Politics
This looks like an interesting betting opportunity.
|
By:
Have you seen any odds offered yet? Money to be made here on the initial prices I think.
|
|
By:
Had to pop out of the office so didn't get the juicy lays on Labour. Have taken Con as I believe they should be odds on favourites for this seat. UKIP a little short here for me because of the strength of the Conservatives.
|
|
By:
I am wondering if UKIP leader Paul Nuttall will stand here.
Copeland vote: Remain 14,419 Leave: 23,528 3:55 AM - 24 Jun 2016 |
|
By:
|
|
By:
If you look at the last five general elections in this seat albeit with boundary changes post 2005 (1997 first)...
LibDems %- 9,11,11,10,3.5. It's a rural constituency but this isn't LibDem territory. Green %- 3% in 2015. Might hurt Labour slightly. Conservative %- 29,37,32,37,36. Consistent solid vote. Labour %- 58,52,50,46,42. A worrying trend here for them. They will do well to hold this seat. UKIP % - 15.5% in 2015. Don't think they can win this but can't be written off completely. |
|
By:
The previous holder wasn't the most popular MP, so Lab should get a slight bounce from having a new face there. I'm not sure that's going to be enough to save them here. It'll also be interesting to see who Lab put forwards and there will be an almighty battle by Corbyn and the moderates to get their guy to fight it. If it's a Corbynista who's anti-nuclear Lab could finish a distant third here.
|
|
By:
Yes, with Sellafield now being the biggest local employer, the nuclear question is going to be an important issue. I guess some folks in the south of the constituency may be directly or indirectly employed at Barrow in Furness where nuclear submarines are manufactured. Labour are going to be under pressure on this issue because of leader/party stance differences plus Green Party hoovering up potential Labour votes.
|
|
By:
The Nuclear question is the ONLY question. If you don't work there, someone in your family does. So the prospective MP just has to be pro Nuclear & pro Sellafield, or it's curtains.
Best not to bet until you know who's standing..... |
|
By:
As someone who has lived his entire life in the area hopefully I am educated enough to give an opinion.
Copeland has only had 2 mps in the last 33 years Jack Cunningham was an adopted local and served for 22 years , Jaimie Reed was local and served for 11 years. In my opinion if anyone other that Jaimie Reed had stood at the last election Labour would have lost the seat. One thing for sure if Labour decided to parachute a celebrity candidate in to stand they will be annihilated . |
|
By:
Betting wise, things seemed to have settled down after initial skirmishes.
Conservative evens. Labour 6/4 UKIP 10/1 LibDem 50/1 UKIP look a bit short to me. I don't give the LibDem's any realistic chance of victory here but with Tim Farron's Westmorland and Lonsdale constituency adjoining, they won't be short of a mobile volunteer army if they have a real go at it. If they do, Labour could suffer the most. |
|
By:
The Labour party leadership will show their absolute stupidity when they decide who ( and possibly how )will fight for the seat. I believe their blind belief that only the idealogical purity candidates ( pro immigration and anti-nuclear)will deserve the seat will result in electoral suicide.
|
|
By:
2.0 for the tories will look like a gift 2 weeks from now.
|
|
By:
and burty boy never looks a gift horse in the mouth and is in deep
 |
|
By:
Personally, I wouldn't rush in to take the evens about the Conservatives. The date for this by election is unclear and no candidates have been nominated so far. The Conservatives normally achieve around 36% of the vote in this constituency. Will that be enough to win and if not, where are the going to get the extra votes they need?
|
|
By:
I wouldn't write off UKIPs chances here.
There was a large Leave majority here, and in the last European election Anti-EU candidates had a majority of the votes cast. The constituency is 98% white, and older than average. UKIP will campaign on ensuring that the government put immigration and sovereignty as the red lines. The (leaver) electorate may see this as a chance to tell Theresa May exactly what type of Brexit they want. To compound Labour's problems here, the LibDems may campaign on Brexit too. To say that Nuclear is the only issue here may be true for a General Election, but this is different. Brexit is still the only thing on peoples political radar (esp. Leavers), and they may see it as a chance to influence the government's negotiations - Leavers voting UKIP, Remainers LibDem. This is a nightmare for Labour in the making. |
|
By:
|
|
By:
|
|
By:
If UKIP are to win this seat they need to more than double their share of the vote. Is that likely and why would you vote for them?
Labour cannot be ruled out here. They have held this seat in various forms since 1931. A former mining community, folks have long memories and to vote Conservative would be unthinkable. There are more than 10,000 employees at Sellafield and god knows how many more employed in businesses directly reliant on it. If Labour put up a trade unionist from that plant as their candidate, they would be favourites in my book. |
|
By:
Indeed you hit the nail on the head, there are a lot of Labour voters in that constituency that won't vote Conservative but will vote UKIP.
Labour held that seat at the GE with a pro-nuclear leader who was polling far higher than Corbyn. Labour go into this election being anti-nuclear, pro-immigration & pro-EU. Of course they have a chance here but the demographics are completely against them and I think their price is skinny given the current unknowns. |
|
By:
Traditional Labour voters are not going to vote UKIP if there is the slightest chance it will let the Conservative in. That point will be reinforced on the doorstep many times.
|
|
By:
Do not be in the least bit surprised (I for one won't be) if UKIP can't retain their 15.5% vote share that they achieved in this constituency at the General election.
|
|
By:
I agree that is a possible scenario, but equally I can see a scenario where UKIP are the challengers in this seat.
Traditional Labour and UKIP are the same people, so while former Labour voters won't want to let the Conservatives in, they will want to try and get UKIP in. No amount of LD style bar charts will convince ex-Lab voters to go back. |
|
By:
Ok, here's my tuppence worth at a prediction...
2%- Loonies, independents and independent loonies. 3%- Green 9%- LibDem 15%- UKIP 34%- Conservative 37%- Labour |
|
By:
Meadow X1
If Labour put up a trade unionist from that plant as their candidate, they would be favourites in my book. Labour had the ideal candidate Steven Gibbons age 48 ,born & bred in the area, family man,trade unionist, worked at Sellafield , Labour through & through . Tragically died recently. |
|
By:
Sorry to hear that Shadder. Steven sounds like he would have been an excellent local candidate.
|
|
By:
In the 2015 General election UKIP won one seat out of six hundred and fifty with campaigning on a referendum to exit the EU as their main strategy. As that aim has effectively been achieved, why are they only a 10/1 shot to win this seat? I don't get it.
|
|
By:
http://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/Speculation-over-Copelands-by-election-contenders-3288b366-5085-4e38-930c-6ac40c99ccca-ds
|
|
By:
All the Cons have to do in order take out the UKIP vote is to pledge a successful and not too protracted exit from the EU.
Meadow rightly says a vote for UKIP could let the Tories in which will occupy some peoples' minds. However I would add that strong support for UKIP could let Labour in which would be seen as a victory for the Remainers. Given that this area voted to Leave I think that the UKIP vote could well fall away to stop that happening. All a bit lateral thinking but that's what makes this interesting. |
|
By:
Think you are coming from the wrong angle here chaps, to my mind everything we've seen since 2010 in the north suggests UKIP & Con are fishing in different pools for voters. It's rather UKIP taking from Labour, Labour here are not pro-leave in a constituency that heavily voted leave.
I just looked up the Mayoral election for Copeland in 2015 and your man above Steve Gibbons narrowly lost to an Independent. Now that means nothing in terms of party politics, but it's interesting that he won the first ballot and then lost the run-off as Con voters switched to the Independent. Maybe a sign that ABL(Anyone but Labour) vote may be strong here, but as with the discussion above if the UKIP vote is predominantly ex-Lab, they aren't going to switch to Con to keep Lab out. Just a couple of thoughts why I think the UKIP vote here will hold up(They are after all coming from a pretty small base) and tactical voting seems unlikely. |
|
By:
Looking at the change of voting share from the 2010 General election to the 2015 General election in this constituency, UKIP's vote share went up 13%. Purely guesstimating, I would suggest they got that from BNP (3%), Labour (3%), Conservative (1%) and LibDem (6%). I am fairly sure that in this by election the LibDem vote will go back up (they only achieved 3.5% in 2015).
|
|
By:
I remain baffled by people falling for the idea that UKIP are the alternative to Labour.
Given we've all seen cuddly Nige at a fox hunt yesterday and the current leader supports privatising the NHS I'm wondering when the scales will fall from people's eyes. I think Lib Dems remain the beneficiaries of Labour's hopelessness and are at the kind of price where it's easy to back them. Firstly and most obviously they have a big sway over any remain voters (plus any who've had a change of heart in recent months) if that remains front and centre of campaigning and are the only mainstream party offering a real alternative to the status quo here. I think from both Labour and the Lib Dems point of view the important thing is to show the disparity between themselves and UKIP. Pictures of Nige in his hunting get up and various quotes from Nuttall should be printed out and plastered all over the place to ram home the message that they aren't the party of the working class and never were. That will help regain the working class vote and may also then see the tories and UKIP fighting it out over the leavers' share. Could be interesting (though the tories should hose it). |
|
By:
|
|
By:
Latest betting tories. 4-5. Labour. 5-4 ukip 9-1. lib dems 40-1 People here thinking that Labour wont put up a big fight are living in a right wing dreamworld , its all to play for
|
|
By:
|
|
By:
The LibDem's might get up to around 12% I guess as it's a by election and will have support from Farron's adjoining constituency but that surely would be their limit. Traditional white, elderly voters which predominate here will turn out faithfully to vote Tory at the ballot boxes desperate to win the seat. Why would they give their vote to anyone? That leaves LibDem as you say picking up votes from Labour a little but UKIPers with nothing really to vote for may be a source of more votes.
|
|
By:
Well let's see. We're in interesting times and the Lib Dems have made some prominent positive steps in the last couple of months. Will be curious to see how it pans out.
|
|
By:
UKIP will be going all out to increase their vote here with the sizable Lab vote to squeeze. It wouldn't surprise me if they threw a tremendous amount of resources at this seat with the aim of increasing their vote share markedly. If Lab choose a Corbynista here and tank UKIP will be in prime position to take the seat at the next GE if the Gov are struggling.
Can't see (m)any UKIP to LD switchers here. That would be some ideological rethink in 18 months. |
|
By:
CJ - I still feel Ukippers may well vote Tory. May has the job of delivering our exit from the EU and she must be strengthened in that position.
If I lived in Copeland I would be fearful of voting Ukip and letting Labour in. |
|
By:
Nuttall the clown has no appeal here, no chance and No way
|