Labour win the Oldham West and Royton by election with an increased share of the vote
LAB 62.2% (+7.5)UKIP 23.3 % (+2.7) CON 9.3% (-9.6) LD 3.7% (+0.0) GR 0.9% (-1.0) MRLP 0.5% (+0.5) via @britainelects pic.twitter.com/1nTrPjwFZC
— TSE (@TSEofPB) December 4, 2015
Corbyn has done better than Cameron did in his first by election that he defended as leader.
This is the result that wasn’t forecast, perhaps Jeremy Corbyn isn’t the voter repellent that the polling and the commentariat implies. Speaking this evening John Curtice has just said we expect the major opposition parties do well in by-elections like this. We might be seeing what we saw in May, Labour piling up the votes where don’t need to.
The first by election that the Tories defended under Cameron’s leadership, Bromley and Chiselhurst in 2006, there was a 14.3% swing away from the Tories, so Corbyn is doing better than Cameron did as Leader of the Opposition in one respect.
UKIP shouldn’t be too disheartened, this seat isn’t even in their top 150 target seats for 2020, but they risk looking like sore losers, or worse, with tweets and comments like this. The ‘bent’ allegations are very serious and Farage needs to back up his assertion.
Wow pic.twitter.com/GmUgZz4igT
— TSE (@TSEofPB) December 4, 2015
Nuttall says postal vote has "distorted the result", adding: "Is this Britain or is it Harare?"
— Emily Ashton (@elashton) December 4, 2015