“The Tories are on the march”
“The Lib Dem vote held up well, showing we’re the only challengers to the Tories in the south and Labour in the north”
“It was a drubbing for Labour, but a drubbing we expected”
These are the headline messages the three main parties will be sending out today, following the result in Henley where the Conservative majority held up, the Lib Dems didn’t really move anywhere and Labour were pushed into fifth place.
The Tories (or at least their grassroots) will say this is the beginning of the end for Gordon Brown, the great national swing to the right, the road to Downing Street for David Cameron. Some of the more foaming-mouth members might even suggest Clegg and the Lib Dems are finished as a serious party, pointing out this is exactly the type of by-election should have won (some Lib Dems might even join in).
Bollocks
All this proves for Labour and Gordon Brown is that they can’t compete in rural, well-off seats in the south, but then we all knew that. They’ve never been competitive in these seats, and guess what, they still aren’t. Brown, unfortunately, still has up to two years in power. This means he can set the agenda, he can affect lives (for good or bad) and he can decide when the election is held (as long as it’s by May 2010). In opposition, the Tories and the Lib Dems might not like it, but there it is.
And the Lib Dems? Well, it wasn’t great, but then it wasn’t bad. The Henley by-election just doesn’t really prove anything.
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4 responses so far ↓
1 Darrell // Jun 27, 2008 at 8:28 am
But none of that is true….the Tories lost some 6,000 votes although they increased their % vote share so it doesnt show them ‘on the march’….we only took a swing of 1.7% when the Labour vote collapsed by 11% and the Tories lost the aforementioned 6,000 votes. The real winners were the Greens who now have an excellant opportunity to build on that against Davis….
For us I am tending towards the slightly negative view but not ‘foaming at the mouth’…it shows a work in progress and work to be done, much like Crewe did…..
2 Greenfield // Jun 27, 2008 at 9:14 am
The Tories have been on a roll over the last few months. This mainly due to the Labour Governments problems - an open goal if ever there was. Also the Tories have had some luck (for a change) where the two last By-elections have been held & their circumstances.Lets see how things pan out over the next six months - still all to play for us (& the others).
Just imagine a run of Polls with the Lib Dems ahead of Labour?
Just imagine a Tory cock up or two (wait for the long awaited Policies!!!).
Now is the time for us to sharpen our image & stand up for those without a voice, push our Green polcies.
3 barcharter // Jun 27, 2008 at 3:11 pm
I hope the people you are sending my way are reading better than you Gavin. I never said we ’should’ ‘would’ or even ‘could’ win. I did say that I thought that we would do better.
This was not the sort of seat that I expected us to win against a backdrop of a Conservative party rampant. They are on the rise, and in the current climate could have probably won the seat with a lamppost wearing a blue rosette as their candidate.
We put in a lot of valiant effort, but to little avail. But I don’t think there was any more the Campaigns team could have done.
Disappointed, but not despairing. In essence, but we, and the Tories, got around 75% of our General Election vote. What does concern me is that there is no evidence that any of the 6000 voters who abandoned Labour came to us. Given that our strategy seems to be to hope to make gains off Labour to compensate for any losses to the Tories, that should be a concern
4 Richard Holloway // Jul 4, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Darrell said:
“But none of that is true….the Tories lost some 6,000 votes although they increased their % vote share so it doesnt show them ‘on the march’….we only took a swing of 1.7% when the Labour vote collapsed by 11% and the Tories lost the aforementioned 6,000 votes.”
I do love how people play around with figures to suit their arguements. You can’t talk about swing in percentages and then say, it’s ok, the Conservatives lost 6000 votes. What was the Conservative swing?… Oh wait it was 3.46% up on 2005.
Considering turnout was 50.32% compared to 67.9% in 2005, I think your 6000 voters simply knew it wasn’t a contest and didn’t bother to turn up.
Not a lot to be learned, except that the Lib Dem by-election machine isn’t what it once was…
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