Stroud, not Stround.

Interesting result.

The Labour victory would appear to be primarily a consequence of the local Green vote collapsing (21.1% > 10.4%). The Tory vote fell, but by just under four percentage points (35.3% > 31.6%)…

Can anyone local offer any insight?

Will there be a prize for the first LD “ultra” who posts saying this result wasn’t that bad for them, or was an “outlier” and can thus be discounted?

‘ere we go , ‘ere we go , ‘ere we go . . .

Isn’t there a pattern of consistency forming here? Isn’t there, Mr Clegg?

Would be interesting if we could see the actual number of votes the parties got this time round. Of the top of my head it looks like the Lib Dems lost 5% of the vote but I’m not sure.

http://www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=102069

I make that:

Green: 10.4%
Con: 31.5%
LD: 26.4%
Lab: 31.7%

The Labour victory would appear to be primarily a consequence of the local Green vote collapsing (21.1% > 10.4%). The Tory vote fell, but by just under four percentage points (35.3% > 31.6%)…

Tactical voting?

Turnout was pretty high in comparison to the 2009 elections, so I doubt this can be written of as a by-election blip, although it would be interesting to compare to the 2011 (?) elections.

“This is Gloucestershire called it a “crushing defeat” for the Tories.”

With there only being three votes in it, This is Gloucestershire is perhaps overstating things a tad.

However, this is bad news for the coalition (woot!) and good news for Labour (cautious woot!).

I’m guessing the alternatives of “Slight disappointment for the Tories” or “Huge swing from Green to Labour” lacked punch Che?

In truth, I’m not sure how much you can read into this result. The Coalition parties still polled almost 58% of the vote remember. I suspect it has more to do with “natural” Labour voters who had defected to the Greens deciding to go back home, plus some disaffected LD’s and Tories voting tactically to register distaste for the Coalition.

In truth, I’m not sure how much you can read into this result.

It’s a local by-election result. You can’t really read anything into it.

10

Into one result no…. into a series of results….?

@ Galen10

“The Coalition parties still polled almost 58% of the vote remember.”

I was thinking about that. Of course, it’s not actually possible to vote for the Coalition per se, and voting for one of its members does not indicate support. As the overall make-up of the government is already known, those voting LD may not like the Tories, but still think they’d prefer to make the Coalition a bit less blue than to let another Labour MP into office.

On the other hand, it doesn’t suggest people in this constituency are desperate to get rid of the Coalition either.

@Galen10 #3:

“Will there be a prize for the first LD “ultra” who posts saying this result wasn’t that bad for them…”

How bad was it, really?

I think this an excellent result for Labour but conversely not so bad for the Tories – if Labour can come from 4th to 1st then it shows something is going on, but if the Tories only lost by 3 votes then clearly there’s still work to be done. As has been mentioned you can’t read much/anything into a local by-election result, but it’s worth musing on (ie what campaign tactics were used locally? what issues were raised? what did people on the doorstep think of the Cons/Libs?).

The real test – for both Labour and the coalition – will be in the May local elections.

The real test – for both Labour and the coalition – will be in the May local elections.

I fully expect some spinning come March from certain parties that these elections are purely local and cannot be taken as a judgement on anything else (which actually is how it should be – strange how only the parties that are losing tend to remember this…).

@15

Of course that’s how it should be, but I think we all know that local elections on a large scale do reflect – at least partially – of the mood of the country. But equally we can all point to instances where the governing party of the time lost masses of local seats and went on to win the next general election (ie Lab in 2004 I think?).

11 – the Local Elections will be reasonably significant, but only as a snapshot of current opinion. By-elections aren’t really useful even for that – you end up with Sunny’s landslide of eight voters on a Thursday in Wokingham.

If we’re doing the expectation management game, it’s worth remembering that Labour are starting from an incredibly low base.

16 – this is how good an indicator of General Election results Local Elections are:

Conservative leader William Hague is celebrating victory in the local elections after Labour suffered its worst losses for years.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/uk_politics/2000/local_elections/736660.stm

@ 17 Tim J

“By-elections aren’t really useful even for that – you end up with Sunny’s landslide of eight voters on a Thursday in Wokingham.”

Perhaps it would be fairest to say that by-elections can be useful if considered in the proper context, but extrapolating from their results like a mad thing probably isn’t?

Tim,

It’s also a good example of how crass and irresponsive to democracy our journalists are, since Mr Hague did not stand (and since there is no national contest)…

@18

Ah, yes. That was the example I was looking for – and I think I read somewhere similar happened in the mid-90s with roles reversed.

@J:
“The Labour victory would appear to be primarily a consequence of the local Green vote collapsing… Can anyone local offer any insight?”

I think there are a number of factors in play here:

1. The Tory council is being rather too enthusiastic about cuts (see http://foclibrary.wordpress.com/ for one example)
2. Our previous MP, David Drew, was an exceptionally good constituency man who, in the Brown Down-turn, lost his seat to a Tory who – as David himself said at a Stroud Against The Cuts rally last week – seems to be positioning himself as Westminster’s man in Stroud, rather than Stroud’s man in Westminster
3. Featured heavily on Brian Oosthuysen’s campaign literature was the observation that if Gloucestershire slimmed down from (I think) 7 councils to just 2, we could save £16million per year and no cuts to services would have to be made at all
4. Labour ran a well-funded campaign to win – I almost forgot to vote, until his campaign team phoned me at 6.00pm
5. The Greens seemed to ease off on campaigning this time round
6. The Lib Dem campaign seemed to ignore the coalition’s existence
7. Brian Oosthuysen has been active in the community for years; he’s well-known and well-liked

I think all the above led to a lot of tactical voting in Labour’s favour.

As local Labour activist, would like to reinstate what is said above, and emphasise how appalling bad our new Tory MP (Neil Carmichael) actually is. This is a man who said fox hunting is acceptable because the dogs don’t get hurt… We often say if there was a Parliamentary election the day after he was elected we would probably win, because of the amount of electors who voted LD or Tory and realised in doing so they got rid of David Drew and elected our now incumbent!

I would like to correct just one thing, our campaign wasn’t well-funded, just very motivated and well supported… and very unlike the LDs who had people to drag people in from Cheltenham and Gloucester just to do telling.

I think the main reasons for this remarkable result is a) fightback against the cuts both locally and nationally (as stated above) and b) sending Neil Carmichael a message that he is next!

Rodborough is a traditionally Tory area. Labour wouldnt have got a look in a year ago.

Worth pointing out in the context of the conversation – that the AV vote if there is one in May – will be a more interesting indicator for the coalition – though now it needs 40% turnout I assume it won’t happen. (highly unlikely to generate enough interest for that figure to be reached)

Maybe someone could persuade David Drew to stand again at the next election.

One other factor I forgot to mention was that a prominent local Lib Dem – a former town councillor who often has letters printed in the local paper – very publically resigned from the Lib Dem party, citing coalition policies as his reason, and endorsed the Labour candidate in this election.