The Corby By-election

We give our predictions on the future of the Corby by-election.

We asked two of our Editors to argue what they thought would be the most likely scenario for the seat.

We urge the electorate of the Corby constituency to go and vote today, and we would like to wish good luck to your preferred candidate and party.

Thomas Stringer

Louise Mensch resigning her Corby parliamentry seat comes at a bad time for the Conservatives, as according to YouGov, their national support lies just at 34% with Labour up 10 points at 44% and Lib Dems at 9%.

In the 2010 election Mensch gained the seat off of Phil Hope who had previously held the seat for Labour since 1997. The swing that brought the Conservatives into power was just 3.6% leaving them with a less than secure majority of 1,951.

In the 2005 election when Blair’s popularity was waning, the presence of a UKIP candidate increased the Labour majority in Corby 5 fold to 1,517 from what it would have been at around 300, if we make the fair assumption that the majority of UKIP supporters would have voted Tory.

The presence of a UKIP candidate once again is thus a bit of a wild card. Though no-one truly believes that they will win, it is possible that many Tories disgruntled with the coalition could flock en masse to support the UKIP candidate with the real chance of pushing the LibDems down into fourth. This would be somewhat of a coup, and is something to watch out for.

In 2010 in several of the Bordering constituencies UKIP achieved 3000-4000 votes. UKIP’s campaign has been one of the best managed they have ever done for a by-election at a time when their support is strong and increasing with the continuing farcical response of the EU to the financial crisis and the Central Courts unpopular rulings on Abu Qatada.

Their presence and likely vote amount of several thousand makes the Tories slim majority look all the bleaker.

Prediction; Comfortable Labour Win, Tories in second with Liberal Democrats just beating UKIP to third place.

2010 results:

Elections in the 2000s

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Olly Neville

Mensch was not just an awful  MP she was an awful person. Her authoritarian ‘close down social media during riots’ arguments were an affront to anyone with who valued any sort of freedom or personal liberty.

So the Tories are in trouble, an awful former MP, coupled with huge cuts (not cuts in any shape or form) and dreadful polling  should hand Labour the seat. Could this get any worse for them?

Of course the answer is yes, their campaign manager has now been found to be backing James Delingpole, the independent anti-windfarm, pro common sense candidate who pulled out of the race when, conveniently, the Tory energy minister attacked windfarms. Delingpole has gone on to back UKIP’s Margot Parker, the only candidate who actively opposes damaging, energy price rising wind farms. So the Tory campaign manager has endorsed UKIPs policies, actively worked to promote a rival candidate and basically ignore the interest of his own (collapsing) party and candidate.

But enough about the Tories, how about the Lib Dems? Actually enough about them too, having been found out as serial liars the Lib Dem stock has been crashing faster than Greece’s finances. Being in coalition and forced to actually take concrete policy positions has shredded what little credibility the Lib Dems ever had. They now poll below UKIP, enough said.

Labour, it is agreed, will comfortably take this by-election. A previous Labour constituency, they have benefited from the collapse of Lib Dem support and of the Tory meltdown. They however are not without problems themselves. Ed Miliband remains looking out of touch, Denis MacShane, former Labour MP, then independent Labour, then Labour again, has been finally kicked out for his expenses shame, and the party itself is lacking any real political position on anything apart from the fact that ‘we hate the Government’.

So what of UKIP, the fourth, or self claimed third, party in UK politics? Staunchly Libertarian, their candidate Margot Parker has retweeted Murray Rothbard twitter accounts on her official twitter page. On an interview with this magazine she spoke of her disgust at ‘paper shufflers’ and wasteful bureaucracy in our public services. With the other parties showing that they are power hungry and career orientated Margot should do well  with her message of clean, new politics.

So my prediction, Labour will take the constituency, UKIP will take second place, the Tories in meltdown mode will fight hard but ultimately end up in third due to anti government feeling and their own (massive) blunders while the Lib Dems will crash out in fourth.

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