Dunfermline and West Fife by-election, 9 February

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Neither LibDem or SNP candidates could be accurately described as being strong methinks. Both parties will have to at least give the seat a try though; the SNP's reputation for being a terrifying by-election machine took a huge knock in Livingston and *especially* Cathcart, while a bad showing for the LibDems might well kill off Ming The Merciless's chances of becoming leader...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

That's right, people might think "hey, he can't even win in his home county"... uninformed people that is.

Pretty much; Dunfermline is a long way away from St Andrews after all... and it's not like they have much to do with each other...
he'd actually be more likely to have an "effect" if there were a by-election in Perth...

*Early* prediction; Labour poll about 40%-ish, other parties all put at least a bit of effort into it and split pretty evenly.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Interesting; but Dundee is quite a way from Dunfermline and I don't know if he'd be well known there at all. IIRC he wasn't exactly high profile (at least while he was an M.P. Don't really follow Holyrood much to be honest...).
Probably a better candidate than those picked by the LibDems and Tartan Tories though.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I've heard rumours that while the LibDems *are* putting a fair bit of effort into this, it's to beat the SNP for second place rather than take the constituency.

Ah, I see that Dick Rodgers is running... I remember his leaflets from the Euro elections... now they were funny

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yeah, I'd heard about the first two... most interesting is the turnout rumout. A very low turnout is probably the only way Labour loses; there just aren't enough SNP or LibDem votes in most of the seat to win with even a fairly low turnout...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Something like 500 people turned up for a memorial service for Squire in Dunfermline Abbey: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4678890.stm

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Labour 'worried' apparently. That usually means they know they will win, but not sure how much by.

If the Scottish Labour Party is anything like it is down here then, yes, that's what it generally means. Good example is Hartlepool o/c.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Doesn't mean much; they always say that. Apparently both the LibDems and the SNP have released bogus "polls" to the media, showing each respective party as being close-but-not-quiteTM to winning

[Filuwaúrdjan]

How Catholic is Dunfermline (I know Scotland actually has accurate data on this sort of stuff so...)?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Hmm... oh well... how Catholic is it reputed to be then?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Source? All I've heard over the past few days is that Labour expect to win, but are worried about the turnout... the SNP and the LibDems are still claiming that they're "close... but not quite TM" to Labour (and I understand the usual "final push" bull**** emails have been sent out) but the record of both parties isn't exactly impressive when it comes to telling the truth over how well they're doing in a given constituency (and if not, I don't see an SNP M.P for Livingston or LibDem M.P's for Newcastle Central, Birmingham Perry Barr or that Dumfriesshire & Etc & Etc seat in southern Scotland).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I remember on General election night that the Lib Dems were claiming victory in Birmingham Perry Barr and they missed it by a mile. Pinch of salt I think .......

Yes... I remember that as well... I think my first reaction was unprintable but along the lines of "f***ing racist ****ing Brummie f***ers". Which I took back when it turned out to be untrue...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Reminds me of how a certain poster told me to take Windsor out of the Safe Tory column because the candidate was black .....

It would seem that the voters of Windsor were less racist than I'd assumed






...and not at all like people in a certain rich town beginning with "c"...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Any predictions? The winner will win... um... something... er... yes... something. The winner will win something.

===

Early indications from the postal votes are that Labour will hold the seat with a majority of 2 to 3 thousand. O/c that assumes that the people voting today will vote the way of the postal voters (and that's usually the case, within a certain margin of error. One recent exception was Birmingham Hodge Hill).
By the sound of various news reports, the gap between the LibDems and the SNP is pretty small...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Voting has been slow. It's been confirmed that about 6,700 postal votes were cast (up 35% from last time).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Heard some rumours (and that's all they are; totally unconfirmable) that the LibDems appear to be ahead of the SNP.
Polls close in less than an hour; we'll have *some* idea of the result pretty quickly, although the count will still take a while.

===
Predictions anyone?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Unless Scotland has different rules over this to anywhere else, polls have closed.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Andrew; is there Telly/Radio coverage of this in Scotland?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

O.K... please keep us informed when it's on...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Hmm... which parts of the seat have been counted?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Hmm... any more news?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Whats with all the 'hmms'?

Deep thought

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Hmm... starting to feel a bit depressed now...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Told you that it would be close

Oh I always had a sneaking feeling that this would be close... but I'd been thinking it'd be over the SNP rather than the LibDems (although given my views on the SNP this probably reflects a certain deep-seated pessimism on my part... still I guess this by-election shows how useful a local base can be). You'll note that I didn't enter in a prediction of my own...

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That's true... most of these informal guestimates are based on facial expressions or candidate leaking so it's never very accurate...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Bloody hell...