What Does it All Mean? Some first thoughts

So what does it all mean? I expect there will be great efforts to portray the election results of Friday as an equal blow to Labour and the Tories.  I have already had this impression from the broadcast coverage today, and expect something similar from the printed media tomorrow.

 

This is not true. The immediate danger is very much to the Tories. The danger to Labour follows from the Zombie effect – that it is only tribal hatred for the Tories that holds Labour together, and that when one cadaver falls, the other will come tumbling after.

 

Just because Labour says its vote held up quite well in Heywood and Middleton, you don’t have to laugh and disbelieve the statement.

 

Look at the comparative results, in Heywood and Middleton, for 2010 and 2014:

 

In 2010 Labour got 18,499 (40.1%)In 2014 they got 11,633 (40.9%)

So their share (of a smaller vote,) was not that bad.

 

The thing was that they faced an opponent who drew from a  far wider base than had previously existed. UKIP could have beaten them. The Tories never could have. 

 

UKIP’s 11,016 (38.7%) is an utter transformation from their turnout of 1,215 (2.6%) in 2010. Even if you add to that the 3,239 (7%)votes scored by the BNP in 2010 (which I think is probably reasonable), what has clearly happened is that both Tory and Lib Dem votes have deserted in large numbers to UKIP.  

 

The Tory vote in the by-election was 3,496 (not much greater than the BNP scored in 2010) . This is a colossal drop from their tally in 2010, of 12,528. Likewise the Liberal Democrat vote fell from 10,474 to 1,457.

 

The crumbling of the Coalition votes in Heywood and Middleton is far, far more dramatic than they fraying of the Labour vote.

 

Interestingly, the Labour vote in Clacton suffered much more, falling from 10,799 (25%) to 3,957(11.2%).

 

This is bad, but nothing like as bad as what happened to the Tories. First, they lost a safe seat. Next, the Tory vote in Clacton fell cataclysmically from 22,867 (53%) to 8,709 (24.6%). The Liberal Democrats, meanwhile, shrivelled from 5,577(12.9%) to 483 (1.4%).

 

One or two unconventional points about these results. If more Tories had voted for UKIP in Heywood and Middleton, they would have taken the seat from Labour. If they are really worried about ‘Red Ed’, northern Tory voters should vote UKIP. The Tories could never have won the seat. UKIP could have done.

 

If more Tory MPs decide *now*, or in the next few months to switch to UKIP, they can pretty much guarantee a large contingent of UKIP MPs in May 2015, in many cases winning seats which would fall to Labour if they fought as Tories. This would tear to ribbons the (already dubious) view that a UKIP vote favours Labour. It raises the possibility, remote but real, that the Tories – if they really want what they say they want – could get it by allying with a sizeable UKIP contingent in Parliament after 2015.