Originally posted @ 1:37 am, Sat 15th Jan 2011
So much news today. Revolt in Tunisia. Floods in Brazil. BP swopping shares with a Russian state oil business to explore new fields.
The victory in Oldham has slowly made its way down the news schedules, but the scale of the challenge Labour may face in the future is becoming clearer. The Tories' mild encouragement to the Lib Dem candidate was enough of a hint to enough Tory voters to realise that they needed to vote Lib Dem for the sake of the coalition.
The Lib Dems are proclaiming victory by not being wiped out; and then downplaying the significance of it all. Ironic of course that after all those years of Lib Dems proclaiming the vital importance of by-election results, to see Lib Dems dismiss their significance. But I think Lib Dems and Tories both made mistakes by not saying how they might try to learn from what voters were telling them. The ConDems did not seek a way of showing they had heard the views of people casting their vote.
Interesting challenge to those of us who support AV. Some have ventured that under AV the Lib Dems would have won. I wonder though whether out of the 26% of voters whose vote would have been transferred we couldn't have won one-third of their ultimate preferences. Except of course, had people been able to express their first preferences all along, the Lib Dems may have fallen behind the Tories earlier in the campaign. First Past the Post helped mask the unpopularity of the Lib Dems in Oldham East and Saddleworth.
Some have protested about Manchester City Council announcing 2,000 job losses on election day, but as it happens, this is about the time when councils have to declare their budget proposals. Nottingham City Council announced theirs on Friday, with further cuts of £33.4 million in services and the further loss of 370 posts.
Polly Toynbee has written about the cross-party distress of the cuts in local government - http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/14/savage-local-cuts-unite-tories-labour
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