OLD and SAD

I offer a few thoughts on the Oldham East & Saddleworth by-election, which Labour held with 14,718 votes (42.1%) against the Lib Dems with 11,160 (31.9%) and the Tories on 4,481 (12.8%). Phil Woolas’ narrow win at the general election – by 103 votes – was nullified by the court to which defeated Liberal Democrat Elwyn Watkins appealed, alleging that a Labour leaflet libelled him. Many were surprised at the court’s finding but an appeal by Woolas was denied so he faced the inevitable and stepped down.

The by-election was therefore precipitated by the Lib Dems to whom it fell to move the writ, They cannot complain if the actual timing of the vote – in the week that VAT went up – did them no favour. Elwyn Watkins, who told everyone prepared to listen that he funded his action against Woolas himself, has nothing to show for it.

Elwyn Watkins, no more an MP than is Phil Woolas

Labour have enjoyed their win but resisted the temptation to big it up. Andy Burnham’s cautiousness – “it would be wrong to read too much into it” – has been echoed generally. This is wise. Like Barack Obama, Ed Miliband has elected to play a long game and to ride out squalls and party impatience along the way. That The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail have both steadily ratcheted up their criticism of Miliband until it has fallen little short of vitriol demonstrates that their proprietors take him seriously and fear that he will indeed be Prime Minister in, at worst, four and a half years.

Miliband’s cool evidently comes naturally to him. Douglas Alexander (who ran the leadership campaign of Miliband’s brother David) has said that equanimity is Ed’s great quality, that after a (for Labour) triumphant Prime Minister’s Questions Ed is the least excited person in the room and after a rough ride at PMQs Ed is the least disheartened. It seems to me that this is a great strength.

Debbie Abrahams, Labour's new Oldham MP – or is it Lily Tomlin?

As always with by-elections, the losing parties are putting out as constructive an account of it as they can. Lib Dems loudly point out that their vote was actually higher than at the general election (by less than one per cent) on a rather smaller turnout and that predictions of meltdown (evidence for such predictions being thin on the ground) were wide of the mark. It’s clearly the case that Watkins was boosted by tactical voting among regular Tory voters. But it’s also evident that hitherto soft voters for both the Tories and the Lib Dems moved right over to Labour, which had a higher vote than at the 1997 general election (within a slightly different constituency boundary).

It has been widely alleged that the Conservative campaign was deliberately low-key in order to help the Lib Dem. Tory spokespeople uniformly refute this. That must mean, then, that the combative and ambitious campaign that they say they conducted was an arrant failure. They can hardly have it both ways. Tories rationalise it by pointing out that they were “always” third in this seat and that by-elections characteristically squeeze third parties. If so, they would be better to argue that they soft-pedalled the election because they expected to be squeezed, thereby more credibly acknowledging what so many asseverate, that for all the cabinet member visits to the constituency (not least that of David Cameron) they were not exactly fighting to win.

Miliband: something to chortle about

Both sides of the coalition also blame the result on the policies that they are obliged to pursue because, as they aver every day, Labour left the country’s finances in such a mess. The argument that it is all Labour’s fault has evidently had some traction and Labour have not countered it as angrily and persuasively as they might. But if the electorate were persuaded that the government is indeed following the best policies for dealing with the national deficit, they would not be voting against the coalition. If the government’s theory that the populace must bear some “pain” for the economy to be brought round were accepted by the populace, the coalition would not be lagging in the opinion polls. In reality, Miliband’s pressure on the issue of city bonuses is touching a nerve in the electorate, who begin to remember phrases like “the Tories’ friends in the city” and see no evidence that George Osborne’s mantra that “we are all in this together” bears any resemblance to actual government policies which, they perceive, hit the most vulnerable and the least Tory-supporting the hardest. My prediction is that Labour will keep their opinion poll lead for a very long time, perhaps through the next general election.

By the by, the next by-election will be at Barnsley Central where Eric Illsley has stepped down after admitting illegality in his expenses claims. Labour will certainly retain the seat but it will be fascinating to see how the Tories and the Lib Dems play that contest. At the general election, the Lib Dems came second, the Tories third. The margin between them was just six votes ...