The low turnout (aprox 15%)for the elections of the Police and Crime Commissioners perhaps was the headline which grabbed most attention in November’s days of elections; that and the underperformance of the Liberal Democrats.

1. Rachel Fairhead, Maidstone Grammar School for Girls
The November
By-Elections
The low turnout (aprox 15%)for the “with this result Manchester Central has sent this Tory-Lib Dem
government a message- a clear message that we think their policies
elections of the Police and Crime are wrong and unfair “ - Lucy Powell
Commissioners perhaps was the
headline which grabbed most attention The swing in the vote to Labour, the election of Manchester’s first
female MP and the Conservative candidate losing his deposit should
in November’s days of elections, that signal a real change in the fortunes of the Labour party, but aside
and the underperformance of the from the normal issues associated with by-elections the turnout was
Liberal Democrats. so low at just over 18% that to attach too much significance to the
result would be foolish. This low voter turnout has shocked some
The results of the Police and Crime Commissioner elections and John political commentators.
Prescott’s inability to secure a role were certainly headline worthy.
However there were other elections going on as well, initially three “I blame the electors. Four days after the nation remembered the
in Cardiff, Corby and Manchester Central. These by-elections came fight for democratic freedom the fact that only 18% of the voters
about a result of one Conservative and two Labour MPs resigning. of Manchester Central can be bothered to vote in a parliamentary
These were to be followed by another three in Croydon North, election- the lowest turnout in British Political history- that’s
Rotherham and Middlesbrough. shameful” - Professor Jonathan Tonge Of the University of Liverpool.
By-elections are used by the political parties to score points off their The Corby by-election didn’t wholly follow the same pattern. This
opponents. They can be used to argue that their party is in the time there was a higher turnout of voters (44%) However, the overall
ascendancy, or to argue that their opponents have lost the message result was the same with a Labour victory. Andy Sawford won the
or plot. However it can be argued that by-elections are not really that previously Conservative held seat by a majority of 7,791 votes. (The
accurate an indicator of how well, or how badly a political party are Conservative came second followed by UKIP in third place).
doing. They happen outside the normal cycle of elections, and voters
often use them to register a protest against the incumbent
government, only to reverse that protest at the next general election.
That being said by-elections are a valuable part of the political
calendar in the UK and are therefore worthy of some study.
In the Manchester Central election Lucy Powell became the first
female MP in Manchester. She managed to win 69% of the votes
cast which gave her a majority of 9,936 votes. The by-election came
about as a result of the resignation of Tony Lloyd (Labour) resigning
to stand as the Labour candidate for Police and Crime Commissioner
for Greater Manchester.
CANDIDATE PARTY VOTES
LUCY POWELL LABOUR 11,507 (69.1%)
MARC RAMSBOTTOM LIBERAL DEMOCRAT 1,571 (9.4%)
MATTHEW SEPTON CONSERVATIVE 752 (4.5%)
CHRISTOPHER CASSIDY UKIP 749 (4.5%)
TOM DYLAN GREEN 652 (3.9%)
EDDY 0’SULLIVAN BNP 492 (3%)
Nb Respect won less than the Pirate UK Party and the Trade Unionists
and Socialists Against Cuts.
The result showed a swing of nearly 17% from the Liberal Democrats
to Labour since the 2010 general election. It also looks likely that the
Conservative candidate Matthew Septon will lose his deposit after
winning less than 5% of the vote and only managing third place.
These headline figures do give some encouragement to the Labour
party and certainly Lucy Powell felt that the result should serve as a
warning to the coalition government.

2. Rachel Fairhead, Maidstone Grammar School for Girls
The November
By-Elections
(continued)
The Background to this election is different from the Manchester Croydon North
Central one. The former occupier of the seat Louise Mensch, who had Steve Reed (Labour) 15,898 (64.71%, +8.69%)
only been the MP for Corby for two years, stepped down to follow Andy Stranack (Conservative) 4,137 (16.84%, -7.28%)
her family to New York, despite her career being built on her “rising Winston McKenzie (UKIP) 1,400 (5.70%, +3.97%)
star can have it all status.“ Marisha Ray (Liberal Democrat) 860 (3.50%, -10.48%)
Labour were expected to win the by election, and they did so with a Shasha Islam Khan (Green) 855 (3.48%, +1.51%)
12.67% swing from the Conservatives. Lee Jasper (Respect) 707 (2.88%, +2.35%)
Stephen Hammond (Christian Peoples Alliance) 192 (0.78%)
Andy Sawford so this as an important victory for Labour but probably Richard Edmonds (National Front) 161 (0.66%)
‘gilded the lily’ by declaring the victory as historic. Ben Stevenson (Communist) 119 (0.48%, +0.17%)
“This result is a historic win for today’s one nation labour party…… John Cartwright (Loony) 110 (0.45%)
Today Middle England has spoken and they have sent a clear Simon Lane (9/11 Was an Inside Job) 66 (0.27%)
message to David Cameron. This is truly a significant result” Robin Smith (Young People's) 63 (0.26%)
He added that “the road to Downing Street runs through Corby”.
Although I believe this is a little over optimistic, and that the Labour Middlesbrough
party has a long road ahead. Andy McDonald (Labour) 10,201 (60.48%, +14.60%)
Richard Elvin (UKIP) 1,990 (11.80%, +8.10%)
To some extent David Cameron was right in his analysis that the result
George Selmer (Liberal Democrat) 1,672 (9.91%, -10.00%)
was a fairly typical mid-term election result, and it is almost possible
Ben Houchen (Conservative) 1,063 (6.30%, -12.48%)
to agree with the outgoing MP’s view that the result won’t matter to
David Cameron’s position as Labour leader. However, there are warning Imdad Hussain (Peace) 1,060 (6.28%)
signs, that could mean that the Conservatives have to watch who is Peter Foreman (BNP) 328 (1.94%, -3.90%)
coming up behind them. John Malcolm (TUSC) 277 (1.64%)
Mark Heslehurst (Independent) 275 (1.63%)
The Cardiff South and Penarth election, saw Labour keeping hold of
the seat. Stephen Doughty won the seat with a majority of 5334
over the Conservatives, with the Liberal Democrats coming third and
Plaid Cymru fourth. The turnout was again low at 25.65% whereas
it had been over 60% at the general election in 2010.
Therefore in the first ‘set’ of by-elections the Labour party had a
clean sweep, and the Conservatives had had a less than stellar
performance.
However, this was not the end of the November by- election story.
On the 29th November three more were held in Rotherham, Croydon
North and Middlesbrough. It wasn’t a surprise that Labour won the
three seats, and in all the seats the Labour candidate increased their
percentage of the vote.
Rotherham
Sarah Champion (Labour) 9,866 (46.25%, +1.62%)
Jane Collins (UKIP) 4,648 (21.79%, +15.87%)
Marlene Guest (BNP) 1,804 (8.46%, -1.96%)
Yvonne Ridley (Respect) 1,778 (8.34%)
Simon Wilson (Conservative) 1,157 (5.42%, -11.32%)
David Wildgoose (English Democrat) 703 (3.30%)
Simon Copley (Independent) 582 (2.73%, -3.58%)
Michael Beckett (Liberal Democrat) 451 (2.11%, -13.87%

3. Rachel Fairhead, Maidstone Grammar School for Girls
The November
By-Elections
(continued)
The real interest issue about these three by-elections isn’t who won,
but how the other parties ended up.
The Liberal Democrats easily had one of the worst nights of their
election history. The Liberal Democrats didn’t manage to achieve
better than third place in any of the elections, and in Rotherham the
Liberal Democrats came eighth. A comparable result was the Bootle
by-election in 1990, when the SDP candidate came seventh, which
was quickly followed by the end of the party as people deserted to
the newly formed Liberal Democrats.
As I mentioned earlier by-elections are notoriously untrustworthy.
However, these latest results coupled with the ones from earlier in
the month really do show that The Liberal Democrats are suffering
the brunt of negative feeling for perceived coalition failures and
policies.
These results shows that the Liberal Democrats are no longer seen
as the party who can snatch the votes from the big two, the
Conservatives and Labour, and that they are no longer the party
to beat in by-elections.
The party to beat now seems to be UKIP, who managed to come
second in both Rotherham and Middlesbrough, as well as a credible
third in Croydon North. UKIP seem to have stolen the Liberal Democrat
formulae for winning by-elections. It is not as simple as saying that
voters are protesting against the Liberal Democrats by voting for
UKIP, the parties are almost completely opposite in their views. The
Liberal Democrats are one of the most pro-European parties whereas
UKIP is clearly one of the most anti- European parties.
There are two things which the results inidcate. One is that that UKIP,
despite its status as a single issue party has become the haven for
protest votes against the government. Secondly UKIP have become
much more effective about how, why, when they get their message
across. UKIP have become much more professional and efficient in
their campaigning methods (borrowing some tricks from the by-
election pros- the Liberal Democrats).
However, despite this UKIP and Nigel Farage still have a long way to
go, in breaking through to actually winning a seat, having received
less than 6% of the vote in the majority of by-elections since 2010.
These by-elections highlight a number of points, and perhaps show
some resurgence in the support for Labour, and surge in negative
feeling towards the Liberal Democrats, but the key question is Questions
whether these kind of results can be replicated on a much wider
basis and over a much longer period of time. Explain why by-elections do and don’t matter to A) the
party in government B) the party in opposition.
Consider the reasons why by-elections often have low
voter turnouts (use evidence from these by-elections to
support your points).
What advice would you give to the Liberal Democrats
following these by-election results?