Oldham by-election result - the winners and losers ~ Arden Forester

Friday, January 14, 2011

Oldham by-election result - the winners and losers

11:00 am Arden Forester No comments

Labour is celebrating its win in Oldham East and Saddleworth. The majority of more than 3,500 was better than they had hoped for earlier in the day. Somehow Ed Miliband sees this as a slap in the face for the Coalition. But he sees everything from a critical viewpoint rather than offering anything positive.

The winner was obviously Debbie Abrahams who came through despite never really acknowledging the reason for the by-election. Probably as so many lies were told last time round, she felt it prudent not to saddle the voters with any policies, new or old. The other party in the winners enclosure was UKIP who managed to beat the BNP and retain that all important deposit. That's the dividing line in by-elections. In fact, UKIP swapped positions with the BNP from the general election.

The losers included the Greens who seem to have been mistaken for SaLaDs. The BNP who seem to have been mistaken for the lower echelons of the rough diamond trade and the Pirate Party UK, who were confused with being a joke party (particularly by Jon Sopel on BBC News as the candidates walked on stage). Talking of joke parties, the English Democrats failed to beat the Monster Raving Loony. By one vote! Memories of the SDP? And I suppose the Conservatives were the biggest losers as their vote collapsed by more than half. Did folk stay at home or go elsewhere? My guess is they did a lot of things. But we will never really know.

And in some ways the Liberal Democrats can be said to have won some comfort from the election. Elwyn Watkins stood up to blatant lying and the party achieved a far better result than a meltdown third place, as had been predicted.

Result -