450 Responses to “Barnsley Central”

1. Kieran W

   So the changes in share compared with the GE are:
   Lab +13.5%, Con -9%, Lib Dem -13.1%, UKIP +7.5%, BNP -2.6%, IND (Devoy) +3.6%

   I was surprised to see the Tory candidate not finish second, and by the extent of the decline in my party’s share of the vote given that the Tory GE vote is holding up well in the national polls. I guess this is the kind of deprived area where the kind of policies being implemented by the current government are always going to be a hard sell.

   Where people feel dependent on the state they are always going to be less inclined to support the any party seen as wanting to shrink the state. This phenomenon held back Tory progress in seats such as this at the GE, with the Conservative vote increasing here only slightly with bigger increases for UKIP and the BNP.

   Richard, I think you are partly right in the sense that this result does highlight the fact that the Tories are likely to suffer in coming years from their voters casting protest votes for the likes of UKIP. I certainly wouldn’t be surprised to see UKIP out poll the Tories in the 2014 elections to the European Parliament. However I think it will be a protest vote in every sense of that word and will have very little relevance when it comes to the next GE.

   As long as the Tory vote remains as solid as it is in the national polls I doubt whether the Tory leadership will be particularly concerned about results such as this.

   It is the LIb Dems who have real cause for concern following this result. It suggests that they could well face annihilation in May’s local elections in areas where they are primarily fighting Labour, such as my own area of Chesterfield.

   March 4th, 2011 at 11:10 am
2. davem

   We are all talking about how poor the LDs did but if you look at the fall in vote share it is in line with the fall in the pools.

   They dropped 13% here and in the polls they have droped about 14%. I know that there has been a higher proportion of vote loss as they only had 17% her and not the 24% they had nationally. All the same this is not way out of line with their standing in the country.

   If that is the case May could be very bad.

   On this basis will they hold any councils in May?

   March 4th, 2011 at 11:13 am
3. Andrea

   “if Labour had a candidate selected via some centrally imposed all-women ”

   with an AWS they would have probably chosen the local councillor who finished a close third in the selection

   March 4th, 2011 at 11:14 am
4. Warofdreams

   Strong but unspectacular result for Labour, in line with expectations. No surprise to see the party recover to 2005 levels of support (or, for comparison, 1% up on 1983, admittedly on different boundaries).

   Excellent result for UKIP. This bodes well for the party in the local elections and the next Europeans. It would be interesting to see how they performed in a solidly Conservative seat – pretty well, would be my guess.

   Their support appears to be coming from the Conservatives and to some extent, from the now disorganised BNP. Perhaps this is partly because the Conservatives have been relatively liberal on social issues, but I suspect that a large part of their performance here has been as a centre-right party without the baggage of having closed down the important local mining industry.

   The Conservative performance was worse than I expected. No disaster, particularly in a seat where they were weak anyway, but I thought that they would take more of the Lib Dem votes, and didn’t expect so much leakage to UKIP. The choice of candidate doesn’t seem to have helped – not local, and not very notable.

   Although they saved their deposit, it’s yet another weak result from the BNP. This should have been an ideal seat for them, and they found a local candidate, but their vote fell back again.

   Devoy did surprisingly well. I think this is because he has campaigned in the by-election as a sort of old Labour candidate, whereas in the general election he had a more general anti-politician platform.

   The Lib Dem result was very poor. Yes, all the predictions were that they would do very badly, but this showing is as bad as the very lowest guesses. It doesn’t really matter to the party if they do even worse in areas like this, where they never had much of a base, but what hope does this give them in other areas where they have acted as a social democratic party? This result should really make the party consider the flaws in their coalition strategy.

   As for the others, the English Democrats took a few votes, but not many and nothing out of line with their other performances in South Yorkshire. The Loonies again failed to enliven the campaign significantly, and the other independent apparently didn’t even bother to campaign.

   March 4th, 2011 at 11:43 am
5. Pete Whitehead

   “ANDREA
   “if Labour had a candidate selected via some centrally imposed all-women ”
   with an AWS they would have probably chosen the local councillor who finished a close third in the selection”

   Maybe so. You take my point though? The choice of candidate here was calculated (or maybe not, but could just as well have been) to maximise the support from the type of Labour supporters who might be tempted to drift off to the BNP or UKIP. I imagine if some Equal Opportunities officer from Islington had been the Labour candidate things would have been a little different (or a geeky, Jewish boy with a lisp from Camden for that matter – and yes I know he represents a seat in South Yorkshire, but this was a by-election)

   March 4th, 2011 at 11:58 am
6. A Brown

   Does this result mean that UKIP will permanently surplant the BNP as a protest party here?

   March 4th, 2011 at 12:24 pm
7. Tim Jones

   ‘The choice of candidate here was calculated (or maybe not, but could just as well have been) to maximise the support from the type of Labour supporters who might be tempted to drift off to the BNP or UKIP.’

   That’s probably the case but it was a tactic that failed as parties of the hard right managed to poll 20% – in a seat which many would describe as amongst the most left-wing in England

   Let’s not forget the derisory turnout – a pt just made by Jeremy Browne of the Jeremy Vine Show in a very competent defence of the appalling Lib Dem performance

   March 4th, 2011 at 12:27 pm
8. Andrea

   Pete Whitehead, yes, I understand your point.
   You’re right in highlighting the choice of candidate and the fact it was a by-election.
   If Illsley had stood down in March 2010, we would have probably more likely seen an Equal Opportunities officer from Islington shortlisted by NEC here than in a by-election shortlist.
   (I fear I got lost in this hypothetical sentence!)

   Looking back at the selection votes……3 out of 4 shortlisted candidates were with a chance: Jarvis, the female councillor and the trade union lawyer from Leeds.

   They were 3 different types of candidates…Jarvis has an interesting background which is different from the standard Labour candidate….the opposite can be said for the trade union lawyer ….the 60 year old local councillor would have probably be a sort of “boring” choice with the whole campaign led on “I’m local” slogan.

   I don’t know how differently Labour could have gone choosing the other 2 candidates.
   I think they would have got at least 55% with all of them

   March 4th, 2011 at 1:18 pm
9. Lancs Observer

   Pete W – true. Btw, the LDs came 6th

   March 4th, 2011 at 1:42 pm
10. Pete Whitehead

    “parties of the hard right managed to poll 20% – in a seat which many would describe as amongst the most left-wing in England”

    I wouldn’t describe it as one of the most left-wing. One of the traditionally most Labour supporting areas certainly, but that isn’t the same thing. Very working class and unionised yes. But not left wing in the way that somewhere like Islington North or Manchester Withington is. Look at the breakdown of votes in the last European elections. Barnsley and some other areas like it provided the highest combined vote shares for the parties you descirbe as of the hard right

    March 4th, 2011 at 1:43 pm

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12. Tim Jones

    ‘I wouldn’t describe it as one of the most left-wing. One of the traditionally most Labour supporting areas certainly, but that isn’t the same thing.’

    Traditionallty one of the most Labour suppprting area is a much better way of putting it, as we all know that of the parties of the Right, the BNP do best in WWC areas with high unemployment – like Barnsley

    UKIP gets votes from both rich and poor alike but which socio-economic groups are most likely to support the English Democrats or is their vote tally so derisory they don’t really have one

    March 4th, 2011 at 1:55 pm
13. Ian

    Spotted – Ed Miliband in South Yorkshire!!! Whilst in the area he might even pop into the constituency he apparently represents.

    March 4th, 2011 at 2:06 pm
14. Joe James B

    Entirely agree – very strongly Labour and still quite traditional – but not the most left wing.

    Many of the people here will be good patriotic socially conservative people
    unlike the whining liberal Britain hating fascist policy wonkers and bra burners from Islington and Southwark.

    But the economy is not in a good state, and we need to attract more businesses to the area.
    It has some good communications and nice countryside nearby but we are still a long way from achieving it I think.

    March 4th, 2011 at 2:19 pm
15. Pete Whitehead

    “Pete W – true. Btw, the LDs came 6th”

    Indeed I think I hadn’t even spotted that last night ( I had slept through the result and woke in the early hours so was not entirely clear headed when I wrote that). Sixth place is certainly a record for a main party. I think Labour’s fifth at Henley was the worst position achieved prior to that

    March 4th, 2011 at 2:40 pm
16. davem

    On the subject of Lib Dem votes. The drop here 13% is actually less than the drop in the national polls 14%. So why the supprise at the out come. This is actually the reality of Lib Dem support across the UK.

    The result in Saddleworth and Oldham was the supprise not this one and that could be put down to the special circumstances of the electoral court judgement putting the Lib Dems in the driving seat.

    Any body willing to open a book on how many seats will be lost in May and how many Lib Dem controlled councils there will be after the elections?

    March 4th, 2011 at 3:14 pm
17. Joe James B

    I think Labour would gain about 1,700 seats in May.
    I’m less sure about the Con/LD figure.

    But this is a very large round so the numbers are a bit different to what they sound.

    March 4th, 2011 at 3:26 pm
18. H.Hemmelig

    Nice to see the Lib Dems getting a pasting in a by-election for once.

    But their collapse in Barnsley doesn’t tell us anything about their prospects in their heartlands, eg Somerset, where they are up against the Conservatives and IMO are likely to hold up much better than this.

    It is also very clear that in the parts of the north where they have been challenging Labour, despite the difficult national circumstances the Lib Dems haven’t given up and are still working hard on the ground – see my comment last week on the Ashfield thread.

    March 4th, 2011 at 3:40 pm
19. Warofdreams

    “Sixth place is certainly a record for a main party. I think Labour’s fifth at Henley was the worst position achieved prior to that”

    For England, sixth is a record. The previous worst performances were Labour at Henley, and the Liberals at Walsall North in 1976, both coming fifth.

    Across the whole UK, major parties have come sixth on several occasions. The Lib Dems at Hamilton South and Glasgow North East, and also Glasgow Camlachie in 1948, plus the Conservatives in Upper Bann in 1990 (although admittedly you might not describe them as a major party in Northern Ireland).

    March 4th, 2011 at 3:44 pm
20. Tim Jones

    The SDP got pished into 7th place in the first Bootle by-election of 1990

    They polled 185 votes – 263 votes less than the Monster Raving Loony Party

    That was the last election they ever contested

    March 4th, 2011 at 3:57 pm
21. Warofdreams

    “The SDP got pished into 7th place in the first Bootle by-election of 1990″

    Yes, although that was after the majority of the party had merged with the Liberals to form the Lib Dems, so they weren’t a major party at that time.

    “That was the last election they ever contested”

    The last for the 1988-1990 incarnation of the SDP, but some members formed another SDP, which still exists. They have stood in two by-elections: Neath in 1991, where they came fifth, and Newbury in 1993, where they came 17th (between a “Defence of Children’s Humanity Bosnia” independent and the Communist Party of Great Britain Provisional Central Committee).

    March 4th, 2011 at 4:05 pm
22. Ian

    Whilst agreeing that the by-election does not appear good for LibDems or for that matter the Tories, it is not the great result that the Labour party is making it out to be either.

    The Labour result is only in line with their rise in the opinion polls since the election – in fact and represents 14,000 lost votes since 1997 and a share of vote lower than that in 2005.

    Labour needs to address why constituencies like Barnsley Central are not the heartlands they once were – and why the people in such areas are increasingly reluctant to turn out and vote Labour (although neither willing to vote for another party).

    I have said this before – but the mentality of you must either vote Labour or be a ‘scab’ is prevalent in this and similar seats. This is historical to Thatcher, the miners strike, and further back to the history of the labour movement. Yet it is also this same mentality that must be addressed if the relative social and economic decline of such seats can be resolved.

    Tax credits, benefits, call centres and shiny new shopping centres and transport exchanges only paper up the cracks. The mines are not going to reopen, large scale manufacturing is not going to reappear, immigration and cheap labour is here to stay, and males cannot expect to find high paid skilled jobs when they do not possess the relevant skills or qualifications and shouldn’t rely on welfare in the mistaken belief that a job paying the equivalent of a miner will one day appear – and the population needs honest politicians and political parties that will stand up and say this and begin to find the proper solutions towns like Barnsley need.

    March 4th, 2011 at 4:13 pm
23. H.Hemmelig

    The mines may well re-open in the future.

    The price of coal is currently very high and likely to stay that way.

    Coal is going to have to play a a bigger part in the UK’s energy future as we pass the global oil peak.

    Future mining will be more opencast and less deep mines. Also environmental and CO2 restrictions will be big hurdles. We have also lost a huge base of skilled mine workers in Yorkshire which it won’t be easy to get back.

    March 4th, 2011 at 4:35 pm
24. Votedave

    Some people are suggesting the Conservative Party move back over to the right.
    But then I have flashbacks of Hartlepool, Romsey, Ipswich, Eddisbury etc and it suddenly doesn’t seem such a great idea after all.

    March 4th, 2011 at 4:46 pm
25. Joe James B

    We need a tougher message on crime though,
    and urgently have to address the problems of credit to small firms.
    Then we might get some real jobs for people here.

    March 4th, 2011 at 4:50 pm
26. Pete Whitehead

    Thats funny votedave cos I have these flashbacks to 1983 and 1987 when we used to win landslide victories as an unashamedly conservative Conservative party, -’ oh but Labour were in a mess then you say’ (unlike in 2010 eh?)
    But then not being able to win a majority suited you perfectly didn’t it because now you can trawl around various threads saying what a jolly good idea it would be to merge with the Lib Dems. Well I suppose you can comfort yourself that the Conservatives and your beloved Lib Dems combined just about outpolled UKIP and you would only just have lost your deposit on the old threshold. But then of course if you do merge prepare to lose a whole lot more supporters to UKIP

    March 4th, 2011 at 5:13 pm
27. wolf

    Depends on your small firm. Not many of them are much use.

    March 4th, 2011 at 5:21 pm
28. Ian

    “urgently have to address the problems of credit to small firms.”

    This is political propaganda. It is true that credit to small firms is one part of a complicated problem for small and medium enterprises but it is only one of a myriad of issues and lets the political class off the hook – especially the last government.

    Five years ago my business, at its peak, was employing seventy staff across six retail locations in the Hull and South Yorkshire areas.

    This business failed. It was intially very successful and profitable. Some of the reasons it failed were down to external markets – commodity prices continued to rise, utility prices went out of control and then following the worldwide credit crunch the recession obviously had a direct effect on business.

    However, this lets the last government off the hook. Even in the low inflation years, inflation remained higher in this country than in Europe. The minimum wage – whilst on paper a fantastic policy – was ill conceived when there was a continual political necessity to increase the wage above inflation. This led to above wage increase demands for senior staff, and higher prices for the consumers – which led to a cycle of inflation which meant any real increase in wages was negligible.

    The regulation and red tape placed on small businesses straggled them. Policies that were well meant instead became such a burden on business that you thought twice before taking staff on.

    The basic skills of young workers was horrific. School leavers struggled to read simply instructions and were incapable of basic cash handling tasks. Years of pumping money into an education system that had failed a whole generation. Businesses like mine had to teach basic numeracy to their staff and supervise simple tasks as staff could not follow written instruction – all a cost to business.

    Most importantly – stealth taxes – were the single cause of problems. Unlike large corporations whose complicated tax arrangements meant that they could unburden themselves, small business felt the full brunt of tax increases. National insurance increases, business rate increases, complicated VAT rules, continual changes to accounting and taxation policies.

    Working tax credits were introduced as a way of supplementing workers wages as businesses started to look to a more part-time workforce so that they could reduce their national insurance liability. This in effect led to a parts of society only wanting to work the magic 16 hours enabling them to benefit from the tax credit. Whilst this increased the flexibility of businesses (a part-time workforce is by nature more flexible than full-time) – a whole generation of workers have become state subsidised and encouraged not to work additional hours. This is not sustainable.

    In my experience if you go to a bank with a good sound financial proposition you can get credit. If your company is in trouble it is harder to get credit. This, however, it not the banks problem. They need to make sound financial judgements. This problem is the governments for increasing the burden on business, inflating costs and failing to generate and stimulate demand in the economy.

    Blame the government(s) not just the banks.

    March 4th, 2011 at 5:34 pm
29. H.Hemmelig

    Spot on.

    We will all pay a very heavy price if we scare away growth in our financial sector.

    March 4th, 2011 at 6:32 pm
30. Joe James B

    Lots of very good points – thanks – will return to them later.
    I strongly believe we need both though – small and medium sized businesses,

    and also a strong financial sector

    (I think I do support one Labour policy though on this which is the minimum wage, because otherwise the government is subsidising wages through the benefits system,
    and unless you take a pure market view of having no floor
    , it’s actually the least statist solution to set one to cover the costs,
    although we have to be careful how we set it,
    and I’d listen very carefully to someone who has run a business like yourself and HH)

    Pete is correct on his point (although the electoral history before 2010 was three very bad defeats so however perfect the pitch, the party was unlikely to ever win more than a small majority this last time,
    but I’m pretty sure that was also his view anyway)

    March 4th, 2011 at 6:40 pm
31. Joseph Brayson

    I fully agree with Pete. Instead of the Coalition attacking UKIP, they should embrace UKIP and take onboard UKIP’s issues on immigration and of course to introduce a simple In/Out referendum. Last week in an interview with al-jazeera, Cameron once again foolishly dismissed the idea of an In/Out referendum. Unless the Tories do this then they would lose more votes to UKIP. I bet Cameron is regretting branding UKIP ‘fruitcakes and closet racists’ as he was condemming the very people who used to vote Tory and this has come to bite him on his bum.

    March 4th, 2011 at 6:44 pm
32. H.Hemmelig

    The public would not vote to leave the EU.

    An in/out referendum would be disasterous for the UKIP cause because it would be won convincingly by the “in” side and basically settle the argument for 10-20 years.

    (which would delight me, as a pro-European, but would surely fill you and Pete with dismay)

    You may well be right that a Tory government that goes against all the advice of big business and advocates pulling out of the EU would get a lot of votes back from UKIP etc, but they would lose plenty of votes the other way, including mine.

    March 4th, 2011 at 8:48 pm
33. richard

    HH

    “The mines may well re-open in the future.

    The price of coal is currently very high and likely to stay that way.

    Coal is going to have to play a a bigger part in the UK’s energy future as we pass the global oil peak.”

    Well they certainly wont reopen in Barnsley but they’re taking on another 70 workers at Maltby and talking about restarting production at Thoresby and Harworth.

    If Cameron really wanted to show he was serious about dealing with our coming energy crisis he should offer to subsidise production, after all he’s happy to subsidise non-productive windmills.

    It would also have the benefit of boosting the Conservatives in Sherwood, Basetlaw, Don Valley and Rother Valley.

    But will it go down well at Notting/Primrose Hill dinner parties?

    March 4th, 2011 at 9:08 pm
34. Kieran W

    A couple of pages ago in his summary of the by-election here Warofdreams wrote that “the Loonies again failed to enliven the campaign significantly…”. Isn’t that pretty much always the case?

    I don’t really understand what they are trying to achieve. They sure don’t make any meaningful contribution to political debate and the “joke” of having someone in a daft outfit with a stupid name standing for election on a joke policy platform is like most jokes not getting any funnier with constant repetition. In the old days what was basically the Screaming Lord Such roadshow did have a bit of novelty and originality about it. Not now. Maybe the money they keep shelling out on lost deposits could be more usefully spent.

    Hemmellig said that: “An in/out referendum would be disastrous for the UKIP cause because it would be won convincingly by the “in” side and basically settle the argument for 10-20 years”. I don’t see much evidence of that. The last two polls I can find that asked how people might vote in an in-out referendum are one by Angus Read published on December 6th last year which found that 47% would vote to come out and 27% to stay in, and one by Yougov conducted on September 8th and 9th last year which put the figures at 47% favouring withdrawal and 33% supporting continued membership.

    I would actually like to see the Conservative Party come out in favour of an in/out vote, not because I think they need to deal with a potential UKIP threat at the next GE (although as I said upthread I do think they will pick up a lot of Tory votes in the next EP elections), but because I think it is the right policy for the country.

    In terms of the idea of a Tory/Lib Dem pact at the next GE I think a joint promise of an in/out vote (one was after all promised by the Lib Dems last time) would be one of the few ways in which large parts of the Tory Party could be persuaded to acquiesce in such a deal.

    March 5th, 2011 at 9:54 am
35. H.Hemmelig

    But the problem is that Cameron, the Tories in the cabinet and lower down in the government would all have to publicly state whether they favoured a yes or no vote.

    Only a minority would be in favour of withdrawl, maybe as much as a third, a course of action which would also cause us big problems in terms of foreign policy – not just with EU partners but with the Americans, UN, WTO etc.

    Trying to enforce a collective government “yes” recommendation would be equally impossible – it would be impossible to silence the sceptics and would anger the Tory right and boost the UKIP vote further.

    A divided Tory party and government with an “agree to disagree” attitude would also be a disaster, not least because Cameron and most of the major figures would be on the yes side, with the side effects mentioned above, and because a divided government is generally bad in terms of its political prospects.

    Cameron is a pro-European who sometimes has to make Eurosceptic noises to appease his party, and forcing him to “come out” on one side or the other would be a disaster for him and his administration.

    March 5th, 2011 at 2:02 pm
36. A Brown

    Think I agree with H.Hemmellig on this one – Cameron is clearly concerned about the consequences of holding the referendum on the tory party rather than the potential outcome of such a referendum (I personally think people would vote to stay in by at least 10%).

    March 5th, 2011 at 3:06 pm
37. Joe James B

    We won’t be coming out of the EU,
    but will try to reform it within.
    I’m somewhat alarmed that regulations are still pouring out, and they won’t cut the budget though.
    My earlier hopes of the Eastern European countries spreading some common sense seems to not be as much as I thought.
    I was taken back (around December) by a “Conservative” Polish MEP interviewed on a panel who kept ticking off the British Tories for daring to want to control the budget atall, at a time when GDP had been shrinking.

    But we never pledged to withdraw, nor did Margaret Thatcher (although she might have come close to later),
    so it’s a bit unfair to blame David Cameron for not promising to do something we have never promised to do before.

    March 5th, 2011 at 3:39 pm
38. Frederic Stansfield

    I didn’t follow this by-election, my mind being on other things. In fact I hadn’t even noticed it was being held on March 3rd.

    The by-election got negligible coverage before the event in the media – presumably it didn’t suit “the establishment”. If a psephological anorak like me overlooked it, what about the ordinary “person in the street”? This is very worrying for British politics and democracy.

    But what a sting in the tail!

    The media has concentrated on the dreadful result for the Liberal Democrats, for whom the only positive thing I can think to say is that they came ahead of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party candidate, whose result was also disappointing.

    Obviously, on this result and the current state of political opinion, we must expect the LibDems to do very badly in the May local elections . This is not only immediately bad for them; but will also cause problems for a party largely dependent on getting grassroots support from members who seem to join an ideology-week party largely to get elected to local office.

    In retrospect, as I have posted on the Oldham East and Saddleworth thread, the Oldham by-election result was actually better than they might have expected given their situation in the polls and the circumstances in which they forced that election.

    Back to this Barnsley Central by-election, it must surely be a very poor reflection on Nick Clegg’s leadership. I know that Clegg was elected (I am tempted to say as a carpetbagger, which is relevant here) in the circumstances of a Conservative/LIbDem seat. However, he in is a Yorkshire seat, sitting for a constituency perhaps 30 miles from Bransley. If he can’t deliver a by-election result nearly on his home patch (witness Brown in relation to the Dunfermline by-election in the last parliament), what chance has Clegg elsewher in the country? My personal view is that Clegg, who was only elected to parliament in 2005, simply doesn’t have enough experience. He makes even Ed Balls, who also lacks experience of life and as an MP, as opposed to minister, look good. Labour will be delighted if the LibDems keep Clegg on.as leader.

    Initial media focus on the LIbDems in relation to this result means that it has been underplayed that this is a dreadful result for the Conservatives as well. They might not in general be concerned with their performance in an ex-coal mining seat like this; but to get less than 10 per cent and to be well beaten by UKIP is almost as bad for them as the LibDem performance. They will be very worried at what advances UKIP may make in the near future.

    If UKIP continue to perform as in this by-election, or use it as a platform from which to progress, the 2014 European Elections could be seriously difficult for the Conservatives. If the Coalition lasts, this could be a sginificant problem if they try to go the full five years.

    Perhaps the most serious problem for the Coalition arising out of this by-election is that it is quite clear that to keep even an essential minimum of bedrock support the LibDems will have to move to left. If their leadership don’t, it is difficult to believe that much of their grassroots suppport will find independent means of realigning. Conversely, the Tories equally clearly need to move to the right to address the UKIP threat, not least in that the European and international policies that the LibDems (a party riddled at the top with overseas interests) insist on a clearly unacceptable to a large number of Conservative members and supporters.

    If the Coalition sticks together they could well find themselves, whatever the electoral system in use, facing a meltdown comparable to that suffered by Fianna Fail and the Greens in Ireland last month.

    It is difficult to see what Labour have done to get such a good result. Basically, they are holding tight whilst the Coalition implodes. UKIP’s core policy is appearing attractive to an increasing number of electors, but in their case to the leadership problems which have resulted in Nigel Farage’s return, almost for want of any practicable alternative, tends to suggest that they are benefitting from the weakness of others at least as much as their own strength.

    A final point in reply to Ian and H.Hemmelig. The mines won’t re-open. When fossil fuels begin to run seriously short (and by the way our scientifically ignorant politicians appear to overlook that the supply of uranium is also finite and severely limited) , there will be great pressure in Britain for open cast quarries, like those in Australia and also in America, where they literally take the top off mountains in places like West VIrginia. The environmental implications, and come to that the aesthetic implications, of such quarries are horrendous, which is partly why the United KIngdom at first stuck with comparatively tiny and economically inefficient mine shafts, and has more recently exported the problem by shipping coal from other countries prepared to put up with the quarries.

    The political implications when industry, including energy providers, starts to demand that the tops are taken off the South Wales hills, or that open cast pits perhaps a thousand feet deep are dug in Yorkshire, are mind boggling.

    Even the dumper trucks at the bottom of superquarries are mindboggling in size.

    I worked for a couple of years for a company quarrying for aggregates, including limestone which is usually in the strat above coal. They had quarries whose depth was limited by the then active mine workings underneath.

    March 5th, 2011 at 3:45 pm
39. Frederic Stansfield

    RIchard posted whilst I was writing. Maltby pit, specifically, is under a limestone quarry (which I have been into). The coal could in theory be taken out by quarrying, and this method would be cheaper in relation to extraction costs not least because it wouldn’t require 70 extra workers. But the political and environmental cost is at present unacceptable.

    My last post might be wrong in that a few British mines might re-open; but my major point, that such mines cannot compete on price with the huge quarries used to extract coal abroad, still holds.

    March 5th, 2011 at 3:58 pm
40. Andy JS

    Thanks for the interesting analysis Frederick.

    I think UKIP didn’t do as well in Oldham East because it was an open contest between two of the major parties. Whenever that isn’t the case as in Barnsley Central they have a much better chance of putting in a good performance.

    March 5th, 2011 at 4:01 pm
41. Joe James B

    If you adjust for the 2010 boundary change, Labour would have scored
    about 63.0% in this by-election under the pre 2010 boundaries.

    That means Labour did better their 2005 performance – but not against 2001 and 1997.

    Thanks for the good analysis Frederic. Interested also in the points from Richard, HH, and yourself about the mines.

    March 5th, 2011 at 4:08 pm
42. Andrea

    The LD candidate wrote an account of his campaign in the Mail on Sunday.
    He says Barnsley people are mainly cordial but then he went on citing some very over the top encounters.

    One man told him Thatcher was worse than Hitler, another predicted a lynch mob for Clegg.
    One man with a black partner was concerned that in pubs everyone insults his partner and no-one says anything.
    Several people complained that Jarvis was a scab because he comes from Nottinghamshire where the miners didn’t strike (that’s why Labour put Dennis Skinner on the leaflets with a message to Barnsley people telling them to vote for Jarvis?)

    March 6th, 2011 at 10:01 am
43. richard

    AW

    You might like to delete the fist sentance of my previous comment.

    I can confirm that FS is correct about the existence of both a coal mine and a limestome quarry in the Maltby area.

    I doubt though that we’ll ever get the largescale opencast mining as seen in the Americas and Australia.

    It really would be environmentally horendous and unlike the Americas and Austalia the mines would have to be in areas with high populations.

    March 6th, 2011 at 3:48 pm
44. Ian

    Some interesting points raised by FS.

    I would point out to FS that Barnsley might be geographically close to Sheffield Hallam, but it is closer to Mars in terms of demographics. It is certainly not Clegg’s ‘backyard’ or core vote. The LIbDems success in the north has been in appealing to students, ethnic groups (In particular anti-war Muslims), and affluent middle class professionals and intellectual types who don’t want to vote Tory or Labour. Barnsley does not have a signficantly large number of any of these groups – it is poor, working class/unemployed/benefit reliant class.

    Lastly, when I earlier raised the issue of mines it was a point on the mentality of the population rather than an argument on the sustainability of open or deep mining. All the new jobs brought to the area since the mining decline are lower paid – the tragedy of the coal mining strikes and the decline was that mining was a relatively well paid job. The jobs that have replaced mining are not in general well paid – they are in logistics, warehouses, shopping centres and call centres. The male population in particular believe it is demeaning to take these jobs (although some have). and long for the return of mining and/or manufacturing.

    March 6th, 2011 at 5:03 pm
45. Frederic Stansfield

    Another way of putting it, Ian, is that Sheffield Hallam is almost a bit of Mars tacked onto Yorkshire (although, Crookes is fairly normal in terms of demographics and housing, given that students are widespread now).

    Sheffield is of course a former steel city and the steelworkers had strong affinities to the miners, not least because coal, along with limestone, were the major raw materials, along with iron ore of course, for the steel making process. It’s different now because quality steel is made in much smaller furnaces heated using electricity, which can achieve higher and more even temperatures. But the UK totally lost out to Germany when it came to updating to this technology, with catastrophic consequences for employment in real-world Eastern Sheffield (e.g. Brightside) and Rotherham.

    March 6th, 2011 at 5:42 pm
46. Joe James B

    There are lots of houses for sale at under £50,000 in Barnsley and some in the £20,000s

    September 10th, 2012 at 11:11 pm
47. Andy JS

    Let’s be honest though – very few people would move to Barnsley unless they were absolutely desperate.

    September 11th, 2012 at 2:04 am
48. richard

    Not to Barnsley itself but they are to the Darton-Dodworth areas along the M1 between Barnsley and Penistone.

    September 11th, 2012 at 7:44 am
49. richard

    No Libdems in Barnsley if you’re thinking of moving Joe

    September 11th, 2012 at 7:45 am
50. Warofdreams

    Barnsley isn’t the most exciting place, but it has a reasonable town centre, easy access to the Peaks and to the M1 – which is more than can be said for some other local towns. If my job was in Barnsley, I’d be perfectly happy living in the town. The area around Dunford Bridge, on the edge of the Peaks, is rather nice, if you like rural life.

    September 11th, 2012 at 8:53 am