Friday 4 March 2011

Barnsley by-election - the good, the bad and the ugly

BQ will no doubt have his own take from within the House later on. However, the are 3 big themes emerging from this very low profile Barnsley by-election:

1. UKIP came 2nd - and in many ways deservedly, the ECJ has gone nuts recently with a raft of costly, unnecessary and frankly pointless judgements that play into the hands of politically correct jobsworths across our Country. People are noticing this and there is only one party in the UK that is even trying to change are relationship with the EU. However, in a few weeks this splurge of 'news' will die off and with it UKIP's support.

2. The Tories came 3rd and seem very unpopular. Everyone is against the cuts, everywhere. I would expect a Northern Town will high unemployment and a state-only economy to not like 'em; but really the Country has lost the sense it had before the election to realise that things have to change. For the Tories they need to they can hold the Coalition together for another few years and hope they can persuade people to come to their senses.

3. The Labour Party will take all the wrong messages from this win - which could be ugly for them. However, the Lib Dems are finished. A week is supposedly a long time in Politics, but where do they go from here; they finished 6th!

12 comments:

Budgie said...

Turnout 37% I am told - so no party should read these tealeaves.

"... hope they can persuade people to come to their senses." People have. Those that always would oppose "the cuts" still do. Those like me who would support them find that the Tories have cut and protected completely the wrong things. If they really are cuts anyway.

In any case top down cuts made by the ignorant will be evaded by the departments. As well the departments are often doing pointless work because they have been instructed to do it - by the politicians.

The EIO; the EU's "green" policies; more money to the EU; DfID protected but armed forces decimated; carriers with no aircraft; existing carrier and Harriers scrapped; BBC not sold off. On and on it goes: the wrong people, the wrong departments, the wrong policies. No wonder the Tories have lost support.

Anonymous said...

Re: #2

I apologise if I've written this here before but I honestly don't think that the general public HAVE lost the sense that things have to change, but I do think it's yet another example of a good opportunity of "reform" (ergh!) being purposefully derailed by people with authority.

Councils, unions, and "interest groups" have been wailing like banshees over the cuts being forced on them, but the thing about the cuts none of them (or the main-stream media) will even approach is that no-one is forcing them to make front-line cuts. Everyone knows where money is wasted, everyone knows who has non-jobs and everyone knows where superfluous layers of management are. The trouble is, the non-jobbers and superfluous management are exactly the people who decide where the money goes when it’s handed to them from central government, so the turkeys are hardly likely to vote for Christmas are they?

Bill Quango MP said...

There does seem to be a coordination problem. When Labour say too, far too fast, they are half right.
Too fast.

The defence cuts were one example. Axing the helicopters? The aircraft carriers are a big problem, but the solution didn't look very good then, and less good now.

Yesterday the DWP axed giro payments made by the post office.
A daft idea for the sake of about £2 million.
The government is currently "committed to preserving and strengthening the network, privatising Royal mail, and .." blah blah.

One hand promises, the other cuts.
So the police, the military, the mail, who wanted a change of government are being pushed into Labour's camp.

It was expected to be tough. But not tough and stupid. If you want stupid, badly targeted cuts you can get that from labour.

Bill Quango MP said...

In the canteen its seen pretty much as the press are reporting, except that the blues aren't much bothered about losing in Barnsley.
Yellows are terrified its all over, with good cause.
Trouble is both their top team have been badly damaged. And Laws isn't back yet, and he's damaged too.
Who speaks for the Lib Dems? Simon Hughes probably, but he's not likeable enough.

Labour are very pleased with themselves. But this isn't Christchurch. Its just a rock solid old. Why they are pleased is they believe they have 4 or 5 million Lib dem votes coming their way in 2015.

That would put them back in power for a decade.

Anonymous said...

To summarise last night's result

andrew said...

It is the economy stupid.

If people feel better off by the next election (no matter the reality), the Lib/Cons win.

If it all looks a bit rocky, you could always answer the west lothian question

Bill Quango MP said...

Its always good to have a secret weapon in reserve.
Labour and Tories liked to dangle an extra bank holiday. Before that it was extending drinking hours.

I was amazed Brown took so long to cuddle up to the libs. Labour had been 10pts adrift in the polls for most of the previous 4 years. Yet there was no strategy for a LIB/LAB compromise.
He even had the option of declaring
troops home from Afghanistan, but chose standing next to Obama.

So..West Lothian probably won't help too much for Dave. Those celtic votes are the ones he needs to win.

James Higham said...

About time the Lib Dems were consigned to the dustbin of history.

Anonymous said...

The Tories lost seats because of votes to UKIP in the general election, and lost votes because of the unpopular liberal A-listers.

Now that reluctant Tory voters have seen the alliance of the radical pro EU side of the Tories and the nutjob LibDems they will lose even more votes to UKIP in the future.
At least until they change leadership, at which point the public will be fooled for a while again.

andrew said...

Point of information :

Looking at wikipedia on english seats gives

Party Seats %
Lab 190 35.45
Con 297 55.41
LibDem 44 8.21
Other 5 1.12

536

apologies for the formatting, but it makes the point.

Anonymous said...

Just to be clear, and cut through some of the bull being put out by both sides: there are no cuts, just reductions in the rate of increase in spending.

Y Ddraig Goch said...

RE: andrew and the wikipedia data above.

I'm a bit late joining this discussion but can anyone explain to me why the Conservatives aren't enthusiastic supporters of devolution, or better still, flat out independence for Wales and Scotland?

What's the downside?