General Election candidate	Party	Votes	%	+/-
Alan Keen	Labour	21174	43.6	-4.5
Mark Bowen	Conservative	16516	34	5.2
Munira Wilson	Liberal Democrat	6669	13.7	-2.9
John Donnelly	BNP	1714	3.5	3.5
Jerry Shadbolt	UKIP	992	2	0.5
Elizabeth Anstis	Green	530	1.1	-1.2
Dharmendra Tripathi	Independent	505	1	1
Asa Khaira	Independent	180	0.4	0.4
Roger Williams	Independent	168	0.3	0.3
Matthew Linley	WRP	78	0.2	0.2
Majority		4658	9.6

Is this the way Farage’s party should campaign

The sad news this morning that the MP for Feltham & Heston, Alan Keen, has died at the age of 73 creates the sixth by election in the UK since the general election. All of those on the mainland were Labour eighteen months ago and it is hard to argue that this will be anything other than a Labour hold.

The big question will be what happens to the other parties. Are we going to see a further Lib Dem collapse? What’ll happen to the Tory vote vote and does this create an opportunity for UKIP.

One intriguing element for the Lib Dems is that under the boundary proposals a slab of the southern part of the constituency is due to transfer to Teddington – which currently is a key part of Vince Cable’s seat.

The yellows will be desperately keen to put up a good show there and there should be a reasonably strong organisation.

UKIP has had a few good by election performances in this parliament – notably at Barnsley Central where they came in second place with 12.2%.

Given the size of the combined UKIP and BNP vote last time then there is a reasonable base to work on. If they are smart they could try to make this into a referendum on the EU. This would be a chance for voters there to express their view of Britain’s membership.

@MikeSmithsonPB