Oxford by-election
- Thread starter Matt S
- Start date
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
That strikes me as a sentence containing more rhetoric than content.rednblack said:
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
I deny that the sentence has any meaning.
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
If one takes out the loaded terms one is left with the punctuation and little else.
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
What's a "wanabe"?
Fisher_Gate
Active Member
It is now nearly 3 weeks since the by-election and still nothing on any of the three relevant websites of the IWCA (national, Oxford, Blackbird Leys - http://www.iwca.info/, http://www.iwca-oxford.org.uk/, http://www.bliwca.fsnet.co.uk/).
Not even just the results, with a holding statement that an analysis will be forthcoming or something. The Oxford IWCA website main article still says they are on course for taking more seats! Talk about shoving things under the carpet!
They can't use the excuse that they've all been on holiday, as two of the websites have updated news stories (the Blackbird Leys website has an article about funding dated 30 July, and the national website has an article about Islington dated 5 August).
So, one must presume that the IWCA don't want to tell people about the result, which I find difficult to understand for a party that wants to be "a clean break with the past" (http://www.iwca.info/about/decind.htm).
The actual result was significant; the swing compared to the same seat in 2004 was 18% from IWCA to Labour; IWCA vote went down by 17%, Labour vote up by 19%. Catastrophic, in what in their own terms is called a 'stronghold' http://www.iwca-oxford.org.uk/news/news0011.htm.
Now, by-elections can be strange things and the main political parties can swamp areas. But I don't think this is an adequate explanation for this major reversal in IWCA fortunes. If this were to have happened to Respect, say in Lavalette's seat in Preston, then the boards would have been full of forebodings of 'the end of Respect' for weeks.
What the result indicates is that the IWCA vote is very soft - nearly half of it deserted them. I think there are several explanations, but one that hasn't been mentioned so far is their fetishisation of 'working class' - in its social meaning rather than political one. The Labour Party played them at their own game and stood a well-known 'working class' candidate. Against this the IWCA vote crumbled as they don't have political answers to most issues.
It gives me no pleasure to see the IWCA trounced, but I think both that and the dismal Green vote makes the case stronger for Oxford Respect's decision to put forward its case and contest seats against both parties in the 2006 local elections.
I await an IWCA rebuttal.
Not even just the results, with a holding statement that an analysis will be forthcoming or something. The Oxford IWCA website main article still says they are on course for taking more seats! Talk about shoving things under the carpet!
They can't use the excuse that they've all been on holiday, as two of the websites have updated news stories (the Blackbird Leys website has an article about funding dated 30 July, and the national website has an article about Islington dated 5 August).
So, one must presume that the IWCA don't want to tell people about the result, which I find difficult to understand for a party that wants to be "a clean break with the past" (http://www.iwca.info/about/decind.htm).
The actual result was significant; the swing compared to the same seat in 2004 was 18% from IWCA to Labour; IWCA vote went down by 17%, Labour vote up by 19%. Catastrophic, in what in their own terms is called a 'stronghold' http://www.iwca-oxford.org.uk/news/news0011.htm.
Now, by-elections can be strange things and the main political parties can swamp areas. But I don't think this is an adequate explanation for this major reversal in IWCA fortunes. If this were to have happened to Respect, say in Lavalette's seat in Preston, then the boards would have been full of forebodings of 'the end of Respect' for weeks.
What the result indicates is that the IWCA vote is very soft - nearly half of it deserted them. I think there are several explanations, but one that hasn't been mentioned so far is their fetishisation of 'working class' - in its social meaning rather than political one. The Labour Party played them at their own game and stood a well-known 'working class' candidate. Against this the IWCA vote crumbled as they don't have political answers to most issues.
It gives me no pleasure to see the IWCA trounced, but I think both that and the dismal Green vote makes the case stronger for Oxford Respect's decision to put forward its case and contest seats against both parties in the 2006 local elections.
I await an IWCA rebuttal.
>>It gives me no pleasure to see the IWCA trounced, but I think both that and the dismal Green vote makes the case stronger for Oxford Respect's decision to put forward its case and contest seats against both parties in the 2006 local elections.>>
Judging the strength of the city wide Green vote by a result in Blackbird Leys is like judging the strength of the national Labour vote by their loss of a deposit in Cheadle. i.e. silly and statistically meaningless.
Matt
P.S. And, despite the fact that the IWCA have not had a good run of results, if RESPECT get even within touching distance of them on the estates I will eat my own shoes.
Judging the strength of the city wide Green vote by a result in Blackbird Leys is like judging the strength of the national Labour vote by their loss of a deposit in Cheadle. i.e. silly and statistically meaningless.
Matt
P.S. And, despite the fact that the IWCA have not had a good run of results, if RESPECT get even within touching distance of them on the estates I will eat my own shoes.
Fisher_Gate
Active Member
Matt S said:
I meant in working class council estates - I fully accept that the Green vote (and seats) are strongest in different areas. What I am saying is that despite the City-wide strength of the Greens, they obviously do not represent an effective challenge to new Labour in working class heartlands in Oxford. And from this by-election, we can see the IWCA vote is ephemeral, suggesting there is a desire for an alternative but not lodging it firmly with the IWCA.
Don't worry - I don't expect Respect to win more than 5% of the vote on its first outing, so I don't think you need worry about getting a new pair of trainers yet!
montevideo
New Member
rednblack said:whats that got to do with anything?
do you deny that middle class liberal politicians and wannabe politicians will always sell out/betray/attack the working class in the end?
surely you mean:
do you deny that all politicians and wannabe politicians will always sell out/betray/attack the working class in the end
Divisive Cotton
Now I just have my toy soldiers
Fisher_Gate said:
So what's the fucking point then? Jesus. Lets come last! What wonderful rallying cry.
Fisher_Gate said:
Well it is the summer.
And this is quite a significant reverse (and I think their first?). It could well be they are putting some time into working out just what went wrong. If the conclusion points at some fundamental part of their politics / organisational method I'd expect it to take some time for a coherant response to appear.
That said your right that putting the actual result online and a holding statement would have seemed the logical thing to do.
Fisher_Gate
Active Member
Divisive Cotton said:
Little acorns, little acorns ...
Anyway this is a thread about a significant setback for the IWCA ... and a massive swing to Labour which is quite out of character for the current period.
past caring
The Cathars were right
I think you'll find that's not the subject of the thread at all. 
Fisher_Gate
Active Member
JoeBlack said:
No. Its the second reverse this year:
Blackbird Leys By-election 5th May 2005
Rae Humberstone The Labour Party Candidate 969 Elected 50.0%
Kelly Marie Webster Independent Working Class Association 566 29.2%
Stuart David Hand The Conservative Party Candidate 176 9.1%
Nathan Pyle Liberal Democrat 172 8.9%
Susan Elisabeth Tibbles Green Party 54 2.8%
Blackbird Leys 10th June 2004
Lee Craig Cole Independent Working Class Association 494 Elected 43.8%
Partick John Stannard The Labour Party Candidate 415 36.8%
Ian Corthan Bearder Liberal Democrat 92 8.2%
Patricia GM Jones The Conservative Party Candidate 91 8.1%
Doanld Martin O'Neal Green Party 36 3.2%
Swing IWCA to Labour = 13.9%
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
Or you could look at it that their vote's gone up by 72 despite a revival by the Labour Party.
People are drawing very large conclusions from a very small amount of statistical evidence.
People are drawing very large conclusions from a very small amount of statistical evidence.
Fisher_Gate
Active Member
past caring said:I think you'll find that's not the subject of the thread at all.
Okay - the thread's about a council by-election in Oxford where the main contenders were IWCA and Labour. The IWCA got thumped and there was a massive swing to Labour - now are you satisfied? (and I'm called pedantic ...)
My analysis of this, for what it is worth, is close to Donna's - basically, the IWCA vote has stayed relatively firm, but the Labour Party have responded to their threat with a massive upsurge of activity in an area formerly taken for granted - hence their much greater success in getting out the vote in two by elections.
Positives for the IWCA are that these were both byelections, and Labour will not be able to concentrate their resources so much in the 2006 citywide elections - and that Labour are at least finally paying attention to an area that was so long taken for granted. Negatives are obvious - it is demoralising to lose three elections on the trot.
Matt
Positives for the IWCA are that these were both byelections, and Labour will not be able to concentrate their resources so much in the 2006 citywide elections - and that Labour are at least finally paying attention to an area that was so long taken for granted. Negatives are obvious - it is demoralising to lose three elections on the trot.
Matt
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
Mind you, unless I'm miscounting the turnout overall seems to have just about doubled. What's that about?
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
Yeah, but everybody's vote went up.
past caring
The Cathars were right
Donna Ferentes said:
eh? The by-election just gone; total votes cast = 1083
June 10th 2004 by-election; total votes cast = 1128
If you're comparing with the by-election held on 5th May this year, there were particular factors which increased turn out on that day, not the least of which was the general election.
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
Yeah, I was taking the byelection from post #78.past caring said:
Fisher_Gate
Active Member
Donna Ferentes said:
Yes, the second election in Blackbird Leys ward was the same day as the general election, hence the higher overall turnout. So I compared proportion of votes in calculating swing, as is standard practice in electoral calculations. There were two ballot papers so it would have been perfectly okay for voters to vote (say) Labour in the General and a protest vote for the IWCA in the local (it wouldn't have changed the balance of power on the council).
I'm not convinced in either by-election that the IWCA maintained its vote, while Labour merely got their's out, which seems to assume that only Labour voters abstained on the occasions when the IWCA won the seats.
In Northfield Brook:
2004 - IWCA got 555 votes, turnout 30.3%
2005 - IWCA got 300 votes, turnout 26.1%.
Increased Labour turnout is not an adequate explanation for the change, some hundreds of voters switched from IWCA to Labour.
Well in terms of votes the following happened
IWCA went from 555 to 300 (-255)
Labour from 439 to 592 (+153)
Lib Dem 89 to 141 (+52)
Tory 90 to 31 (-57)
Green 61 to 19 (-42)
There were 149 less voters in total.
Reasonable to assume that the IWCA lost 100 odd votes to Labour?
IWCA went from 555 to 300 (-255)
Labour from 439 to 592 (+153)
Lib Dem 89 to 141 (+52)
Tory 90 to 31 (-57)
Green 61 to 19 (-42)
There were 149 less voters in total.
Reasonable to assume that the IWCA lost 100 odd votes to Labour?
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
Fisher_Gate said:
Where's your evidence for this FG? What you have posted to date is just conjecture; and rather odd conjecture given your earlier posrting that seemed to say that Respect would be happy with a vote less than on fith of the IWCA's losing share of the poll. With the resources Labour put into the most recent by election (daily door stepping by the MP, regional as well as city wide resources deployed in regular mass canvassing, black propaganda and 'squeezing' the OAP accomodation vote) it seems at least as reasonable to believe that Labour got its vote out while we filed to do so; indeed on another board the suggestion was made by an Oxford IWCAer that some of their supporters thought that victory was in the bag.
Also given the delight with which both Labour and Liberals greeted the result, plus the belief by those on the ground that effective collusion against the IWCA had taken place between those two parties, what we might be witnessing is Labour learning from the 'unity' tactics it has used elsewhere to take on the BNP.
So all in all not a great result for the IWCA, but one which there is potentially a great deal to learn from; as our candidate Delvise summed it up in a short text the following morning: ‘Chin up mate. We’ll win next time.’
Cheers - Louis Mac
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