The Rochester and Strood details can be found elsewhere. The most worrying part of the outcome is that in a campaign which (apart from the Liberal Democrats) all contenders vied for the title of "most beastly to foreigners" the most extreme policy of forced repatriation - repudiated by his party leader! - was proposed by the UKIP winner.
The other disturbing by-election result was closer to home, in the Uplands ward of Swansea City. On a turnout of 20.9% the winner was ex-Conservative, ex-Liberal Democrat, "Children Need Fathers" campaigner Peter May standing as an independent. The detailed figures:
Independent 671
Labour 553
Janet Thomas, Welsh Lib Dem 215
Green 179
Independent 158
Tory 154
Plaid 104
Socialist 31
Independent gain from Labour
Dispiriting though it is that Janet Thomas failed to regain the ward for the party which put Swansea back on its feet in 2008, and lost only in the national anti-coalition swing in 2012, it must be even more frightening for the Labour Party. If their well-funded and union-backed machine can be defeated by a one-man band, and this still linked in the minds of local electors with anti-Labour politics, then their Swansea West MP must be under threat. If their failure to hold the ward is a result of disenchantment with their national leader, then the implications for Labour nationwide are grim.
2 comments:
'The most worrying part of the outcome is that in a campaign which (apart from the Liberal Democrats) all contenders vied for the title of "most beastly to foreigners" '
That would be the Liberal Democrats who are, and have been for over four years, propping up a government that is beastly to foreigners.
I would point out that it was pressure from Liberal Democrats which ended the scandal of the UK's interning refugee children. There were and are other restraining influences on the Tories.
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