John Bickley looks set to be UKIP’s choice in Oldham & Royton
UKIP set to choose John Bickley for Oldham & R by election. He came within whisker in Oct 2014 Heywood by-election pic.twitter.com/h99YY4SzvR
— Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) November 3, 2015
Can he repeat his Heywood & Middleton magic?
One of the huge shocks, and what in retrospect turned out to be a good pointer to GE2015, was the way that UKIP ran LAB so close in the October 2014 by-election Heywood & Middleton which is very close to Oldham.
This, like Oldham & Royton, was in traditionally rock solid Labour territory yet UKIP got very near. What was particularly striking was how the polls got that election so wrong grossly over-stating the eventual LAB winning margin which turned out to be a foretaste of the general election.
Bickley is personable and a very experienced campaigner and could do very well on December 3rd – the date of the Oldham vote. The Ladbrokes 8/1 looks tempting.