Sundry thoughts on the Oldham by-election

As I have not commented on the Oldham by-election of last Thursday, just about everything that could be said may well have been said and I can imagine that a number of readers will fade out at this point. I, on the other hand, think that there are one or two points that are worth making.

First off, there was the extraordinary jubilation by Corbynistas and people who think they are cleverer than anybody else among the wider commentariat (not the same group, as it happens) because the result, according to them, proved that Corbyn is enormously popular with the electorate and his stance on Syria is supported by the country at large. In fact, next stop Number 10, if you listen to some of these people.

It is highly unlikely that anybody voted on Thursday on the basis of what they thought about a debate on Wednesday but it is possible that some voted because of Corbyn's reasonably well known attitude to extending the war on ISIS to Syria (nobody knows his attitude to the ongoing war against ISIS in Iraq, after all). It is, however, hard to argue that the retention by Labour of a very safe Labour seat with a smaller vote and smaller turn-out than the General Election proves anything very much except that .... ahem .... Oldham is a safe Labour seat.

Jim McMahon got 17,209 votes against Michael Meacher's 23, 630 in May but because the turn-out was 40.3 per cent against 59.6 per cent, his share of the actual vote cast went up from 54.8 per cent to 62.1 per cent. None of it, the retention of the seat or the lower vote and turn-out is anything but politics as usual and tells us nothing about Corbyn's appeal to the electorate of this country. The Conservatives did fairly badly, the Lib-Dims and the Greens appallingly. Let us turn to the only party for whom this result was an unexpected disaster: UKIP.

Given the results of the Danish referendum, the shift in German opinion about the euro and the French regional results where the Front National, a vaguely eurosceptic but definitely anti-establishment party is projected to win 40 per cent of the vote, it is pertinent to ask why on earth UKIP cannot manage to do better.

This question is of great importance in view of that party's desire to take a leading role in the forthcoming referendum campaign. They will not get the lead position and the attendant funding from the Electoral Commission as they are a political party but the intention often voiced by the Dear Leader and his attendant acolytes is to play a major part, particularly in North where, we were told not so long ago, Labour had betrayed the working class and a new party is needed. Some of the comments made in that article were unwise, especially two days before a by-election but then UKIP and its leader are given to unwise comments and to premature boasting. The truth is that the chances of UKIP taking Oldham from Labour were close to zero. What is so appalling is that they did not even manage to come a good second. The 2.8 per cent increase in the vote share is down to the lower turn-out. In fact, John 6,487 votes, fewer than Francis Arbour in May (8,892) and 10,722 fewer than the winner. Not a good sign of UKIP establishing itself as the leading party in the north or among the supposedly betrayed working classes anywhere.

I have been told that UKIP for some reason paid no attention to the postal voters and did not organize a significant campaign among them. If so, that was a grievous fault. The Dear Leader's comments about possible fraud because of the high level of postal voting may be written off as sour grapes but, in fact, it raises an important issue: extensive and unnecessary postal voting is open to fraud and there have been several cases when that was proven. If UKIP have evidence they should definitely take it to court. The suggestion that the voter fraud is particularly virulent in Oldham because of the ethnic make-up of the constituency is a slightly more difficult issue and one that needs a great deal more proof than Our Nige has managed to provide.

As so many times before we need to ask that question: what next for UKIP? The Labour party that proved absolutely nothing in Oldham can look after itself. But what of UKIP? Will they stop boasting and making self-satisfied statements about their position and campaign (not at the moment but likely to start again next week)? Will they rethink their main message, which has been concentrating more on immigration of all kinds (and that alone muddles issues) instead of the EU? Will they consider getting rid of their Leader for more than three days as he is not leading them anywhere near victory?

Mark Reckless keeps his seat

What with builders working on the back wall and having to read the huge first volume of the latest mammoth biography of  Stalin by Stephen Kotkin in a fortnight when London Library will demand it back, I have found it hard to work up any kind of enthusiasm for the tale of the People's Army's latest recruit who seems to be under the impression that there has been a "real revolution" going on in this country since that day in September when he left the Conservatives to join the aforementioned People's Army. Nor have I been particularly interested in the sad tale of the stupid Labour MP (ex-Cabinet member) who tweeted some kind of an insulting picture and comment about the driver of a white van. (I think I have that right.) If you are that stupid you should not be in politics at all, unless you happen to be defending your seat in a by-election under a different flag against a couple of underwhelming candidates though the Conservative one seemed to be more underwhelming than anyone else. Given that she was an idiot who called for a boycott of Israel (does she actually know what that would entail?) and was generally hopeless at every occasion, she did not do all that badly. The expected 15 per cent margin for UKIP did not materialize.

Reckless kept his seat by 2,920 votes, that is 42.1 per cent of the total vote cast in a turn-out of 50.67 per cent against the Conservatives' 34.8 per cent. Tchah! Stalin used to get 99.8 per cent. Now that's what I call popular support.

The Boss has a highly entertaining rant analysis on the whole subject, which is well worth reading, as always. He points out quite fairly that the new UKIP (ex-Conservative) MP is not the brightest person in the House of Commons and has already been caught out in a number of stupid and ignorant comments, particularly, needless to say, to do with immigrants and their status.

Now that UKIP has two MPs the question of whether they understand whereof they speak will become important. It will no longer be sufficient to produce another picture of our Nige drinking beer or wine and grinning happily into the camera. The media might finally start asking about policies and wondering about certain contradictions in them. There will also be, I can confidently predict, a certain tension between the Dear Leader and the two MPs who will now be the obvious sources of information about UKIP and its policies (or some version thereof).

Meanwhile, the BBC, the Telegraph and, indeed, everyone else has quoted Nigel Farage as saying that this will mean dozens of UKIP seats in the next Parliament. The Telegraph, curiously, predicts a nice round number instead of the dozens but then they also predict a sizeable Labour majority, which is not indicated by the opinion polls, all of which show Labour merely 3 or 4 points ahead, a statistically negligible figure while the Thornberry saga and their poor performance in the by-election must give their strategists somewhat gloomy thoughts. In fact, if the Conservatives abandon their candidate in Rochester and Strood and find someone more intelligent (though it is not clear that intelligence is of any interest to the voters of that constituency) they stand a good chance of taking it in May.

The Dear Leader is also quoted as saying (something we have all head recently) that "if you vote UKIP you get UKIP" in response to baseless (in this case) accusations of voting UKIP will get you Labour. In Rochester and Strood voting UKIP got you Mark Reckless, exactly as voting Conservative in 2010 did.

Somewhere in the long continuous Telegraph update there is a mention of some hack asking Douglas Carswell (the previous recruit to the People's Army) about the possibility of more Conservative MPs defecting to UKIP. He snaps crossly that he is completely uninterested in what the Conservatives (his friends and colleagues until August) intend to do. That would indicate that he does not think there will be any more defections as Reckless's victory is not big enough to encourage any more of them.

The Lib-Dims did particularly badly, getting 0.87 per cent, that is 349 votes; they were easily overtaken by the Greens with 1,692 votes, that is 4.22 per cent and another lost deposit.

It is worth noting that in 2010 when Mark Reckless won as a Conservative, the turn-out was 64.9 per cent and Reckless's majority was 9,953, that is he won by 20.7 per cent.

Another earthquake

Oh, I beg your pardon: this time it is an "electoral storm cloud" gathering over Westminster, according to Paul Nuttall, UKIP Deputy Leader. [scroll down]

Well, as predicted Douglas Carswell for UKIP overturned the Consevative majority held by Douglas Carswell and when he is introduced to the House on Monday (by whom, one wonders) he will now sit on the Opposition benches. I am rather looking forward to Mr Carswell calling for British jobs to be saved for British people, an end to "austerity" and an immediate referendum, not to mention appeasement of Russia.

Here are the results in full, for anyone who has not seen them yet:

Douglas Carswell (UKIP) 21,113 (59.75%) Giles Watling (C) 8,709 (24.64%, -28.38%) Tim Young (Lab) 3,957 (11.20%, -13.84%) Chris Southall (Green) 688 (1.95%, +0.71%) Andy Graham (LD) 483 (1.37%, -11.57%) Bruce Sizer (Ind) 205 (0.58%) Howling Laud Hope (Loony) 127 (0.36%) Charlotte Rose (Ind) 56 (0.16%)

UKIP maj 12,404 (35.10%)

Electorate 69,118; Turnout 35,338 (51.13%, -13.05%)

A very clear victory for Mr Carswell, who replaced the UKIP nominee for this very purpose.

And here are the results for Heywood and Middleton, also very good for UKIP:

Liz McInnes (Lab) 11,633 (40.86%, +0.75%) John Bickley (UKIP) 11,016 (38.69%, +36.06%) Iain Gartside (C) 3,496 (12.28%, -14.88%) Anthony Smith (LD) 1,457 (5.12%, -17.59%) Abi Jackson (Green) 870 (3.06%)

Lab maj 617 (2.17%)

17.65% swing Lab to UKIP

Electorate 79,170; Turnout 28,472 (35.96%, -21.57%)

David Cameron has already warned the country that a big UKIP vote will bring in a Labour government, which is probably true but unlikely to be a problem for UKIP and its supporters, given their recent policies. If anything, they might consider Ed Miliband to be a little too liberal in his views and not nearly socialist enough. After all, he has not called for the renationalization of the Royal Mail.

The Boss is his usual gentle self.

A crucial day in British politics?

To some extent, we can argue that if Douglas Carswell manages to hold Clacton this will be of some importance as he will be the first elected UKIP MP in the House of Commons. There is a little too much hyperbole around with Carswell himself quoting Henry V and urging "team Clacton" to defeat the "Westminster machine". That, I presume, would be the Westminster machine that he was a fairly successful part of until about two months ago and the one that helped him to win Clacton in the first place and to hold it in 2010 with a very good majority. The Westminster machine that, in short, helped to place him into the position he is in now: a man who may well become the first elected UKIP MP.

Nothing wrong with that, one might say. All is fair in love, war and politics, which is war by any other name. He used the machine then when he decided for whatever reason that he wanted to go beyond it he did so and continued to use the benefits he had been given by that machine. Hardly the first politician to do so in the long history of British politics. Most of them, one has to admit, ended badly though not as badly as losers have done in other political structures.

One elected MP, at least until May, is not going to make that much difference: Westminster has managed to survive individual rebels before and even new parties (the highly successful Labour Party, which by the stage of its history that UKIP has reached was forming its first government, springs to mind). Nor has it been unknown for MPs to change parties and fight seats under different banners. If Churchill could go from Conservative to Liberal and back again, I see no reason why Douglas Carswell should not be able to.

What I find slightly disconcerting is the hysteria around this particular by-election. Admittedly, UKIP has not been particularly successful in Westminster politics, having had one MP in the past who had not bothered to call a by-election and lost his seat in the General when he stood under his new banner and having three Peers. Nevertheless, the idea that today will be as important in British politics as Agincourt was in the Hundred Years' War between England and France is more than a little fatuous.

My own prediction for what it's worth is that Carswell will keep Clacton until the General Election and will lose it then; UKIP will do fairly well in the other by-election today though the seat will remain Labour; and Reckless, when his turn comes, will lose his seat. That will be of greater import, as the likelihood is that he will split the vote and let in a Labour MP, which event will concentrate Conservative minds and even the minds of those who think having an IN/OUT referendum is the aim of our fight.

As UKIP moves left it acquires another right-wing Tory MP

Honestly, I was not going to blog about the UKIP (or any other party) conference but I did note that some of their policies meant that they have now morphed from the Conservative Party circa 1955 to the Labour Party circa 1955: big government, high taxation, do not touch the NHS, slap higher VAT on so-called luxury goods, tighten planning laws, introduce protectionism and appease Russia (that's Labour post Ernie Bevin). Apparently, this is done from the entirely non-politician-like idealistic principles of trying to grab some Labour voters who might be dissatisfied with no longer having the Labour Party their grandparents voted for. Of course, a good many people whose parents and grandparents voted for that old version of the Labour Party then proceeded to vote for Mrs Thatcher's Conservative Party because they no longer knew their place in life but UKIP seems to have forgotten that.

Yet it is not left-wing socialists who are joining UKIP (well, not any high-profile ones) but supposedly right-wing Tories. Mark Reckless, another well-known liberal (in the real sense of the word), free-mareketeer, small government, low taxation etc etc politician has just announced that he is joining UKIP and is stepping down as an MP for Rochester and Stroud (a seat that, I am told, had been stitched up for him previously, though I am not sure what that means exactly).

In May Mr Reckless proclaimed joyfully that the party now felt reasonably happy about things and was calling for an IN/OUT referendum (which, supposedly, is Conservative Party policy) and calling on Mr Farage to "to declare his hand: is he ready to thwart Tory candidates who will deliver a referendum, and instead allow a Brussels-loving Labour Party to rule?". To rephrase slightly the Weill/Anderson September Song:

But it's a long, long while from May to September.

I assume that all notions of local democracy and open primaries will once again be jettisoned and the local UKIP association will be forced to fall into line and select Mark Reckless as their candidate. Then we shall see.

What exactly will he and what exactly does Douglas Carswell campaign on: higher taxes, tighter planning laws, appeasement of Russia, fear of foreigners taking jobs? None of that sits well with their previous political pronouncements. Perhaps, they have simply changed their minds on every political issue (apart from wanting to be MPs) and this seemed the simplest way or making it clear to the electorate.

As of this moment the Boss has not commented on Mr Reckless and his behaviour (everyone has cracked that joke so I am not going to). As soon as he does I shall add a link.

UPDATE: The Boss has spoken and he is unimpressed.

Well, that's that then

The Conservatives won Newark with a halved but comfortable majority on a turn-out of 53.79 per cent. UKIP well enough but did not produce that political earthquake they have been promising and Roger Helmer will have to stay in the Toy Parliament, not a prospect that worries him all that much, I imagine. The Lib-Dims have continued their tale of woe.

The Boss in his inimitable fashion points out something interesting that UKIP ought to ponder over:

The comparison is between Newark and Eastleigh. On a near identical turnout (52.79 – 52.8 percent), Helmer got 10,028 votes, taking a 25.9 percent share of the total. At Eastleigh in February 2013 – only just over a year ago, Diane James got 11,571 votes, taking 27.8 percent of the total.

Looking forward into the muddy mirror of future predictions, one can say that this is a hopeful sign for the Conservatives (as were the local and Euro elections). Their vote has held, they have won a by-election a year before the General when the turn-out will be even larger and the fact that UKIP has done reasonably well though it is a long way from nipping at their heels may well concentrate their minds in the months to come.

Can we now all get back to real work? Thank you.

"Small earthquake"

Curiously enough, Nigel Farage, the Great Helmsman of UKIP, seems to be more rational about his party's achievement yesterday than many of the members and even the media whose endless repetition of the words UKIP and surge hide the fact that actually it did not go very far.

Mr Farage, on the other hand, is uncharacteristically modest in today's Evening Standard. Having in the past predicted repeatedly an earthquake in British politics caused by his party and throngs of Conservative MPs joining his party, on the day after UKIP had achieved its best result in a by-election, their Leader merely predicted an earthquake in next year's European elections.

By this, I assume he means that UKIP will come first among the parties. That is not unlikely as they came second last time.

All the same, a sitting MEP of some experience ought to know that even if UKIP wins every single British seat in the European Parliament (an inherently unlikely scenario) it will not make a scrap of difference to anything that happens in that body or in the European Union as a whole. He has said this frequently himself in that speech he has given up and down the country.

What was that headline Claud Cockburn invented: "Small earthquake in Chile. Not many dead."

So where are we?

The Eastleigh by-election has confounded everybody, particularly the experts. I am rather glad I made no prediction and, indeed, took little interest. For, in the end, it is not a make-or-break by-election though things will go badly for a while for Cameron and his team, particularly Grant Shapps.

So here are the figures: turn-out was higher than we have been used to in by-elections at 52.8 per cent. The Lib-Dims, whose vote collapsed in the last several by-elections held the seat easily with 13,342 votes, down considerably from Chris Huhne's 24,966. Second: UKIP, for the third by-election, with 11,571 votes, third Conservatives with 10,599 and it is the Labour vote that collapsed: 4,088. As the Boss says in his far earlier posting (he actually stayed up being that kind of a person):

Mike Thornton's vote of 13,342 votes compares with Chris Huhne's 24,966 in 2010, yet Thornton talks of a Lib-Dem "mandate", having dragged in pitiful 32 percent of the votes cast, and 17 percent of the electorate of 78,313. UKIP's great victory amounts to 28 percent of the votes cast, or 14.8 percent of the electorate.

I am not sure this tells us anything new. People are not turning out to vote for any of the candidates (a spectacularly unexciting lot in Eastleigh) for a number of reasons.

The fact that this time the Lib-Dims held on to the seat after a number of catastrophic results while the Labour vote collapsed not only confounded those experts who said that the party was finished but shows a somewhat scatter gun approach by the electorate. We can draw no conclusions for the next General Election , which is two years or so away.

As for UKIP, despite their achievement in coming second yet again (and as late as 1 am last night Farage was saying that we may well see the first UKIP MP) they are now in no-man's land. Still no seat in Westminster, still not getting more than just over a quarter of the votes cast, still not achieving the position in political life, as opposed to the media they ought to have. Their plan to become the third party after the Lib-Dims has fallen by the wayside through the latter's victory in Eastleigh and they cannot pretend that they are the second party in the country with no MPs and very few councillors. So, despite the undoubted rejoicing in the UKIP ranks and despite the nauseating plaudits that will be heaped on the Dear Leader, the fact remains: after 20 years and in the most propitious circumstances they remain, as I say, in no-man's land.

For those who are interested

The Telegraph is doing live updates of the Eastleigh by-election. The suggestion is that the Lib-Dims, those who were about to implode according to all experts, will win with a majority of thousands rather than hundreds and UKIP might come second though that is not certain. The BBC calls that a virtual victory. It is nothing of the kind. In politics if you don't win you lose and it is long past the time UKIP can rejoice at not losing badly. Oh and this is not the most important by-election for generations.

Playing with the big boys

The Eastleigh by-election has proved to be even more boring than the usual run of such events. None of the candidates are of the slightest interest and the rather squalid scandals that surround some of the parties remain of little real interest to anyone except election geeks.

There is a whisper going round that UKIP might do very well, indeed, and a "surge" is being reported on the doorstep. Of course, a surge on the doorstep is not necessarily a surge in the polling booths, which is the only opinion poll that matters in real life. Still, after twenty years in existence, with a great deal of media coverage (of the Dear Leader if not necessarily the party) and a propitious political situation, it would be pleasant to see some kind of an electoral result on UKIP's part.

As I have pointed out before, the Labour Party at this stage of its growth was four years away from its first government (albeit a short-term minority one).

In the meantime, some of the UKIP boys (no girls so far) have decided to play with the big ones and to set up their own site to rival ConHome and Labour List, called The Ukipian. I have a feeling that there have been such blogs in the past but this is the one that is set, according to the two founders, to do well and to grow and grow.

There is an article in The Commentator that introduces the site and explains the need for it:

This Thursday, UKIP looks set to achieve its best ever result in a Westminster election. Yesterday, Channel 4 News’ Michael Crick tweeted that he thought the party could “pull off a surprise victory in Eastleigh”, and with the polls standing as they are, there’s every chance that he could be right.

In the last 12 months, we’ve witnessed the Party rise to the very forefront of the British political scene and in turn UKIP has gained a significant increase in press coverage. This is largely testament to the unwavering dedication of Nigel Farage, Paul Nuttall, and other party officials getting out there and spreading UKIP’s common sense policies on a new and unprecedented scale.

UKIP will celebrate its twentieth birthday this year and naturally suffers the occasional growing pains felt by all that go through the process of developing into maturity. Criticism of UKIP has often been prejudiced and unfair but occasionally right in highlighting some of the challenges that the party has yet to overcome. As UKIP continues to professionalise and develop into a mature political force, it’s crucial that the voices of its members and activists remain heard. Although the party is young, the vast wealth of experience and wisdom found within its ranks is spread generously throughout its membership.

As an unofficial collaborative blog run by UKIP members, The Ukipian aims to provide a platform for those within the party who won’t necessarily ever get the opportunity to appear on Question Time or the Andrew Marr Show, but whose views and ideas are as intriguing, valid and relevant as any other within the party.

Some of that is true and some not so much and a good deal the usual political guff. Naturally, there is praise being heaped on the Dear Leader and his henchmen. On another thread I pointed out that they cannot really be taken seriously as a rival to the other blogs until we see some criticism of the Dear Leader to which one of the founders solemnly replied:

Unlike the Tory Party, UKIP is currently led by a Leader delivering record poll ratings and election results. That's hard to criticise.

My question as to the election results and what they have actually won so far has elicited no reply so far.

Let us have a look at The Ukipian. A suggestion that Lord Ashcroft should drop metro Dave for conservative Farage, an article that promotes grammar schools (a nice idea but probably out of date), Margot Parker (not totally sexist after all) on needing to protect British jobs, several "reports" from Eastleigh that can be disregarded until the results come through tomorrow, Tim Akers banging the anti-Bulgarian and anti-Romanian drum, and so on.

Should they not do as well in Eastleigh as they expect, will there be any criticism of policy, strategy or of the Dear Leader? We shall see.

By-election coming up in Eastleigh

Gosh! Can't wait. The excitement is .... getting ..... to me ........zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Conservatives are favoured at the moment, I understand, but who knows what the turn-out will be? Will the winner manage more than 10 per cent of the electoral vote? Will UKIP manage to muster a reasonable number of votes? They ought to be able to do so in Eastleigh but that means nothing. Anyway, there we are. The news that the bones of the last Plantagenet King have been definitely identified is far more exciting even to someone who is genetically and behaviourally disposed to political nerdery.

The Sod Off Party wins again

Let's face it, the Sod Off Party has won handsomely in all three by-elections yesterday. The turn-out was not the lowest ever but pretty low, the tendency, especially in Rotherham, to vote for small parties, regardless of their politics, the rejection of two main stream parties (especially the Lib-Dims) all point to a general feeling of fed-upness (oh yes, there is such an expression). What none of it points to is an acceptance of UKIP, though they did better than many expected, as the obvious opposition party. Nor do the results point to a widespread acceptance of their policies or of the eurosceptic point of view. In the end, we have what we had before, three Labour MPs from three Labour constituencies, elected on a tiny mandate but with no-one near enough to touch them.

The BBC has all the figures.

Those results in full

Wikipedia gives the full results of the Bradford West by-election. A 50 per cent turn out is lower than that in the general election but is, nevertheless, very high for a by-election in an urban area. I should like to know what proportion of that was not people turning out but using the infamous postal vote system.

There is no question about it: Galloway's victory is spectacular though to call it the most important political victory in British history is hyperbole of the most ridiculous kind. So far as anyone can make out there was a combination of dissatisfaction with the main parties and the internal politicking of a particular minority group. The event is not a happy one for Labour, who were convinced that the seat was theirs (no harm in them learning otherwise) and according to Guido Fawkes, the recriminations and calls for purges have started already. And so I should think.

As it happens, I do not agree with the Boss on EURef: there is no evidence so far that this was a wide-spread "real" rebellion but a refusal by a certain group of people to look beyond their own community and their own so-called leaders. Galloway has benefited from that unofficial apartheid, which has become too settled in some parts of the country. The result may be unpleasant for the main parties but can be dismissed because of that after the initial soul-searching is over.

Had it been UKIP winning the rebellion would have been real and worrying for the political establishment. Alas, UKIP has increased its share of the vote but has not saved its deposit or managed to beat the Lib-Dims. So, that's that. No winners except for the unspeakable Galloway and his friends, the Imams of Bradford West. Whether they or the Muslim community there will benefit from this result is very questionable.

Galloway is back in the Commons

It seems that Galloway has won in Bradford West. The BBC story gives no details. I don't think the people of that constituency will get much out of it - when Galloway was Respect MP for Bethnal Green he was hardly ever seen in the House of Commons.

Press Association looks at things skew-whiff

To be honest, I am not that bothered by the Bradford West by-election though the results (including the turn-out) will be moderately interesting. However, I was slightly surprised by the story that Press Association put up this evening.

Polls have closed in the Bradford West by-election with eyes on how badly voters might punish the Tories after a fraught week for David Cameron and the Tory-led coalition Government.

Labour went into the day as overwhelming favourite to retain a seat that Marsha Singh - who has stood down due to ill-health - held with an increased majority of 5,763 when the party lost power in 2010.

But the contest was given extra spice by anti-war maverick George Galloway's bid to repeat his 2005 feat of snatching a seat from the party that expelled him.

Word is now that Galloway might have won in which case it is not the Tories were being punished. Even if he comes a close second to Labour, it will still not be the Tories who will be punished. Even if the Tory vote collapses, Galloway's votes will be taken from Labour.

Feltham by-election

The results, out earlier than expected because there were so few votes to be counted, confirm much of what this blog and EURef, as well as others, have been saying. Labour held the seat, as was expected. Turn-out was 28.8 per cent, the lowest in 11 years. That is not a good sign for anything.

Results as listed by the Guardian:

Seema Malhotra, a former adviser to Harriet Harman, retained the seat for Labour after a swing of 8.56% points from the Tories.

Malhotra increased Labour's majority from 4,658 to 6,203 when she won with 12,639 votes. Mark Bowen, the Conservative candidate, came second with 6,436 votes. Roger Crouch, the Liberal Democrat, fought off a challenge from the UK Independence Party to hold third place with 1,364 votes. UKIP won 1,276 votes.

Labour majority is 6,203, which is, weirdly, higher than the 4658 it was in 2010. On the other hand, the low turn-out does not exactly show that the voters of Feltham and Heston are enamoured of the Labour Party, though Ed Miliband remains safe for the time being.

Certainly, we have seen no sign of the voters being so very pleased with Cameron's performance in Brussels but, I suppose, it is possible that they have heard nothing about it in Feltham. The only party that must be reasonably happy are the Lib-Dims as they stayed in third place, if only just.

Conversely, the most disappointed party must be UKIP who were set to beat the Lib-Dims as recently as last week. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that UKIP has done badly for one reason only: their astonishing inability to confront the Boy-King of the Conservative Party over the non-veto of the phantom treaty. Accepting the man's word and semi-supporting him was a ridiculous idea. I wonder who thought of it.