there was in May. Expect the new candidate to be very much part of Ed Miliband's 'new generation'.

The issue is complicated by the Lib Dems' poll ratings, which have crashed since the election in May from around 27 per cent to a paltry 11 per cent. This suggests that the Lib Dems will do very badly. It would obviously be premature to write them off, but I think that Elwyn Watkins will struggle to achieve 31.6 per cent of the vote again. This, of course, means that there are disaffected Lib Dem voters that can be targeted by Labour and the Conservatives. 

So what are their chances? The national political issues clearly favour Labour in opposition, and looking at the results in neighbouring constituencies I think Ed Miliband has every reason to be confident. This is a seat that will be receptive to Labour's messages about cuts and the government attacking the poor. Oldham East and Saddleworth is at the eastern edge of a belt of solidly Labour seats stretching over from Manchester to Liverpool, and just to the west of a block of solid Labour seats in the Midlands and Yorkshire. Phil Woolas has been the Labour MP there since the seats' inception in 1997. 

The seat was created in 1997 by merging an Oldham constituency, which had a strong Labour past, with Saddleworth, which since its creation in 1983 had been both Tory (12 years) and Lib Dem (2 years). Since 1997, the Conservatives have never polled higher than the 26.4 per cent Ali achieved in May. 

Furthermore, the collapse in Lib Dem support is because of the coalition. It is reasonable to suggest that the 11 per cent of people still supporting the Lib Dems are happy with the coalition and positive towards the Conservatives. Even so, they will likely vote Lib Dem in this by-election. If local politics mirrors national politics then the 16 per cent of Lib Dem voters who have lost faith in the party nationally will not likely vote Conservative, as it is the alliance with that party which has caused them to become disillusioned. Lib Dem voters are likely, if they move, to move towards Labour. 

So looking at the local history of the seat and its surrounding area, the likely effects of the collapse in Lib Dem support, and how receptive the locals will likely be to the Labour message of government cuts, it will be hard for the Tories to win this seat. It is Labour's seat to lose. 

As an interesting final point, it is not hard to see why Woolas felt that campaigning on immigration and alleging his opponent was soft on Islamic extremism could prove a successful tactic. In 2001 the seat gained notoriety when the BNP candidate Michael Treacy won over 5,000 votes, an 11.2 per cent share. Despite being right-wing, the BNP tend to do well in Labour areas rather than Conservative ones, which again points to the difficulty the Tories will have winning this seat.