Eastleigh By-Election

[YL]

This should be quite interesting.

The Lib Dems have been doing well in local elections there; they even topped the poll in the Police Commissioner nonsense, and they're totally dominant on Eastleigh Borough Council.  So them holding the seat can't be written off, in spite of the embarrassing reason for the by-election and their poor national standing.

Labour have had a decent vote in the past (as afleitch said they came second in the 1994 by-election, ahead of the Tories, unlike what happened in that Parliament in Newbury or Christchurch) but were badly squeezed in 2010.  It'll be interesting to see whether they get some of that back.

UKIP will no doubt be having a big push, and perhaps thinking that if the Lib Dems and Tories both do relatively poorly, with Labour recovering from the 2010 squeeze, then the share needed to win might be quite low.

[YL]

Any chance that Farage will try his luck here again?

He apparently told Channel 4 News that he was thinking "very hard" about standing.

[YL]

Farage has an article on the Torygraph website saying he's not standing.  So presumably UKIP don't think they can win...

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The Tories have selected their 2010 candidate, Maria Hutchings.  According to the Guardian, she has denied saying that Labour did more for "the immigrants, the gays, the bloody foxes" than for children with special needs.

Others announced candidates:

Iain Maclennan (National Health Action) - a local doctor
Howling Laud Hope (Raving Loony)
Darren Procter (TUSC) - RMT Council of Executives member
Mr Mozzarella (Don't Cook Party) - stood in Corby too

Lib Dems are selecting tomorrow evening, and UKIP are announcing their candidate on Tuesday (there have been a couple of rumours regarding those two parties which would be utterly hilarious if true, but I doubt either is true).  Labour are selecting on Tuesday evening.

[YL]

The Lib Dem candidate is Mike Thornton, councillor for Bishopstoke West ward in the constituency.

I'd imagine this is a better choice than some big name from outside the area would have been.  Especially if the big name were a certain former MP for Montgomeryshire...

[YL]

Survation poll: LD 36%, Con 33%, UKIP 16%, Lab 13%.  Suggests less of a Lib Dem to Lab move than the Ashcroft one.

[YL]

What are the "safest" Lib Dem seats? 

The 12 seats where they had a lead of over 20% in the last election were:

Orkney & Shetland (clearly the safest by any criterion)
Ross, Skye & Lochaber
Sheffield Hallam
Bath
Westmorland & Lonsdale
North Norfolk
Yeovil
North East Fife
Ceredigion
Leeds North West
Bristol West
Twickenham

However, some of these can't really be seen as "safe".  Only 8 were won by the Lib Dems in 2001, and some may only be safe for their current incumbent.  Even Bath, held fairly comfortably by the Lib Dems since 1992, has never been passed on from one Lib Dem MP to another.

Compare with another list, that of seats held by the Lib Dems since 1992 (with obvious caveat about boundary changes):

Argyll & Bute
Bath
Bermondsey & Old Southwark
Berwick upon Tweed
Berwickshire, Roxburgh & Selkirk
Caithness, Sutherland & Easter Ross
Cheltenham
North Cornwall
North Devon
North East Fife
Gordon
Orkney & Shetland
Ross, Skye & Lochaber
St Austell & Newquay
Yeovil

[YL]

UKIP's candidate is Diane James, a councillor on Waverley District Council in Surrey.  According to the BBC article reporting that, there's also Jim Duggan of the Peace Party, who of course saved their deposit and so nearly beat the Tories in Middlesbrough.

[YL]

I see that UKIP have found another charming candidate:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/feb/12/ukip-candidate-immigration-romanian-crime

[YL]

So no Mr Mozzarella after all, but more than enough joke candidates without him.

No Green, but the NHA candidate has stood for them in the past and may still be a member.

[YL]

"Beer, Baccy and Crumpets" it's a stroke of genius. And my retirement plans.

Is that an intention to defect?

[YL]

Wessex Regionalists Colin Bex

Has stood in six general elections, going back to 1979.  Most recently seen challenging Cameron in Witney, after the Wessex Regionalists decided that Oxfordshire was part of Wessex.

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Serial by-election candidate, most recently in Corby, and general election candidate dating back to Tatton in 1997, usually under various registered descriptions of the registered political party called the Church of the Militant Elvis.

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Against gay marriage.  Google searches on the name find various hits related to churches.

[YL]

All That's Left profile of the constituency.  Includes local election maps, and a bit of history.

Eastleigh News interview with the Beer, Baccy and Crumpet Party candidate.  He claims Ed Miliband has been stealing his policies...

[YL]

Firstly the Tory has only recently argued that she's sent her son to private school because state education would be impossible to allow him to be a surgeon

Amusingly it turned out that the Lib Dem candidate's daughter went to a state school in Eastleigh and is now at university studying medicine.

[YL]

New Populus poll out (with changes from the GE)

33 (-14) - Liberal
28 (-11) - Conservative
21 (+17) - UKIP
11 (+1) - Labour

Anthony Wells of UKPollingReport makes some points about this poll.  In particular, there are a lot of "don't knows", and Populus reallocate some of them to their former parties.  This may lead to underestimating UKIP, and to a lesser extent Labour; apparently without the reallocation UKIP would have been on 25%.

[YL]

Survation poll: Con 33 LD 29 UKIP 21 Lab 13

Doesn't fit very well with the rumours and spin coming out of the campaign.

[YL]

Apparently there's another Ashcroft poll coming out tonight.  According to Mark Pack (a Lib Dem blogger) the numbers are LD 33 Con 28 UKIP 21 Lab 12, which is almost identical to the last Populus poll.  (AIUI Ashcroft's polls are actually done by Populus.)

[YL]

I'm still expecting a Lib Dem hold, in spite of Rennard.  If the Tories win then their expectation management has been remarkably good, and while I think UKIP might perform better than the poll numbers they'd have to do so by quite a lot to win.

[YL]

I think someone should start a Twitter rumour that the Wessex Regionalists are going to pull off a shock win.

[YL]

Guardian live blog on results:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2013/feb/28/eastleigh-byelection-results-live-blog

[YL]

Pretty bland report on BBC just now.  Lib Dems apparently "cautiously optimistic".

Some people on Twitter are suggesting LD hold with UKIP second.

[YL]

So roughly how long until we see the results?

There's talk of 4am.

[YL]

LabourList again:

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[YL]

Five minutes to the result, apparently

[YL]

As expected, LD hold, UKIP second, Con third.  Majority about 1800.