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Tories beat Labour in by-election

Laila

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The Conservatives have won the Norwich North by-election with a majority of more than 7,000.

The winning candidate Chloe Smith, 27, will become the House of Commons' youngest MP when she takes her seat after the summer recess.

It was the first Westminster election since the MPs' expenses furore.

The former MP, Labour's Ian Gibson, quit when the party barred him from standing at the next general election over his expenses claims

BBC NEWS | UK | UK Politics | Tories beat Labour in by-election

Brown will not be happy.
Norwich has been in Labour hands for a decade
 
I like this story it's encouraging short but sweet. Now if throw the crooks out would catch on here we might be able to dismantle the the Axis of Anti America evil Obama, Pelosi, and Reid. We could then maybe force some logic back into the discussions and actions in Washington DC.
People need to stand up to and end this Axis before they get Obama's way.
Barack Hussein Obama: "Mar 15, 2008 ... "My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you'll join with me as we try to change it".

"You can always count on Americans to do the right thing—after they’ve tried everything else".
Sir Winston Churchill
 
I feel a conservative revolution coming in our once-proud parent country!
 
Let me add my congratulations to the the winner as I put the present day "labor party" right up there with illogical, left-wing, socialist American Democrats who will do anything to subvert the capitalistic system that formerly made the US great! But, to acknowledge Councilman's quote, Obama seeks to change that while more conservative ideologies are making their moves in many parts of the world.

Atlas is shrugging... has anybody noticed?
 
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I like this story it's encouraging short but sweet. Now if throw the crooks out would catch on here we might be able to dismantle the the Axis of Anti America evil Obama, Pelosi, and Reid. We could then maybe force some logic back into the discussions and actions in Washington DC.
People need to stand up to and end this Axis before they get Obama's way.
Barack Hussein Obama: "Mar 15, 2008 ... "My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you'll join with me as we try to change it".

"You can always count on Americans to do the right thing—after they’ve tried everything else".
Sir Winston Churchill

Not that the torries are any less crooked. Heres some examples from the last time they were in power.

Cash-for-questions affair - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
BBC NEWS | UK | Northern Ireland | NI police collusion 'confirmed'
Arms-to-Iraq - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Humiliating byelection defeat for Brown as Labour loses Norwich North | Politics | guardian.co.uk

David Cameron has inflicted a humiliating byelection defeat on Gordon Brown as the Conservatives beat Labour into second place in Norwich North.

In the first electoral test since the MPs' expenses scandal rocked Westminster, the Tories' Chloe Smith won the Norfolk seat with a majority of 7,348 and, aged just 27, becomes the youngest MP in the Commons.

Labour's defeat, in a seat held comfortably by the party since 1997, is the fifth byelection blow Brown has suffered since he took over at No 10.

If the result was repeated across the country in a general election, the Tories would be swept to power with a Commons majority of 218, analysis by the Press Association news agency showed.

Do we really want UK to swing from majority Labour to majority, unbeatable Conservative in HOC?
 
I feel a conservative revolution coming in our once-proud parent country!

This by election is different to others.
Too premature to judge the impact
 
I would not put too much into this.

The reason that there was a by-election was that the guy in the seat was kicked out of Labour and that in turn meant he sad "sod it" and quit, there by forcing a by-election during a time where he knew that Labour were hurting. Basically it was payback.

On top of that, the way that labour choose their candidate was an "issue" as the candidate was basically chosen by the big wigs in the party and not the local labour party.

On top of that, you had a good looking woman against a man from a party that it is popular to hate..

It was a no brainer in the end and now they have the youngest member of parliament (27 years old).

But it is a long time till national elections and all it takes is a **** up by the conservatives and they back at even with labour.
 
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But it is a long time till national elections and all it takes is a **** up by the conservatives and they back at even with labour.

Conservatives have nothing to **** up and Labour/Brown have done so horrifically that it wouldn't matter. So they pretty much have these elections in the bag. It is almost 90+% certain Parliament will go blue next year.

And even if they did mess up, the public trust Cameron more than Brown or Labour in a recent poll so suggests that it wouldn't matter.

And the incumbent was not kicked out, he was told he was deselected and barred for standing again next election. He threw a fit and resigned triggering a by election

And this is significant for a number of reasons.
This is in the North, Labour stronghold.
It is the 3rd by election lost by a massive swing to conservatives and the devestating loss, 7,000 majority cannot be shrugged away in a place where Labour have held for 12 years
 
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Conservatives have nothing to **** up and Labour/Brown have done so horrifically that it wouldn't matter. So they pretty much have these elections in the bag. It is almost 90+% certain Parliament will go blue next year.

Oh I agree the conservatives as it looks now will most likely win. However politics can be a funny thing and since there is a long way to the next election then anything can happen. Hilary Clinton was a "lock" for the Democratic spot 2 years ago after all.

And even if they did mess up, the public trust Cameron more than Brown or Labour in a recent poll so suggests that it wouldn't matter.

For now yes. But one screw up by Cameron and that can change fast.

And the incumbent was not kicked out, he was told he was deselected and barred for standing again next election. He threw a fit and resigned triggering a by election

Same thing.

This is in the North, Labour stronghold.
It is the 3rd by election lost by a massive swing to conservatives and the devestating loss, 7,000 majority cannot be shrugged away in a place where Labour have held for 12 years

They actually held it for far longer than that. The conservatives have only held the seat for under a decade the last 60 years or so.

However if you look at the numbers. Turn out was WAY down, and it was traditional labour supporters that stayed away. This in turn meant that it was far easier for the Conservatives to turn the labour majority to a conservative majority, which is what happened. Say last election there was 10000 votes in the district, with 7000 going to Labour and 3000 going to Conservatives. Say this election only 6000 showed up, the 3000 conservative voters, 1000 protest voters and 2000 labour voters.. that would mean the conservatives would have a majority of 2000 vs being behind by 4000 the last election. Turn out is often quite critical in such elections.

I have no doubt that labour is in trouble and the labour base is pissed at Brown and the party. The way they demonstrate this is by either staying away from the polls or voting the opposition in insignificant elections (EU and by-elections).

But when it comes to a national election the question is if the labour supporters will turn out or not, and if they do will they risk 4 years of a conservative government by "protest" voting or not turning out.. time will tell.
 
Granted, I don't follow British politics particularly closely, but even before the expenses scandal many seemed to treat it as a foregone conclusion that the torries would be taking over the majority in the next election. Maybe I was mistaken, but didn't the expenses scandal also include quite a few torries and LDPs as well?

They were indeed.One Torry mp claimed expenses for fixing his moot so thats not done wonders for their popular appeal, but its worth bearing in mind that.

In many cases [such as the Local/European elections earlyer this year] its not so much about the Tory vote going up as the Labour vote going down. Alot of Labour supporters [my family included] would never dream of voting tory so when they become disillusioned with Labour they stay at home or vote third party.Im not sure if this is the case in this election* but its worth bearing in mind that.

[A]Labour has been held responsible for the crisis as they were in charge. The "speaker of the house" who's supossed to stop this sort of thing was a Labour MP

I think in some ways the expenses scandal was the straw that broke the camels back. Labour has been in power since 1997 so they,ve managed to pick up alot of baggage on the way.

*Edit: The concervative vote only went up by 6.3% whereas the Labour vote went down by 26.7%
 
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Laila, what is a "by-election" as opposed to a regular general election, or is there a difference at all?

A by election is a special sort of election.
So your equivalent would be before the general election one of your Senates or House of Representatives suddenly resigns or dies or becomes unable to continue holding that position of power (corruption etc.) a election would need to be called to find a replacement for that constituent until the general election when the whole country votes.

By elections are special because they are judged and if it hurts the current leader in the house, then it reflects the doom and gloom.
More dangerously, if Labour loses Glasgow by election (sparked by the resignation of Speaker Martin) then Labour may as well hang themselves as Scotland is their heartlands - It would be similar to Republicans losing support in the South
 
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But when it comes to a national election the question is if the labour supporters will turn out or not, and if they do will they risk 4 years of a conservative government by "protest" voting or not turning out.. time will tell.

Cameron doesn't need to screw up anything. It is in the bag.
He is opposition, he gets a fresh slate compared to Brown who headed up our economy for 10 years.

Labour voters will stay at home or go and vote for a minor party, what has been found out by the analyst is that voters have just stopped listening to Labour and believing what they say and their attacks of 'Cameron = massive cuts in spending, evil right wingers who will cut everything and do nothing' has no impact whatsoever.

I'm pretty much predicting Cameron win next year, everyone in the country knows it. The real interesting question is how big will his majority be in the HOC.
 
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Yeah, I think I remember seeing that LDP's numbers had gone up more than the conservatives', but it seemed that even without the expense scandal David Cameron was going to walk into No. 10.

The expenses scandal in Britain was broken exclusively by one newspaper; the Daily Telegraph. This paper is a respectable right of center broadsheet, but undoubtedly has a conservative bias, it even gets nicknamed the Torygraph. Although all parties were targeted the focus was on the government. This was despite many of the most outrageous abuses coming from the Conservatives - fixing a moat, building a duck house, etc.

The MP who was deselected for the next election in Norwich and subsequently stood down was actually one Labour's worst offenders. He sold his second home in London (an entitlement for non-London MP's) for half its market value to his daughter.

He was quite popular in Norwich however, showing nicely how people can love their local representative whilst hating the overall body of which they are a part. This led to Labour voters staying at home on election day as the below graph should demonstrate:

_46109693_norwich_by_election_466gr.gif


It is a good victory for the Conservatives but there are significant extenuating circumstances for Labour.
 
It is a good victory for the Conservatives but there are significant extenuating circumstances for Labour.

I just realised something.
The chances are Thatcher will die under a Conservative Govt. rather than a Labour one. I wonder if they would dare to give her a state funeral. Blair and Brown both shelved it.
 
I just realised something.
The chances are Thatcher will die under a Conservative Govt. rather than a Labour one. I wonder if they would dare to give her a state funeral. Blair and Brown both shelved it.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmmomV-ax-s"]YouTube - Frankie Boyle on Thatcher's Funeral[/ame]

So long as they hold it up north :mrgreen:
 
:thumbs:

Bigger turnout indeed.

Love MTW and Frankie. He is my favourite

Edit: Its interesting to note how Thatcher is still very divisive even to this day
 
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The expenses scandal in Britain was broken exclusively by one newspaper; the Daily Telegraph. This paper is a respectable right of center broadsheet, but undoubtedly has a conservative bias, it even gets nicknamed the Torygraph. Although all parties were targeted the focus was on the government. This was despite many of the most outrageous abuses coming from the Conservatives - fixing a moat, building a duck house, etc.

The MP who was deselected for the next election in Norwich and subsequently stood down was actually one Labour's worst offenders. He sold his second home in London (an entitlement for non-London MP's) for half its market value to his daughter.

He was quite popular in Norwich however, showing nicely how people can love their local representative whilst hating the overall body of which they are a part. This led to Labour voters staying at home on election day as the below graph should demonstrate:

_46109693_norwich_by_election_466gr.gif


It is a good victory for the Conservatives but there are significant extenuating circumstances for Labour.

WOW did not realize that the labour turnout was that bad.. just proves my point about this seat. Heck even the Conservatives went back.. if anyone won anything then it has to be the smaller parties that made considerable gains (most likely labour protest votes). But even with those gains (protest votes), the lower labour turn was so significant that the torries just had to get half the amount of votes from the previous election and they would win... quite a slap in the face of the labour bigwigs.
 
It looks like the Labour voters went to Greens and UKIP.
 
It looks like the Labour voters went to Greens and UKIP.

why did the LD lose votes? I would have thought, with the gains the other parties made, they would have gained most of the labour protest votes.
 
why did the LD lose votes? I would have thought, with the gains the other parties made, they would have gained most of the labour protest votes.

It went to the Greens sadly. I like LD alot.
Greens have been cutting into LD votes and Labour and UKIP is a thorn on Conservatives side as Conservatives have moved a little on their 'ultra europe sceptics' stance and voters are not happy about that
 
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It looks like the Labour voters went to Greens and UKIP.

Labour and the Conservatives lost combined 16201 votes, with labour loosing the 15000ish since 2005.

The combined "gain" by other parties was 8000 votes..

And the Lib Dems lost 3000 on top of that.

Even if we say the 8000 votes were all labour votes (which is unrealistic) and labour had the same turnout of its voters as the 2005 election then labour would have come very close to winning the site again.

But because 7000 voters on top of the "8000" protest votes stayed away, then the conservatives won by a wide margin. But it is unrealistic to say that all the 8000 votes gained by fringe parties was all labour votes since the conservatives lost over 1000 votes and the lib dems over 3000 votes.. half the 8000 gained by the fringe parties.

Basically labour voters stayed home more than conservative and lib dem voters but I highly doubt that they will in a general election.
 
why did the LD lose votes? I would have thought, with the gains the other parties made, they would have gained most of the labour protest votes.

Protest votes and people staying home. All 3 parties were involved in the scandal after all.
 
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