As all sensible media commentators predicted, the Labour Party is devastated in the first electoral contest under new left-wing leader who shares John Cleese’s initials.

Also Jesus Christ’s. (Just wanted to get there before anyone else did.)

But yes, it’s good news, and thanks for highlighting it.

Harry — Is this meaningful given the district? Was the percentage expected? The questions are from an American without any local context beyond the link.

2015 GE in May was 23,630 Lab (54.8%) to 8,892 UKIP (20.6%), on a total turnout of 59.6%.

The by-election was 17,209 Lab (62.1%) to 6,487 UKIP (23.11%) on a total turnout of 40.3%; coincidentally, both raw counts declined to 73% from their GE raw counts (identically, both parties increased their vote share by the same 13%). The gain in vote share comes largely at the expense of the Tories (19% to 9.4%), which may be related to the replacement of the born-in-Oldham Kamran Ghafoor with a parachute candidate, or the incumbent-government-midterm-election disadvantage, or disapproval of specific Tory policies, or what have you.

The large difference in turnout could be attributed to that it’s not the GE, that it was pissing down during the Oldham vote, or to ebbs in voter enthusiasm (especially for the Tory candidate) or whatnot. Regardless, because at least a quarter of both Lab and UKIP GE voters straightforwardly didn’t show up to vote, the gloomy anecdotes of masses of door-slamming anti-Corbyn former Labour loyalists can’t be disproven either. Pick whatever narrative you like.

I’m glad to see that the MLP did so well, and hope for their continued growth. With numbers like these, they should be able to form a majority government by 2300CE!

Those sensible media commenators include… a 17 year old campaigner, famous for coining the term Milifandom, who was barracked by Corbynistas for daring to air her doubts in public.

To be clear – unexpectedly good by-election result for Labour in a seat they should have absolutely no trouble winning with a candidate broadly considered to be on the right of the Labour party. It’s neither evidence of the electoral invincibility of Corbynism nor a sign of it’s inevitable doom. It also doesn’t change the fact that Corbyn’s ratings and those of the Labour party nationally are dismal, or that the continuing drama in the party itself has essentially allowed the Tories to cruise through a series of cock-ups and scandals that would otherwise have them playing defence at the moment. It almost certainly ensures a stay of execution for the Corbyn leadership, but I don’t personally believe that’s something people who wish Labour well should really be hoping for at this moment.

Everyone was convinced it would be close, and that there was a real danger of UKIP winning; I saw first-person reports from Oldham of people saying they couldn’t stand Corbyn, they’d always voted Labour before but never again, and so on. Well, first-person anonymous accounts, now I think of it. But we all believed it. More fool us, and bad cess to those who wanted it to be true.

I had a long argument on Twitter last night and this morning with the author of this piece (Why Oldham West could be just the start of Labour’s worries), which seemed on first reading to be calling the election for UKIP while the polls were still open:

“In Oldham West and Royton, Labour sought salvation in the seat’s Asian vote – but white working-class constituents defected in large numbers, to Nigel Farage’s party, or simply by staying at home.”

Eventually the author persuaded me that this sentence referred to the 2015 General Election result in OW&R. I still don’t think that this is the most obvious way to read that result; it’s true that the UKIP vote went up by 4,500 as compared to 2010*, but Labour’s vote went up by 4,000, taking Labour’s vote share from 45% to 55% (details here). But maybe that represents lots of Labour voters staying at home and moving to UKIP, along with lots of other voters moving the other way. Cunning lot, these voters.

This morning, incidentally, the same author has been on Twitter contrasting the 7% rise in Labour’s vote share unfavourably with the 10% rise achieved at the General Election – Corbyn can’t even get as big an increase in vote share as Ed Miliband. So it’s very bad news for Labour, this win with 62% of the vote. Hey ho.

*I’m comparing the 2015 GE UKIP vote with the 2010 vote for UKIP and the BNP – which, listening to Farage this morning, seems pretty reasonable.

Daragh’s deep concern for the future of the Labour party is matched only by his sympathy for the innocent victims of pro-Corbyn twitter.

Re: predictions. Developments in France are significantly more ominous. Let’s hope these predictions are just as unsound: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-02/back-to-reality-for-hollande-as-voters-flock-to-le-pen-message

Phil is right- despite overwhelming evidence suggesting it was stupid of me, I believed that there was a real chance of Labour losing the by-election.

It is an encouraging result as it proves that people are not swallowing all of the media’s anti-Corbyn propaganda.

My personal theory is that either 1) Labour activists turned around Labour voters. or 2) Labour voters were repelled by the racism and warmongering of the previous whole month leading up to Cameron’s “terrorism” jibe.

Evidence:
“Whereas a week ago 2015 Labour voters broke in favour of airstrikes by 52% to 26%, they have now turned against. Among 2015 Labour voters 42% are now opposed (up 16 points), only 35% now support (down 17). While Jeremy Corbyn’s stance is still at odds with wider public opinion, now both Labour voters and Labour members agree with him: it is his opponents within the PLP who are at odds with the rest of the Labour family.

“harry b — I must, very sadly, admit that I had not seen that sketch before. But also, it utterly made my day, probably my week!”

Seconded. Really funny.

@13 Good point but I try to avoid the jackassery. I just watched a British finance guy explain how influence peddling works in DC on another thread. Not a pretty sight.
So the impression I get from the commentators, with some strong disagreement, is that he won a traditionally safe district by more than expected. And the press blew it again. When will the real test come?

I have been following politics my whole life and I cannot remember a politician who the press has hated more than Corbyn. The whole thing is a fucking disgrace.

@engels

My motivations for joining are somewhat different. And if your argument for Momentum not being that bad is that they were too thick to get the right private house to protest outside, it needs a bit of work. And I don’t think it’s unfair for MPs to protest organised campaigns of harassment and abuse, nor do I think it should be called ‘whinging’ (god knows how this blog would react if a pro-Israel demonstration showed up outside Steven Salaita’s office or started e-mailing him pictures of dead babies – and rightly so).

@MPAVictoria

That might be because there’s never been a major politician in this country who has been undecided on issues like whether to shoot suicide bombers, and spent his time as a backbencher doing things like appearing on Iran’s PRESS TV or setting out Putin’s case for invading Ukraine in the Morning star.

@Peter K – Turnout was down, as expected at a byelection, so not really an indicator one way or another. Local candidate apparently has a great reputation. Also was enthusiastic about Osborne’s Northern Powerhouse project and voter for Kendall so I’m sure the campaign to deselect him will start sometime in the next 72 hours.

“That might be because there’s never been a major politician in this country who has been undecided on issues like whether to shoot suicide bombers, and spent his time as a backbencher doing things like appearing on Iran’s PRESS TV or setting out Putin’s case for invading Ukraine in the Morning star.”

But of course their have been major politicians who have supported disastrous wars based on lies, bombing innocent women and children and slashing funding for the poor and disabled while cutting taxes for millionaires. I mean even if I agree with your characterization of Corbyn (which I don’t) that list of flaws is pretty minuscule when compared to the alternatives.

So why the hate?

Daragh said:

“Local candidate apparently has a great reputation. Also was enthusiastic about Osborne’s Northern Powerhouse project and voter for Kendall so I’m sure the campaign to deselect him will start sometime in the next 72 hours.”

Victorious local candidate Jim McMahon said (from BBC website):

“He says he is “sick to death of what the Tories are doing to towns like Oldham” adding the Northern Powerhouse rhetoric is “write of off the North”, He says it was “about time we show the Tories that people have had enough.””

.

More on the alleged ‘intimidation’ of self-styled #noshittakingmp Stella Creasy http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/dec/04/tom-watson-intimidating-anti-war-protest-labour-vicar-walthamstow?CMP=share_btn_tw

“The Monster Raving Loony party were last, on 141.”

There is hope after all.

too thick to get the right private house to protest outside

Don’t be an idiot, Daragh. They weren’t protesting outside anybody’s house, they were standing – peacefully – outside a mosque, before marching – peacefully – to the Labour Party office.

Oh McDonnell seems angry and, yes, he does have a great sense of humour (as Livingstone does). But Corbyn — sure, he seems angry in the sense that he is angry at injustice. But he doesn’t seem an angry person — you get no sense that he is angry at people, or that he’s an angry person who just happens to be channeling his anger at injustice. The anger is only a response to things that ought to make any discerning person angry. That’s what I meant. They’d all be so much happier if Corbyn were like Anthony Sher in The History Man, or something like that. (I have to say that if Corbyn has a sense of humour, he keeps a pretty tight lid on it in public— which is a good thing!)

Corbyn is not pro-Putin enough
by a CT commenter

Despite having called, at least according to some accounts, for Britain’s leaving NATO, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has not appreciated sufficiently the cooperative character of Russia’s foreign policy, a failing that will cost him the votes of working-class voters who might otherwise be inclined to support him.

For the benefit those of us across the pond who have non-parliamentary systems and are used to ticket-splitting for president and Congressional candidates, to what extent, generally, is a local race a function of the popularity of the party leadership as opposed to the quality of the local candidate? If you’d rather have Cameron’s than Corbyn’s hands on the levers of executive power, but the Labour candidate is far superior to the Conservative candidate, what does a voter do?

No mention in comments (as far as I can see) of the extraordinary number of postal votes cast. (11K ?). Quite convenient for Labour……

kind regards

CJC — you vote Tory. Individual MPs have virtually no influence, independent of their capacity to influence their party and their leadership. A tiny handful of MPs have accumulated influence through a combination of charisma, expertise, and long hard slog — I can see Tories voting for Frank Field, or Labour people voting for David Davis — but even then they are usually, of necessity, in safe seats (as in the US House many seats are not competitive, although the explanation for that is not deep-seated corruption).

That said — in by-elections the personalities of the candidates have more effect, and voters, knowing they are not voting for a government, are much more inclined to use elections to punish governments — but I don’t think anyone thinks that in this case lots of Tory voters went for the Labour candidate to show their disgust with Cameron. But if they did, that would have been very good news for Corbyn.

Daragh, the real terrorist sympathisers are Blair and Cameron who were so far up the @ss of Bush, Qaddafi and King Abdullah that they almost entirely vanished – this hurts us to this day, but yeah keep trotting out those old stories.

Btw, since you’re so well informed, I’m sure you must have heard about the collapse of the trial against accused terrorist Gildo for fear that the UK security services would have to officially admit having supported the same radical Islamist group the defendant was a member of.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jun/01/trial-swedish-man-accused-terrorism-offences-collapse-bherlin-gildo

But sure, Corbyn and his choice of company is of course the real problem in UK politics today …

Daragh @43 – the story spun out of that picture has been denied by the march organiser and the local vicar (who was there); Stella Creasy has disowned it; the person who posted the picture hasn’t come forward, and nobody can identify them. Face it, we were trolled.

Matt @54
@LFC what’s up with the Putin/Syria obsession?

Sorry, bit of an inside-CT thing. Part of a ‘dialogue’ with Ze K, who has commented here for a long time (as long as I’ve been reading CT) under a variety of different names and who is — how shall I put this? — a strong defender of Putin, among various other things.

If you look at the Syria thread, my mention of Putin there was in response to Ze K’s bringing up a Mafia analogy. I just thought it was amusing to see him deploying that analogy under the circumstances. He of course replied, as he always does, in this case distinguishing states that operate in a “gangland environment” (his phrase) from politicians who are a “different category” from states — subtle distinction, that — and so it goes. However, to be self-critical, I should not have said anything and prob just have ignored him. He will always be here, so nothing in that respect will change anyway. (And he livens the place up, I suppose, in a way… )

re the Mao’s Little Red Book clip: great stuff.

Just shows again why the House of Commons is more fun to listen to or watch than the U.S. House of Representatives. (Except when they’re asking during PM question time about whether my Rt Hon friend will look into, e.g., the state of Mrs. so-and-so’s missing pension benefits who lives at such-and-such lane in my constituency (ok, I’m exaggerating a little). I mean, that’s very important for the people concerned, but for an outside listener a little dull.)

Possibly one reason the Little Red Book is ‘ok’ to quote from, in quasi-jest say, is that it was mostly composed, iirc, before its author acquired power and started down the path of doing what he did when he ran the country. The writing’s somewhat epigrammatic quality also helps, I suppose.

The little red book incident is symptomatic of the determination of everyone in the press to get Corbyn. McDonnell was OBVIOUSLY mocking Osborne. Osborne, remember, is the one who is hanging out with the Maoists. The very same press that went after McDonnell for quoting from the red book, only a few weeks earlier were demanding that Corbyn go to the banquet with the Chinese leaders and be nice, and friendly, and say nothing about human rights abuses. But this was the day of his biggest victory so far — saving millions of low income workers from a massive tax increase. So, lets all deliberately misinterpret what McDonnell was doing, so that Corbyn gets no credit for a great victory, and pretend that McDonnell, rather than Cameron, is the friend of the totalitarians.

So, as engels says, “the overwhelming consensus of the UK media was that it definitely wasn’t” ok to quote from the little red book, even mockingly, even when your audience is a willing partner of the Maoists, whom you have been told that you are not allowed to criticize.

I find the Hamas , Hezbollah, Ira stuff a little bizzare, I have to say. I absolutely would want people involved in foreign policy decision making to have some capacity to understand how others think, what they value, why the fight etc Perhaps Corbyn et al went too far and drifted from understanding to supporting ( perhaos. I don’t know, nor admittedly really care) but someone who has spent time in the company of Islamist militants is still preferable (IMO) to someone who went from public school, to oxford, to a pr company to politics. Not that there’s anything particularly wrong with the second path, and I’m not a fully signed up believer in the ” real world experience” school for what we should want from our politicians , but in a perfect world (IMO) anyone involved in foreign policy decision making (not neccesarily for more technical issues such as trade, but on the conflict side) should speak at least one non European language and have spent considerable time living in a semi failed or failed state among militants and their social milieu. Everything else leads to WEIRD style incomprehension

Shorter Dipper: I’m not interested in policies, or even politcians’ personalities, just how those personalities are represented to me in the Daily Mail; I’m not a narcissist but Corbyn is.

You said ‘everything about McDonnell’s politics is about him’ and – the truly ludicrous part – ‘the same goes for Jeremy Corbyn’. Whatever Corbyn’s short comings may be I think you might hard pressed to find anyone in British politics to whom that applies less accurately.

haha Cameron doesn’t have any politics. haha. The pig fucker general knows exactly what needs to be done to get ahead. As for the idea that McDonnell’s little red book was all about him – only if you believe the Daily Mail and nothing else.

But that, I think, is where ronan(rf) is wrong. Understanding, thinking about the enemy – all irrelevant. The Daily Mail wants men with big balls to Do Things about Stuff, it doesn’t want 65 year old vegetarians in cardigans talking about what actually works. And the majority of the British public are on the side of the Daily Mail.

The by-election win is a heartening counterpoint to that cynicism, but I’m not inclined to be positive about the future…

ah yes, the evil Daily Mail casting its spell over a supine British electorate with articles such as this:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3346949/PETER-OBORNE-one-winner-Syria-vote-wasn-t-Dave-Hilary-Benn.html

Fortunately the Guardian/Observer is here to provide political balance
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/05/jeremy-corbyn-new-politics-self-righteous-left-wallows-in-cruelty

‘the evil Daily Mail’

–a quite accurate term for a publication that depicts refugees as untermenschen

http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/critics_hammer_daily_mail_refugees_as_rats_cartoon

Perhaps you think Corbyn brought coverage such as this on himself:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3336942/Chairman-Corbyn-s-Maoist-Britain-Clarkson-education-camp-giant-posters-people-s-hero-Diane-Abbott-compulsory-ping-pong-historian-s-brilliantly-witty-chilling-vision-future.html

Dipper, if Corbyn doesn’t know what to do to get ahead, how come he managed to win the leadership election so convincingly, despite all the negative press he was getting?

Has it ever occurred to you that you don’t know what’s needed …?

@69 I was/am very pleased Corbyn is the leader, to the degree that he has exhibited ‘leadership.’ I find little to object to in your comment other than to say that it seems a little early to consign Corbyn to the bin-heap.

Corbyn may yet be elected prime minister. Stranger things have happened. Nobody could have predicted that Corbyn would be nominated and win the leadership, even 12 months ago. I especially like your observation on policies, the lack there of. My only quibble being that Cameron and all cynical politicians pick-up and dispose of politicians as easily as they do people and their concerns. The constant, of course, is the love of lucre expressed and manifest in the front benches of both parties for the last 2 decades at the very least.

Corbyn’s leadership style may simply be sticking to his principles. What a horror! The war-mongers on Labour’s front bench and their imminent demise may soon provide us all with Corwyn’s political skills.

There is undoubtedly a lot of abuse on twitter, and undoubtedly some from those who claim to be Corbyn supporters. But most Corbyn supporters take their cue from the man himself:

https://twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/672139608705130497

It is quite disturbing that it’s women who are targeted for the most vile abuse, usually but not always from those hiding behind pseudonyms. Although strangely enough, one of the most unpleasant to Abby Tomlinson on a regular basis is Louise Mensch.

Another case of online ‘abuse’ that was completely fabricated:
order-order.com/2015/12/02/tory-mp-doctors-constituents-email-adding-death-threat

@david_morris Rather disappointing that you’re recycling these UKIP talking points. AFAICS, McMahon has simply been promoted into jobs with those allowances, and there’s just no evidence to support the alleged fraud in postal voting. On the other hand, as Mike Smithson points out

http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2015/11/20/why-it-might-not-be-wise-for-ukip-to-go-too-hard-on-expenses-and-allowances-in-oldham/

“Since 1999 more people elected as UKIP MEPs have been jailed for expenses fraud than the number of MPs the party has at Westminster”

What’s wrong with “postal votes” (assuming we’re talking about mailing in ballots or absentee ballots or some such). This seems like a good thing, no?

MPA Victoria

How about including Michael Foot, Neil Kinnock, ‘Farmer Jim’ Callaghan and Gordon Brown in your photo call of media-rated Labour non-electables…….

what’s your point engels? which conspiracy theory? I didn’t make up those court cases.

Postal vote obsession = nutty
South Asian obsession = creepy
Bye now!

Actually, I’m glad I asked. My opinion of the merits of allowing postal voting hasn’t changed, but I have learnt to ignore your comments in the future.

Given elections in the uk are usually held on weekdays I would take the large number of postal votes as strong evidence Corbyn has engaged working people. I would be worried about that if I was a blairite or a Tory…

the BBC story http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-35011954 implies that the mechanics of postal voting were better at this election than previous. And as Mrs Dipper likes to say, if they all want to vote one way with postal votes that is their right.

Daragh, if you want to have a discussion, on a thread about Oldham, of Dipper’s theories about the South Asians rigging elections using forged postal votes no-one’s stopping you but I have other things to do (mostly reading about the French regional elections and Donald Trump’s latest bold policy proposal, as it happens). Have a lovely evening

@engels – the discussion was about the importance of the postal vote in Oldham, which as I’ve happily pointed out wasn’t a factor. You, OTOH, have responded to someone pointing out that postal vote fraud has in fact occurred in the UK, and has been particularly large scale in non-white communities such as Tower Hamlets. This isn’t disputed by anyone, at least not seriously, nor is it necessarily ipso facto about race. But that hasn’t stopped you from immediately smearing someone as a racist to delegitimise any contribution they might have to make (before declaring that you are forced to withdraw due to the higher purpose of demonstrating how concerned you are about Donald Trump’s latest outburst of belligerence).

Indeed @kidneystones, though it is worth noticing that only 12/100 voters in the youngest category voted for the FN (65 just didn’t vote). There’s a very different picture in France (and Austria) than in most other European states. Still, MLP has done a good job of detoxifying the FN with the young and one wonders what UKIP could achieve if they didn’t have a leader who is so repulsive to them.

@TM

Marion Marechal Le Pen (MLP’s nice) is very socially conservative and was at the forefront of the anti-gay marriage protests. FN policy is apparently to overturn the legalisation of gay marriage.

On economic policies the party is fairly dirigiste and statist, and wants to roll back globalisation. A big part of it’s move beyond it’s traditional base of out and out racists has been emphasising its support for protectionism and a strong welfare state (for ‘the right kind’ of people of course). In this sense it’s more similar to Orban’s Fidesz or Law and Justice in Poland than the traditional European right. Having said that Jean Marie Le Pen likes to brag that the party’s ultra-liberal economic platform during the 1970s was his idea, and set the stage for Reaganism and Thatcherism. The party currently has a lot of ‘small business’ tax cuts and wants a ‘tax ceiling’ of 46%.

On abortion they don’t really have a policy as far as I can see, and aren’t likely to adopt one soon as it has the potential to divide their current support, alienate potential future support, and not much else. The FN has come out strongly for some environmental causes, particularly anti-fracking, and has a vague ‘new ecology’ ideology that opposes international climate talks but likes nuclear.

Basically FN has been about hating immigrants and non-white French since it’s inception, and that remains the core of the party, but it’s been pretty successful at growing it’s support through targeted bits of populism aimed both leftwards and rightwards.

Chris – 86 (just getting the hang of the comments thread now !)

Shame you felt you had to blow the UKIP dogwhistle. In respect of my voting record, I refer you to the late great Brian Redhead – https://audioboom.com/boos/594249-brian-redhead-lawson-1987 (secs 0.19-0.25).

Kind regards

@ 106. You might be right re: Farage. I was curious, however, to see how young people in the UK voted. Among 18-24 year olds, UKIP and the Greens (your party, I believe) ran even, according to the IF.org poll. That’s a real surprise, frankly.

In the 25 – 34 category UKIP is ahead by a significant margin. UKIP enjoys better than twice as much support as the Greens. Much higher still among 45-54s, with support for Greens all but disappearing for those 55 and above.

We disagree (again) I expect on the impact of the leaders. Voters who support the Greens, the SNP for the most part, and UIKP are issues voters. They may well have extremely strong feelings about leaders, even negative ones. But they support these smaller parties precisely because the policies of larger parties and perhaps their leaders are so repellent.

And for the big news: A poll finds that 59% of those surveyed in the California city of Fresno kinda support or strongly support Trump’s call for an all-out ban on you-know-who from entering the US:
http://news.yahoo.com/video/survey-usa-poll-asked-fresno-080035049.html

Meanwhile, in a classic case of closing the barn door, France and Germany issued a joint statement calling for the number of immigrants to Europe to be significantly reduced, as Martin Schulz warns of the end of EU dream.

@116 Doubtless some are. However, I suspect that many working-class voters have had enough of being told to shut-up and do as they’re told by their intellectual and moral superiors.

Trump-ets: 18 percent of Democrats support Trumps call to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. How many more Dems fudged their answers and claimed to be horrified by Trump’s plan? The media and a great many Republican ‘luminaries’ did the expected and denounced Trump. Turns out they may be looking for work soon as the Republican rank and file are overwhelmingly onboard: http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-12-09/bloomberg-politics-poll-trump-muslim-ban-proposal.

If the 18% number holds, or actually conceals a greater level of support for Trump’s plan among Dem voters, there’s a real chance Trump could take the WH. We expect Republicans to love the idea. The deluded tell themselves Dems are different. They are in some respects, but on this issue not so much. The poll is only just out and is already getting lots of play on Dem meme sites. Trump goes there, and once again drives the debate. Let’s pray there isn’t another major incident/attack. Given that praying won’t make much real difference, the next attack is only likely to see support for Trump’s plan rise on both sides of the political divide.

@118 Cheers. I watched Trump’s speech and the interviews after. He’s ready to leave, but wants very much to win. He’s rich enough, old enough, etc. that he can pursue the presidency on his terms. If he takes the nomination from the grip of GOP grandees he’ll win almost as many fans among Dems as rank and file Republicans, or at least enough to cut very deep into Dem support. We haven’t seen any major Dem defections. Y.E.T.

One, or two significant Dem cross-overs (self-interest, cash, power) and it’s Trump’s to lose. All indications are he knows a lot more about winning than any candidate in either party. Americans aren’t the only ones who love a winner.

One cautionary word to the wise in Britain and elsewhere. The special relationship is over. America is ready to pull up the drawbridge for real. When Trump says the people turning on him now ” don’t know what they’re getting into, he means it.” A very large segment of US voters is already keen to tell the rest of the world to go to hell. Many are keen to abandon Europe to Putin. Americans do not believe America owes Europe anything, a fact proven twice in the last century.

Rasmussen forgot to include the pony. Add the pony in, you’re sure to get a majority.