Labour imagining things in Feltham and Heston

On the night of December 15th, 2011, it was announced that Seema Malhotra had been elected as the new MP for Feltham and Heston and the newest member of parliament for Labour. This was a by-election that was caused by the untimely death of Alan Keen, who had been the MP for that constituency since 1992. There have been many tributes to him recently and he was well liked by much of the population that he represented.

As this was another Labour victory (to add to the likes of Oldham East & Saddleworth and Inverclyde), they have been saying that this is a sign that the country is not happy with the coalition and that it’s time for a change. However, there is so much more to it than that, as I will explain in the remainder of this blog post.

Photo taken by Dominic Campbell (Flcikr, CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike)

The past and present

Many people felt that this would be an easy win for Labour, right from the start – regardless of who was selected. The constituency is in an emotional state based on the loss of a long standing MP and they wouldn’t necessarily want to change parties. It’s also worth noting that other parties rarely have success in the area:

There was only two elections that didn’t result in a Labour victory and that was during the middle of the Thatcher era. This is unusual given the left wing feeling about the former Prime Minister.

What’s more interesting is that Patrick Ground increased his vote share based on a larger turnout in ’87. As you can see from the other winners, the vote percentages go down, regardless of the turnout. He must have been popular. I can only think he lost in ’92 because of what happened with Thatcher.

After that Alan Keen remained the consistent winner, despite a declining vote share. Interestingly, that vote share matches the time when the turnout decreased. I think there is a stronger Conservative feeling in the area than what the results show, but they’ve become apathetic over time. If more effort had been put in by the Tory campaign team, things might be different.

The results

These are the by-election results:

There’s a number of things to take not of here. First of all, Labour (as expected) won.

Secondly, their vote share went up significantly, but this was helped by the under-performing campaigns from the other parties, e.g. the Conservatives (even though they have a history in the area). The biggest decrease was suffered by the Liberal Democrats, but this is to be expected given their performance in opinion polls since they formed a coalition with a party on the other side of the political spectrum.

Next, despite the successes of the centre-left/left in this constituency, the Greens performed poorly. However, ever since they started campaigning here (the first time was in 2005), they have always finished behind prominent rightwing/far right parties. It’s either due to their perceived credibility on a national level, or the number of core supporters in the area. With inconsistent vote shares of 2.2%, 1.1% and 1.8%, it’s hard to tell which is the major factor.

The second biggest gain was earned by UKIP. This is unlikely to be because of the candidate or the campaign in the area. It’s probably because of the widespread feeling towards European politics at the moment. The EU is UKIP’s main area of interest.

The acceptance speech

The full acceptance speech can be found here. The following are extracts:

“This result is a great victory for Labour which shows the progress we are making under Ed Miliband’s leadership, a vote of confidence in the way Labour is changing, listening hard, winning back the trust of the people we seek to serve.”

“But this is also a wake-up call for David Cameron. This result shows how this Tory led government is totally out of touch.”

This is where you start to notice that Labour are imagining things. Malhotra says this is a sign of progress. Yes, the voting percentage went up, but the turnout was only 28.8% – one of the lowest for an general election or by-election. If the voters were that desperate to show the strength of support for Labour, the turnout would have been much higher.

She also uses the ‘Tory led government’ line. I just wish members of the Labour party would accept the existence of the word ‘Coalition’, instead of trying to distort the facts. Yes, the Liberal Democrats have been weakened in some key policy areas, but they can still have an effect.

Roger Crouch (the Lib Dem candidate) had this to say:

“We have shown that we are still resilient and still relevant”

Despite the big decrease in vote share, they remained third, beat an increasingly prominent UKIP and remained more popular than the far right. Their decrease wasn’t a huge amount more than the one the Conservatives suffered either.

Alok Sharma, a Conservative MP, had this to say:

“The British people just don’t think [Labour] gets it. [Labour’s] plan may be a Plan B but it is a plan for bankruptcy. This is a traditional Labour seat. Labour should be doing really well. We would expect them, in a standstill position, to be getting a swing of anywhere between 15% to 18%. Unless they do that they have gone backwards.”

Summary & Conclusion

It might be a Labour victory, but nothing has changed. Its not like they have gained a new seat. They haven’t done anything to increase voter turnout either. This result has done absolutely nothing to show that the people of Feltham and Heston feel that Ed Milinad is Prime Minister material. It’s certainly not a “wake-up call for David Cameron”.

So, what do you think?