You may notice that the Liberal Democrats don’t feature in the first two graphs of the by-election result in Barnsley Central last
night. Or, rather, they do – they’re just subsumed under the ‘Others’ category, having finished in sixth place. Second in the general election, sixth last night. The 1,012 votes for the Lib
Dems put them behind Labour, UKIP, the Tories, the BNP and an independent candidate called Tony Devoy. Their share of the vote has fallen by 13.1 points on last May’s result. This was an
unequivocal, almost ritualistic, beating. Blood everywhere.
And the other half of the coalition hasn’t escaped unbruised either. The Tories finished third in the general election, third now – so what’s changed? Only that the party directly above them has switched from the Lib Dems to UKIP. Yes, Farage’s troops posted their best ever by-election performance. Although the dynamics here may simply have been a rejection of the coalition parties for being the coalition parties, many will take this as a sign that David Cameron needs to bolster the right of his party. A new ConservativeHome poll which suggests that David Davis is the grassroots’ chairman of choice only reinforces that sentiment.
At least so far as the Lib Dems are concerned, these are the worst polling numbers since the general election. And there’s the possibility that the picture will degrade even further come May’s local elections and – of course – the AV referendum. Lib Dem MPs might have expected nothing else when they entered government. As Tim Farron has put it today, “The coalition parties didn’t do very well here – surprise, surprise.” But the steady drip-drip of poor results will still concentrate minds, and could shatter all rationality. Even if only by the slightest, most immeasurable amount, Clegg’s position just became more precarious this morning.
There are other points to make about this by-election: how the voters didn’t reject a Labour Party whose former MP, Eric Illsley, has been jailed over expenses; how turnout plummeted to only 36.5 per cent; and so on. On Cowley Street, however, all that will pale beside the £500 deposit that the Lib Dems have had to surrender.
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