Eastleigh By-Election

[bore]

Ceredigion and Gordon at the last election were lib dem/plaid and lib dem/ SNP

and english seat?

Buckingham as well.

Speaker seeking reelection hardly counts.

Yeah, I was being far more pedantic than necessary there. I can't think of another English seat with two minor parties in the top two though.

[User157088589849]

Ceredigion and Gordon at the last election were lib dem/plaid and lib dem/ SNP

and english seat?

Buckingham as well.

Speaker seeking reelection hardly counts.

Yeah, I was being far more pedantic than necessary there. I can't think of another English seat with two minor parties in the top two though.

Can UKIP win without any press backing?

[minionofmidas]

Someone else check the general elections, but for byes you have to go back to the wartime burgfrieden by-elections in Liberal seats. Technically there was one in Middlesbrough West in may 1945 that was uncontested, and then there's also one Berwick-upon-Tweed in october 1944 that a Liberal won against only an independent candidate.

[MaxQue]

burgfrieden?

[minionofmidas]

burgfrieden?

It's what they called the same thing in Germany during WW I. Though by-elections were still held, the parties-that-mattered didn't contest each other's seats.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

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.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

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...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

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.

[User157088589849]

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.

Agreed

I think the female candidate is helping UKIP and she has said very reasonable things.

Farage is an interesting character as people listen to him, agree with him but he can sometimes overstep what he's saying and in campaign that could be deadly. The press would have given him unrealistic expectations and gone after him as UKIP have no press backing.

[Gary J]

General election result with neither Conservative or Labour in first or second place (excluding the Speaker's seat, which is usually uncontested by the three traditional national parties and presumably also Northern Ireland).

I suggest that the most recent examples were the single member University seats in England and Wales, in the 1945 general election.

For the University of London, the seat was won by Sir E.G.G. Graham-Little over Mrs M.D. Stocks. F.W.S. Craig classified Graham-Little as National Independent (an Independent MP from 1924, who had supported the National government from 1931 until 1940, and who was presumably backing Churchill in 1945) and Stocks as Independent Progressive (indicating an Independent candidate with both Labour and Liberal supporters). None of the three largest parties nominated a candidate.

The University of Wales seat was a straight fight between Professor W.J. Gruffydd (Liberal) and  
Dr Gwenan Jones of Plaid Cymru. Gruffydd had first been elected in a war time by-election and was re-elected in 1945.

There may be a few more recent Liberal (Democrat)/Nationalist results in Scotland and Wales than have been already noted on this thread, but for a territorial constituency in England I think the criteria could only be met before the Second World War.

There are instances in the early inter war years, for example Bethnal Green South West in 1924 (Liberal, Communist and Conservative candidates finishing in that order - the Communist was the Labour MP elected at the 1923 general election, but the Labour Party had since excluded Communists from receiving Labour nominations).

[Leftbehind]

Can UKIP win without any press backing?

It has plenty of press backing.

[Gary J]

General election territorial constituency results, in England, with neither Labour or Conservative in either first or second place (excluding the Speaker's seat).

I have checked all the results from 1929 until 1945.

The most recent instance, in a contested election, was Isle of Ely in 1931. The Liberal candidate defeated someone described as an Independent Agricultural Protectionist. The Labour candidate came third and no Conservative was nominated.

There were also a number of unopposed returns from 1929, where the MP was not either Labour or Conservative.

1929 Liverpool, Scotland (Irish Nationalist).

1931 Newcastle-under-Lyme (Independent Labour), Eddisbury  (National Liberal), Bodmin (Liberal), St Ives (National Liberal), Eye (National Liberal)

1935 Eddisbury, St Ives (both National Liberal)

[minionofmidas]

Thanks Gary!

[freefair]

Out of interest, I'm currently holding offers from the Universities of London AND Wales.
In fact, here Present Constituencies of the Universities that are offering me a place, with top 2 parties in each...
Colchester- LibDem/Tory
Loughborough- Tory/Labour
Runnymede and Weybridge- Tory /Libem
Ceredigion- LibDem/Plaid
Norwich South- LibDem/Labour
Like other posters have said, In Wales and Scotland it's common for Nats and Liberals to be in the top 2 or 3 in many seats.

[User157088589849]

Out of interest, I'm currently holding offers from the Universities of London AND Wales.
In fact, here Present Constituencies of the Universities that are offering me a place, with top 2 parties in each...
Colchester- LibDem/Tory
Loughborough- Tory/Labour
Egham- Tory /Libem
Ceredigion- LibDem/Plaid
Norwich South- LibDem/Labour
Like other posters have said, In Wales and Scotland it's common for Nats and Liberals to be in the top 2 or 3 in many seats.

Don't go to loughborough. the town is being destroyed as the council are refusing to lower business rates and shops are vacating by the truckload. In the last 6 months, 24 shops on the high street have left thats 14% of the highstreet in the town centre according to loughborough echo.

the university has just gone through massive redunduncies in human resources, IT and the university is focusing more on phd students and the business/research side. Staff morale is extremely low and if your looking for a part time job well good luck with that.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Holy Word special

[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.)

[You kip if you want to...]

Any final predictions?

32%
26%
22%
13%
7% for the others.

[Dr. Cynic]

Any final predictions?

32%
26%
22%
13%
7% for the others.

I get a feeling that the Lib Dems will win, but the margin might be closer than that.

[LastVoter]

Does Eastleigh receive a lot of white flight from London?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

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

[You kip if you want to...]

The BBC have got This Week anchoring the live by-election coverage after Question Time (as usual) 11:35 - 2:30 on BBC1 and BBC News.

The first time the BBC has bothered putting anything remotely 'special' on for a by-election since Oldham East I believe.

I won't be near a TV/Laptop tomorrow now, so being the sad person that I am, I'm iPlayering it first thing.

[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.

[You kip if you want to...]

The idea of UKIP in second is really gaining steam today I notice.

I don't see how the PM's backbenchers could live with that. If Labour are winning seats like Corby, then the Tories need seats like Eastleigh to make up for it or they may as well resign and let Ed Miliband form a government today.

They can't afford to be seen as getting a hammering tonight, but no doubt if they do, it'll be Labour's (admittedly poor) result that their spin will be focusing on.

[You kip if you want to...]

Wow, you can tell they're a bit worried: