NORWICH RESULT – LIB DEMS THIRD
July 24th, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized by Julian Harris
Disappointing, perhaps. This fits in with the current narrative on the Tories – a decent result, but still under 40%. Minor parties continue enjoying post-expenses boom.
Numbers:
Conservatives 13,591
Labour 6,243
LDs 4,803
UKIP 4,068
Greens 3,350
Murray (Ind) 953
Percentages:
Conservatives – 39.5%
Labour – 18.2%
LDs – 14.0%
Greens – 9.7%
UKIP – 11.8%
And the swings:
Labour to Conservatives: 16.49%
LD to Conservatives: 4.25%
Labour to LDs: 12.24%
Conservative majority:
7,348
In other news – both Stevie Gerrard and Amy Winehouse have been found not guilty.
July 24th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Yes & the UKLP got a whopping 36 votes
The Moster Raving Looney Party got more votes
ha ha ha ha ha!
July 24th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Not too bad a result IMHO. The main aim was to see off the Greens in one of their strongest seats in the country. Mission accomplished on that score.
July 24th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Ziggy – at least they took part & had the guts to take part in the democratic process – fair play to them.
July 24th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
I posted the following over at Charlotte’s site:
An independent Libertarain electoral machine just isn’t a viable project. At least not at present – nor indeed for many years to come. The number of people who will choose to vote LPUK as opposed to any of Tory, LibDem or UKIP is just microscopically small.
I’m not prone to ridiculing those who are brave enough to participate in the electoral process. But there are some results that are so bad, you have to ask if you’re wasting your time. This result fits into that category.
July 24th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Mark – not a good one either (result)given the collaspe of the Labour vote – some should have come to us. I expected us to at least hold our own & advance a couple of %.
The Green vote is not a ‘hard’ vote yet, but they must be gutted not to have moved forward into the teens in one of the few areas in the UK where they have a sizeable number of Councillors.
July 24th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
‘An independent Libertarain electoral machine just isn’t a viable project.’
Yeah
‘The main aim was to see off the Greens in’
Prefer the Greens over the the UKLP any day
July 24th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Oh there is some good news for the Lib Dems
Seems Harry Potter is a supporter
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/harry-potter/5898428/Harry-Potter-star-Daniel-Radcliffe-grew-up-surrounded-by-gays.html
July 24th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Given the relative difference of media time between UKIP and the LibDems (or the Greens for that matter), I think it’s a remarkable result for UKIP and a pretty poor one for you lot.
The LibDems should have made a breakthrough here and been challenging for second place. Why didn’t you?
July 24th, 2009 at 10:47 pm
The Monster Raving Looney Party got more then double the vote of the UKLP maybe the LP should consider a merger & call themselves The Looney Libertarian Party it would be an apt description.
July 25th, 2009 at 6:32 am
@Michael.
I think it’s a very good result for UKIP. I wouldn’t go so far as to say “remarkable”. It could still be their backwash from their Euro election result. If they can turn the backwash into lasting support, that’s interesting (e.g. average more than 5% in the General Election – last time I think they got about 1.5%)
I don’t think the result is “pretty poor” for the LibDems. It’s evident that we were “challenging for 2nd place.” Ok, we didn’t get second place – but we were CLEARLY challenging for it. This is a Labour-Conservative marginal – with an extensive range of “other” options on the ballot paper. To hold our vote share in such circumstances is, in my view, wholly acceptable. The interesting thing is that the Greens came fifth. I think they came FIRST here in June.
@Greenfield. I agree. I don’t think you can really call it a good result. In the last Parliament, we did occasionally jump from third to win by-elections. But that was never remotely likely here.
@The World in general. If we spent £100,000 on this by-election, it wasn’t money well spent. The FE does need to ask itself if this is an acceptable use of resources. That would equate to spending about £35 for every additional vote we secured (given we would have got some votes just by paying the deposit and putting a name on a ballot paper). This was in a seat where coming third was probably the height of our ambitions. Maybe a distant second for the massive optimists. And that sum doesn’t include the “human resource” time of volunteers, including our party’s own Shadow Cabinet members. LibDem MPs’ time should be rated at at least £100 an hour – and Shadow Cabinet members at least twice that. This may – yet again – be New Hampshire levels of spending in a party without New Hampshire style budgets.