Eastleigh By-Election

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Apparently all by-elections in Eastleigh must have utterly hilarious causes.

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Anyways, this is essentially one large swathe of dull-and-comfortable middle class Southampton suburbia (and includes the Rose Bowl). Saying that, the town of Eastleigh itself has a railway history and used to be more working class than it is now, while Hamble-le-Rice (essentially a yachting settlement) is properly posh. The LibDems are totally dominant here in local elections, which is weird these days but is the one thing that (presumably) gives them hope.

The constituency has shrunk in size a lot due to population growth, but it started life in the 1950s as a marginal Tory seat and turned - as slices of ever-more-middle class outer post-war suburbia tended to - into a safe one by the 1970s. It was then a seat with voting patterns as boring as the place was itself (large but not utterly vast majorities over the Alliance in 1983-1992 etc) until the bizarre death of Stephen Milligan in 1994. As Oscar Wilde said, you'd need a heart of stone not to laugh. This dark hilarity happened when the Major government was less popular than venereal disease and the result was a by-election humiliation in which the Tories crashed to third and the seat was lost to a LibDem with the mildly absurd name of name of 'David Chidgey' who won by miles. Chidgey nearly lost in 1997 as the seat briefly looked a bit three-way-marginal-ish (it was that kind of year), but held on a tad more comfortably in 2001. On his retirement in 2005, Chris 'The Fringe' Vrrrrooooom won by a tiny margin, which he increased to something respectable (though not large) in 2010. And we all know what happened next.

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But have a look at 2010: they had a much larger lead in the borough elections than Huhne did in the big ticket fight.

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Lord Ashcroft has money to burn. And here's the results of doing so:

Con 34%, LDem 31%, Labour 19%, UKIP 13%

Take with appropriate levels of salt.

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That the latter won't happen is truly tragic.

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On paper, over time or in terms of presumed reality? In all cases the safest is Orkney & Shetland though. Followed (for at least the first two and probably all) by whatever absurd name Charles Kennedy's seat goes under these days.

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Some on the 20% list may not even be safe for their current incumbents, not with the way things have worked out lately. Even truer of the second list; most are palpably vulnerable, and then you have Gordon and Argyll & Bute which already look like goners (with the only vague possible salvation being voter confusion leading to split votes and freak holds).

Which is why LibDems should not be so blasé in the face of 'support halved since 2010' polls. They may well hold up better in seats they hold, but that might not actually make much of a practical difference.

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The main thing to remember about those islands (both groups of islands) is how remote they are. Firstly because you then have a degree of insulation from things going on elsewhere (so perhaps making it easier for Liberal Party genepool support to remain with the Liberal Party, though it would be a mistake to make too much of this), but also because there's a certain logic in supporting a particular individual who can get things done and who is free to be seen to be doing so. Both of these points lead us to Jo Grimond. Party loyalty (of a slightly odd type) via personal domination of politics. This can be inherited, to an extent. Votes will be lost, but not all of them and the seat can be safely passed to new candidates. Lost votes can then be regained (as the new MP shows himself to be equally good at getting things done, etc) and the cycle doth continue for ever and ever.

Montgomery Liberalism was based on something similar (though this was only apparent to people who know Mid Wales). And then they pissed it away, perhaps forever.

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The Labour shortlist is...

John O'Farrell - Labour candidate in Windsor & Maidenhead in 2001. And, perhaps more to the point, a well-known writer and broadcaster notable especially (in this context) for that unique political memoir Things Can Only Get Better.

Darren Paffey - Southampton City Councillor (for Peartree; a very much former LibDem stronghold). His day job is as a lecturer at Southampton Uni.

Sarah Rabbitts - a 'communications professional' and former BBC consultant.

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No, not racist at all...

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Labourlist reports that John O'Farrell has indeed been selected as the Labour candidate.

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Would suggest that getting all anally legalistic would not be such a clever idea for the LibDems in this particular by-election.

Anyways, hopefully O'Farrell continues to troll throughout the campaign.

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Yes, it's a fairly classic case of taking things out of context. Particularly odd in this case as the book is quite well known (at least amongst political types) and has been in print for a while.

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It's a bit... surprising. Might reflect organisational weakness in the borough?

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Seems like Labour should be trying harder; had they done things right, they should have been competitive here with the LDs and Conservatives about even. 28% in the 1994 by-election would put them tied for second at the moment and within striking distance.

Alternatively it could be argued that Labour as threw the kitchen sink at the seat in 1994 (there were other by-elections on the day but all in safe Labour seats) and still only managed 28%, why bother? Especially as things are much harder for Labour in that kind of area in general (prosperous boring post-war southern suburbia) than they were in the mid 90s. There's also the specific issue that Labour's former base in the constituency (as unimpressive as it was) has been eroded away to nothing and that there have been no signs of a proper recovery in local elections. Labour's financial position is better than it was a few years ago, but still isn't great. There are, actually, some seats where Labour polled very badly in 2010 but that might be worth a go in a by-election, but Eastleigh was never one of them.

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How seismic an event would it be if UKIP did win?

Roughly as much as the classic Liberal by-election victory of years gone by. In other words vast amounts of frenzied speculation and fevered commentary, but, in the end, a pretty low number on the Richter scale. And the victor would have a no better than 50/50 shot of hanging on at the General Election.

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and then there's also one Berwick-upon-Tweed in october 1944 that a Liberal won against only an independent candidate.

The victorious Liberal being none other than William Beveridge. He was not an MP for long...

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Well, I was first to warn of a potential UKIP "Bradford West" situation--now, imagine if Farage were the candidate...

He rarely comes across very well, so might actually have been tougher for them.

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No, it's Southampton suburbia, not London suburbia.

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Labourlist

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Grauniad

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Four.

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Lowest winning percentage in a by-election since... er... hang on...

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Yeah, lower than Hillhead in '82.

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Lowest winning percentage in a by-election since universal suffrage. No. Since universal male suffrage.