Nearly perfect election result

[andrewducker]

By-election last night

Liberal-Democrats got a swing of 19%, cutting the Labour majority from 17,000 votes to 2,000 votes. Nearly an amazing success, and still pretty impressive.

More impressively, the Tories got pushed from second place to _fourth_, behind the racist scumbags known as the UK Independence Party. I'm not in favour of the UKIP, but seeing the conservatives pushed into fourth place almost makes it worthwhile.

More details here.

(Anyone know what a swing that big would do to the national elections?)

Comments

[thadrin.livejournal.com]

Give Tony Blair a heart attack?

Oh...hang on....

[guybles.livejournal.com]

Now, sometimes I hear that Steve Jobs carries a reality distortion field that allows him to with Mac Evangelists into ever-higher raptures whenever he gives a keynote address at a Mac Expo or convention.

However, Iain Wright seems to be suffering an altered perception where up is down, left is right and black is white. Which would explain his claim that "Tonight's result is great news for Tony Blair, a huge disappointment for Charles Kennedy and an absolute disaster for Michael Howard."

While I can't disagree with the last part, I don't think TB will be taking much comfort in a candidate who managed to lose 12,000 previously rock-solid Labour votes and less than half the electorate bothering to turn out.

Time to reopen the debate on making voting compulsory?

[akicif.livejournal.com]

I think from Blair's POV that's an "any crash you can walk away from...". And given that Mandelson had that big a majority well into the period of his disrepute, you'd normally expect a three-legged yellow dog with glanders to get elected if it had a red rosette on.

But I bet that Kennedy did have higher (if unfounded) hopes.

[davidcook.livejournal.com]

Yup, pretty impressive. The news report I saw mentioned a voter turnout of about 40%, though, so maybe all the Tory voters stayed home ?

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

And they reported the Monster Raving Loony Party! Whoo hoo!

The United States needs one of them...

[andrewducker]

Compulsory voting is a _terrible_ idea - the last thing I want is uninterested people making decisions. I'd prefer to only have people who understood the options vote if that was possible.

[cx650.livejournal.com]

I think the politicians would be aghast to know exactly how many people would use an "I abstain" box on the ballot rather than just not turning up.