Bradford West by-election - 29th March

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Did anyone turn out in the suburban part of the constituency? Looks like the Tower Hamlets mayoral election.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Swings are kind of meaningless when minor parties are involved.

What can this huge upset be attributed to?

Galloway's campaign was focused on Afghanistan and related issues and it appears that this was a sort of protest vote over that.

There have been some vague hints about certain other things already, but they would only have had an impact on the margin (rather than the result as such) and it would be better if we avoid mentioning them.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

As a minor point of trivia, only two constituencies recorded swings to the Tories in 1997: Bethnal Green & Bow and Bradford West. Both have now been represented (if that's the right word and I'm fairly sure that it is not) by Galloway.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

So yeah, that election was historic. I guess what we should be considering is why, in a largely forgotten by-election the turnout was so high and the result was so suprising. There are of course a 'variety' of explanations are there not?...

Indeed there are, but as the Honourable Member for Bradford West has a liking for gentlemen who take silk, it would be for the best if further speculation on this matter is kept as cursory as possible.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I think only total anoraks remember Crosby.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

With regards to a possible by-election in Hodge Hill, Byrne is not exactly guaranteed the Labour nomination and if there are concerns about a possible repeat of this that would count against him (to put it mildly). He's not very popular with Party members in general, though it might be different in Brum itself.

Yaqoob, though, has supposedly retired from politics on health grounds.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Well even Brent East didn't change much outside of Brent. Boosted LibDem poll ratings for a month or two and that was about that.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

George Galloway tweet, reported from another place:

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[Filuwaúrdjan]

According to Sky News, Galloway has blamed that on a hacker.

lol

[Filuwaúrdjan]

He seemed like a strong candidate on paper, at least according to the usual theories of what sort of candidates play well in places like this. He also gained his seat on the council on a large swing back in 2006. It's fairly clear that he wasn't actually a good candidate in practice; I noticed about halfway through the campaign that he didn't actually have a website, which is not a good sign these days (but didn't really think anything of it, obviously). It's also fairly clear - and I think we can say this - that there was a degree of personal abuse (much of it connected to a claim that he isn't a proper Muslim and drinks alcohol, etc) directed at him during the campaign.

Other things... there have been all kinds of rumours about key people locally switching their support in the last few days. I don't know how true this is. I do know that there were a lot of old men with beards in some of the Galloway victory photos. It's possible that Hussain may have done something to piss them off, but that's just baseless conjecture.

One problem we do have is that the only national journalist following the campaign when it was actually happening is an unethical piece of sh!t who's copy must be automatically viewed as suspect.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

In retrospect it would have been better to have stitched the shortlist in favour of Afzal Khan (who is, whatever else can be said of him, certainly a pro), but then there might have been other issues had that happened.

One thing I do wonder is how long Galloway had been planning to run here. Marsha Singh has been seriously ill for some time and there had been rumours of a pending by-election here for at least six months.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

If he laid the groundwork for this campaign early - and it doesn't sound impossible - then Bradford Labour must be incredible incompetents to not have noticed.

Membership patterns in Bradford are certainly quite strange. Bradford South (which shows some of the signs of a well-organised CLP, at least in terms of electoral performance at various levels) has a very low membership, for example.

Or, rather...

Bradford Labour got burned really badly by biradari stuff from the mid 90s until the 2005-2010 parliament. It's possible that a decision was made that a decision was made that Asian members should look after things in Asian areas.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Some random conjecture based on reading some reports and rumours and making two plus two equal about thirty five: it's possible that Hussein lost votes to Galloway at both ends. He seems to have upset younger Muslims through not turning up to certain events and sounding like a tool at others and there are now quite a few rumours of the usual old guys switchings support in the last week; perhaps this happened precisely because he had already bled those other votes? A desire to maintain/create the appearance of communal cohesion?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

That would make sense as well.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yes, it would be useful. It would also be nice to see what the actual patterns of the postal voters were (and that's part of the same demand, in the end).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I guess one of the problems in not selecting Imran Hussain would have been a sort of civil war within the CLP by his cheerleaders.

That's what I meant by 'other issues', yeah. Especially as there had been that sort of trouble in this very constituency before.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I guess one of the problems in not selecting Imran Hussain would have been a sort of civil war within the CLP by his cheerleaders.

That's what I meant by 'other issues', yeah. Especially as there had been that sort of trouble in this very constituency before.

Frying pan, meet fire.

Well, quite.

Of course now that what's happened has happened... well... if I had my way I'd stick Bradford West CLP under Special Measures and start swinging around with a hammer... er... bad taste in the context of a constituency that includes both Manningham and the suburb in which Sutcliffe lived in, perhaps.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

RIP

Not exactly a surprise, of course. Also, it seems as though the BBC no longer knows what 'majority' means in British political language.