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'My colleagues in the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Political Research Unit have been working hard this morning'

Twice in one week? Easy, tigers.

one has to have a grudging repect for this Carmen guy, no help from the LibDem office, no Clegg appearance although he may have got even less votes and worked out of the boot of his car...I loathe and detest the LibDems for their cynical quest for power at all costs and to throw away every principle you ever had just for the chance to get in bed with the most reactionary, right wing cabal since Thatcher, in fact she was to the left of this lot. After last nights result the grass root LibDems will ditch Clegg as theysee their fortunes and their deposits wither so expect a few sounds of rats deserting ships anytime soon.....

Michael. I refer you to the comment (7) I made on your earlier blog
about Nick Clegg ignoring Barnsley Central.

Dominic Carman claimed in his first 15 seconds speech as a candidate reported on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ TV Regional News Look North to have created many new jobs (around 100?) in the constituency during his campaigning, this was omitted in later broadcasts.

How disingenuous of him to the people of Barnsley.

The voters saw through him, just as simple as that.

The leading Lib/Dem Tory stooge has not only betrayed the people who voted for him at the last election, his party workers and students, it seems now his own candidates are left to cope with the treachery.
It does not auger too well for tha future.
Is Vince still at war with the Murdochs? if so is he firing blanks?

I wonder how things would have turned out under AV?
Regards, etc.

Labour lost 3,000 votes, are they finished? Coalition voters didn't turn out, was it worthwhile? UKIP did best, does it mean anything?

'I wonder whether people are getting slightly over-excited today"

Ne'er a truer word.

Outside the pathetic Westminster bubble, few seem to have cared a rats.

Including, it would appear, the good people of Barnsley.

Barnsley is one of those places where if Labour put up a donkey it would get elected which is just what happened last time.

The parties and people who put their time into the by-election are those who were using it to develop other agendas.

The winners are the electors of Barnsley who seem to have made a foolish error in returning an able representative to parliament. I just wonder if they will ever get used to it.

THEY ARE ALL DONKEYS - aka ROSETTE STANDS (#8)

What is more, the Donkey takes the whip - everything is legal in the Palace of Westminster.

37% turnout in Barnsley Central by-election. Labour "elected" by 22% of electorate. Hardly a democratic mandate. Who are these politicians anyway taking my money and bankrupting the country? I didn't vote for them, and seems neither did 2/3rds of the rest of the electorate either.

In answer to some of these rather cynical comments.

One has to consider the implications on future by-elections should AV be sanctioned in May's referendum.

Should an MP be elected on redistributed votes by achieving 50% minimum in the poll or should this require at least 50% of the constituency's total electorate to vote for it to count?

Should voting be compulsory as it is in some countries? eg. Australia.

The vote for all was hard won in this country - too many people are apathetic in this parliamentary democracy of ours when millions around the globe have no such good fortune to be given a choice.

Results in Barnsley have little or no relevance for the South of England.

We are increasingly becoming a country divided between those in the North and Scotland who see themselves as victims (of cuts etc) and thus vote Labour - and those in the South who take responsibility for themselves, get on with their lives and vote Conservative or Lib Dem.

Such a divisive country is not healthy.

what is all this garbage the LibDems are spouting now as they are looking at electoral oblivion, the knew the financial situation before they were elcted and they made promises that he renaged on minutes after getting into the ministerial car, what losers they turned out to be and they took the public for fools and now they been bitten that will be the terminal bite....

Pensfold #12

Your comment about the Barnsley Central result would appear to be on the smug side.

You are obviously another who has no experience of living in the North of England.

Why would people living in the North not 'take responsibility for themselves, get on with their lives and vote Conservative or Lib Dem' whereas those in the South do? Does 200 miles distant make so much difference to attitudes!

Yours is a simplistic not to say naive response. Perhaps not so distant from that of George Osborne.

I believe that your view is not so untypical and perhaps it is also symptomatic of what has befallen our country in recent times when people are no longer concerned about the plight of others in the community as long as they can preserve their own life-style come what may.

Well I have news for you! This Coalition Government is going to give you a rude awakening before it is finished, come May 2015.

Pensfold@12

Breaking news - Scotland has voted away from the Tories since pretty much the 70s old bean, culminating with Tory wipeout in 1997. Nowadays Labour and SNP slug it out on centre left ground (maybe slightly lefter than Labour down south?) while Tories and LibDems already feed on scraps (goodness know what the LibDems hope to feed on come May - bones if they are lucky).

Its fair enough to comment on voting differences around the country, but much better if done with a bit more intelligence. Equating South to "taking responsibility" and North to "seeing themslves as victims" is political argument that kindergarten debate would be beyond.

I really hope that the AV wins the day as once people realise however forlorn are the chances of their preferred party winning, their votes will still count and serve a purpose. This should mean that the percentage of the electorate actually bothering to vote should rise with AV.

This doesn't help in the case of by-elections which, if they can only motivate a mere 37% of the electorate to make the effort to vote will remain side-shows, from which very few meaningful conclusions can be drawn concerning the state of the parties nationally.

There is only one thing that can solve this problem and that is compulsory voting as per-Australia where you get fined around twenty quid for failing to attend the polling station on the day. I have always felt this is a good idea, especially given the very real struggles and scrifices made by our predecessors to afford us the right to vote.

Those who say that it would infringe their right not to vote would only need to turn up on the day and write 'I abstain' or 'none of the above' to avoid the fine.

We obviously feel a strong need to interpret and analyse by-election results. Compulsory voting would go some way towards making such activities credible and of some scientific/statistical value.

Can I just make a suggestion to the Newsnight analysts. If they want to be scientific they should only compare this result with by-election results from periods during which the UK had a coalition government. To do anything else is spurious as it is now quite clear that coalition politics changes the way people feel about by-election, politicians and voters alike, in ways we may only just be beginning to understand.

TMR@16

You had me with you all the way until your last para above. Then you seem to want to stifle any comment/analysis/debate on the by-election result by saying cos we have a coalition then there's nothing to compare against.

Sorry but that just doesnt wash. No matter the political landscape just now a clear objective view on the result is that its horrendous for the LibDems and not good for the Torylition. Beyond that then subjectivity kicks in as to how horrendous and how bad. Surely if repeated to anywhere near this degree in Scottish/Welsh/council elections in May you wouldn't seek to discount results as meaningless cos we have a coalition and we dont know what that means.

Moving on, I completely agree with your comments on turnout and getting people to vote. There are plenty of parties to vote for in the UK and some form of change to the system, AV or prop representation would I think help to encourage more people out.

17. No worries.

There is of course plenty we can compare it with. Not only is this not the only by-election the current coalition has fought, but also this is not the only coalition government this country has had. Furthermore coalition governments are widespread throughout the world where evidence for changes in voting patterns and political campaigning in coalition government by-elections as opposed to single party government by-elections can be studied and used to make a more meaningful interpretation of the results of the poll in Barnsley.

Anyone who thinks that coaltion by-elections can be compared to other by-elections needs to visit this site more often where Michael has raised those very differences several times lately (see 'Nick Clegg's no show in Barnsley Central poll' for example, or the discussion of why the Conservatives allegedly under-faught the Oldam by-election). They are different for sure.

I'm glad we agree on compulsory voting. I heard the PM's speech this afternoon and I disagree with his views on AV. We really need it in this country where so many constituencies are effectively 'safe seats' for careerists of one party or another, and where, as a result, large numbers of constituents are effectively disenfranchised. That cannot be right.

In the post-mortem, via one of the Sunday papers, Dominic Carson gave a very illuminating insight into the views he encountered whist canvassing in Barnsley.

Suffice to say that the Barnsley electorate seems to represent a very narrow strand of English society and as such, should be weighted accordingly.

That means it would be misleading to extrapolate the by-election result into the wider English community.

JohnConstable #19.

I feel that the failed Lib Dem candidate for Barnsley Central, Dominic Carman, would have been wiser to have kept his head down rather than launch into a tirade of abusive comments against the town's voters.

This does not reflect well on the party as a whole at this difficult time for Nick Clegg.

I can assure you that Barnsley is no different a town from the norm up here in Yorkshire, although it has a very loyal group of Labour supporters.

The next By-election in Leicestershire [May 5?] will confirm if the voters feel the same way as those in Barnsley.