Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election, 2011
Encyclopedia
The 2011 by-election in Oldham East and Saddleworth was a by-election
By-election
A by-election is an election held to fill a political office that has become vacant between regularly scheduled elections....

 for the Parliament of the United Kingdom
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...

's House of Commons constituency of Oldham East and Saddleworth held on 13 January 2011. Labour Party candidate Debbie Abrahams
Debbie Abrahams
Deborah Angela Elspeth Abrahams is a British politician, who has been the Labour Member of Parliament for the Oldham East and Saddleworth constituency since a by-election in January 2011. Her previous career was as a public health consultant.-Early and professional life:Abrahams was born in...

 held the seat for her party with an increased majority over the Liberal Democrats
Liberal Democrats
The Liberal Democrats are a social liberal political party in the United Kingdom which supports constitutional and electoral reform, progressive taxation, wealth taxation, human rights laws, cultural liberalism, banking reform and civil liberties .The party was formed in 1988 by a merger of the...

, succeeding Phil Woolas
Phil Woolas
Philip James Woolas was a British Labour Party politician who was the Member of Parliament for Oldham East and Saddleworth from his election in 1997 to 2010. He was the Minister of State for Borders and Immigration in the Home Office, as well as being the Minister of State for the Treasury...

 whose victory in the 2010 general election had been declared void because he had knowingly made false statements attacking his Liberal Democrat opponent's personal character.

The contest was the first by-election of the 2010 Parliament, and the first by-election to be caused by the previous result being overturned by an election court
Election court
An Election Court is, in United Kingdom election law, a special court convened to hear a petition against the result of a local government or Parliamentary election. The court is created to hear the individual case, and ceases to exist when it has made its decision.- Statutory basis :Election...

 since the 1997 Winchester by-election
Winchester by-election, 1997
The 1997 Winchester by-election was a by-election to the UK House of Commons in the constituency of Winchester, Hampshire. After an unclear result in Winchester at the general election on 1 May 1997, a new election was allowed by the High Court...

. It is also notable for being the earliest in the calendar year for 55 years and the fifth earliest since the First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

.

Background

The election was triggered on 5 November 2010 after sitting MP Phil Woolas was reported personally guilty of "knowingly making false statements" about the personal character of his Liberal Democrat opponent, Elwyn Watkins
Elwyn Watkins
Robert Elwyn James Watkins, born in Rochdale, is a British Liberal Democrat politician. He narrowly lost to Labour Party candidate Phil Woolas for the Oldham East and Saddleworth seat in the 2010 general election, but the result was overturned by an election court, which found that Woolas had...

, during the 2010 general election campaign by an election court consisting of two High Court judge
High Court judge
A High Court judge is a judge of the High Court of Justice, and represents the third highest level of judge in the courts of England and Wales. High Court judges are referred to as puisne judges...

s. In consequence, Woolas ceased to be an MP on 5 November and was banned from holding public office for three years.

Woolas applied for a judicial review
Judicial review
Judicial review is the doctrine under which legislative and executive actions are subject to review by the judiciary. Specific courts with judicial review power must annul the acts of the state when it finds them incompatible with a higher authority...

 of the decision: his initial application was rejected, but he entered a second request for a review. Speaker of the House of Commons
Speaker of the British House of Commons
The Speaker of the House of Commons is the presiding officer of the House of Commons, the United Kingdom's lower chamber of Parliament. The current Speaker is John Bercow, who was elected on 22 June 2009, following the resignation of Michael Martin...

 John Bercow
John Bercow
John Simon Bercow is a British politician who has been the Speaker of the House of Commons in the United Kingdom since June 2009. Prior to his election to Speaker he was a member of the Conservative party....

 stated that a date for the by-election would not be set until all legal proceedings were complete. Woolas's second request for review was heard at the High Court
High Court
The term High Court usually refers to the superior court of a country or state. In some countries, it is the highest court . In others, it is positioned lower in the hierarchy of courts The term High Court usually refers to the superior court (or supreme court) of a country or state. In some...

 on 16 November 2010; the Court of Appeal announced on 3 December 2010 that, although one of the three statements on which the Election Court had found Woolas guilty was not within the Act, the other two were and so the judgement was upheld, after which Mr Woolas declared "That's it – I'm out", conceding defeat and leaving the way open for the by-election.

By Parliamentary convention, the party who last held the seat moves the writ for the by-election, and it was rumoured that Labour planned to call the election for 3 February 2011. However, a writ for the election was instead moved for 13 January by the Liberal Democrats.

Candidates

The Labour Party had more than eighty members apply to be their candidate in the election. Initial frontrunner Afzal Khan was not shortlisted, and the party instead selected Debbie Abrahams
Debbie Abrahams
Deborah Angela Elspeth Abrahams is a British politician, who has been the Labour Member of Parliament for the Oldham East and Saddleworth constituency since a by-election in January 2011. Her previous career was as a public health consultant.-Early and professional life:Abrahams was born in...

 from a shortlist of three. Abrahams had unsuccessfully fought to retain the Colne Valley
Colne Valley (UK Parliament constituency)
Colne Valley is a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election. In the post-war period the seat had the distinction of being one of the few Labour/Liberal marginals,...

 seat at the 2010 general election, and is married to the former Lancashire cricket captain John Abrahams
John Abrahams
John Abrahams was a left-handed batsman and right arm off break bowler. His brothers Basil and Peter Abrahams, and his late father Cec Abrahams, were also cricketers....

. The Liberal Democrats again selected Elwyn Watkins to fight the by-election; Watkins is a former Rochdale
Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale
The Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale is a metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester in North West England. It is named after its largest town, Rochdale, but spans a far larger area which includes the towns of Middleton, Heywood, Littleborough and Milnrow, and the village of Wardle.The borough was...

 borough councillor who had previously worked as a business advisor to a Saudi Arabian sheikh. The Conservative Party also reselected their general election candidate, Kashif Ali, a barrister from Higginshaw.

Two other parties who stood in the general election confirmed new candidates for the by-election. The British National Party at first announced that their candidate would be party leader Nick Griffin
Nick Griffin
Nicholas John "Nick" Griffin is a British politician, chairman of the British National Party and Member of the European Parliament for North West England....

, who stood in neighbouring Oldham West and Royton in 2001. However Griffin was replaced by former Manchester pub landlord Derek Adams, who had contested Blackley and Broughton
Blackley and Broughton (UK Parliament constituency)
Blackley and Broughton is a parliamentary constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election.-Boundaries:...

 at the 2010 general election. The UK Independence Party nominated their new deputy leader, Paul Nuttall
Paul Nuttall
Paul Andrew Nuttall is a former chairman of the United Kingdom Independence Party, and a Member of the European Parliament for the North West England region. He was elected in 2009...

, who is currently a Member of the European Parliament for North West England
North West England (European Parliament constituency)
North West England is a constituency of the European Parliament. For the 2009 elections it elects 8 MEPs using the d'Hondt method of party-list proportional representation.-Boundaries:...

.

Three further smaller parties which had not fought the general election put up candidates. The Green Party chose Peter Allen, from nearby Glossop
Glossop
Glossop is a market town within the Borough of High Peak in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the Glossop Brook, a tributary of the River Etherow, about east of the city of Manchester, west of the city of Sheffield. Glossop is situated near Derbyshire's county borders with Cheshire, Greater...

; he works in an advice centre in Manchester. Stephen Morris, an official of Manchester Metrolink
Manchester Metrolink
Metrolink is a light rail system in Greater Manchester, England. It consists of four lines which converge in Manchester city centre and terminate in Bury, Altrincham, Eccles and Chorlton-cum-Hardy. The system is owned by Transport for Greater Manchester and operated under contract by RATP Group...

 and trade union branch official, was announced as the candidate for the English Democrats; he is also Chairman of the party. Musician, composer and teacher Loz Kaye, who had recently become leader of the Pirate Party
Pirate Party UK
Pirate Party UK is a political party in the United Kingdom. The Pirate Party's core policies are to bring about reform to Copyright and Patent laws, support privacy and reduce surveillance from government and businesses, and guarantee genuine freedom of speech for everyone.The Pirate Party UK...

, was also nominated.

Two further fringe candidates had less serious agendas. Nick Delves, who had acquired the nickname "the flying brick" after a paragliding accident, became the Official Monster Raving Loony Party
Official Monster Raving Loony Party
The Official Monster Raving Loony Party is a registered political party established in the United Kingdom in 1983 by musician and politician David Sutch , better known as Screaming Lord Sutch.-History:...

 candidate, while artist and poet David Bishop (founder of the Church of the Militant Elvis Party
Church of the Militant Elvis Party
The Church of the Militant Elvis Party is a frivolous political party in the United Kingdom. The leader of the party is David Bishop who also goes by the nickname of Lord Biro/Bus-pass Elvis. The party has 6 registered campaign groups i.e...

) offered himself to the electors as a 'Bus Pass Elvis' candidate.

Campaign

As the first by-election since the establishment of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government, there was interest in whether the two parties would form a pact. Prime Minister David Cameron
David Cameron
David William Donald Cameron is the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service and Leader of the Conservative Party. Cameron represents Witney as its Member of Parliament ....

 publicly wished Watkins well at the start of the campaign, but both parties officially rejected the idea that there was a pact, with Vince Cable of the Liberal Democrats claiming that the Tories had no chance of winning the seat, and Cameron later reminding voters that it had been a three-horse race in 2010. Both former Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy
Charles Kennedy
Charles Peter Kennedy is a British Liberal Democrat politician, who led the Liberal Democrats from 9 August 1999 until 7 January 2006 and is currently a Member of Parliament for the Ross, Skye and Lochaber constituency....

 and Labour Party leader Ed Miliband
Ed Miliband
Edward Samuel Miliband is a British Labour Party politician, currently the Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition...

 claimed that it was the first opportunity for voters to make their views known on the coalition, although David Cameron argued that it was instead about the actions of Woolas. Woolas himself claimed that his disqualification would help the Labour Party, as voters would object to courts overturning the election result.

The Labour Party complained that the date of the by-election would make it difficult for students to vote, as they would not yet have returned to their studies in the constituency. However, the Liberal Democrats claimed that this would be outweighed by the number of students at their parents' houses during their holidays from universities elsewhere.

Leaders of all three major parties campaigned in the seat in the run-up to the election, David Cameron noted that he was the first Prime Minister to campaign in a by-election since 1997, when Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...

 campaigned in the Uxbridge by-election
Uxbridge by-election, 1997
The Uxbridge by-election, 1997 was a parliamentary by-election held in July 1997 to elect a new Member of Parliament for the constituency of Uxbridge in London, England....

. On 6 January, a week prior to the by-election, The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

endorsed the Liberal Democrats and their candidate Elwyn Watkins.

On the last weekend of the campaign, Liberal Democrat MP and government minister Andrew Stunell
Andrew Stunell
Robert Andrew Stunell, known as Andrew Stunell, OBE is a Liberal Democrat politician in the United Kingdom. He is the Member of Parliament for Hazel Grove, and was first elected at the 1997 general election...

 issued a party press release hailing a government scheme to reuse empty homes. The scheme was only officially unveiled on the following Monday, and shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office Jon Trickett
Jon Trickett
Jon Hedley Trickett is a British Labour Party politician, who has been the Member of Parliament for Hemsworth in West Yorkshire since a 1996 by-election...

 wrote to the Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell
Gus O'Donnell
Sir Augustine Thomas "Gus" O'Donnell GCB is a British civil servant, who is the current Cabinet Secretary, the highest rank in the British Civil Service. He is consequently, under current practice, Head of the Civil Service, which means he has authority over all civil servants except those who are...

 questioning whether Stunell's actions had broken the rules on election period 'purdah
Purdah (pre-election period)
Purdah is a now less-common term to describe the pre-election period, used in United Kingdom politics to describe the time between an announced election and the final election result...

'. O'Donnell wrote back on 12 January explaining that Stunell "recognises with hindsight" that his party press release could have been linked by the public with a government spending announcement, and that Stunell had apologised for the mistake.

Two opinion polling companies released constituency polls for the by-election on 8 January. ICM and Populus used sample sizes of 340 and 772, respectively (excluding those who refused to respond or did not specify a party). ICM's figures of Labour 44%, Liberal Democrats 27% and Conservatives 18% represented a sharp percentage decrease of 8% for the Conservatives, contrasted with a sizable 12% increase for Labour and a modest 5% decline in Liberal Democrat support since the 2010 General Election, indicating a secure Labour victory in the constituency. Populus' figures uncovered similar trends, recording voting intention as Labour 46%, Liberal Democrats 29% and Conservatives 15%, representing percentage changes since May 2010 of -11% for the Conservatives, +14% for Labour and -3% for the Liberal Democrats. A telephone poll by Survation reported voting intention figures of Labour 31%, Liberal Democrats 30%, Conservatives 6% and undecided 23% (note the ICM and Populus poll figures exclude undecideds), on a sample size of 293 (excluding those who refused to respond).

Result

Having only narrowly retained the seat at the general election eight months earlier, Labour retained it once again but this time with a vastly increased majority, with the Liberal Democrats finishing second.

External links


Candidate websites

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