Ed Miliband will be breathing a sigh of relief this morning, with the news that Labour has held on to the west London seat of Feltham and Heston in a by-election. Candidate Seema Malhotra increased Labour’s majority from 4,658 to 6,203, a swing of 8.56 per cent from the Tories.
The seat was Labour’s to lose after the death of Alan Keen, who won the seat from the Tories in 1992, meant that a speedy by-election was called, with time only for a short campaign.
The victory should – at least temporarily – shore up Miliband’s leadership. Labour says that the results are a verdict on the failure of the coalition government to tackle unemployment and stabilise the economy.
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However, it is likely that naysayers within the party will say that the swing should have been greater, as Labour’s poll lead remains static and narrow. Predictably, the other parties have already downplayed the success. Alok Sharma, Conservative MP for Reading West, said that if Labour was doing well, it would have got a swing of 15-18 per cent. Sour grapes, perhaps, but it is certainly true that a loss would have been dire for Labour given the current economic situation.
Labour are not the only ones who averted disaster: Nick Clegg will also be relieved that his party did not lose out to Ukip. It had been speculated, based on the polls, that Nigel Farage’s party could overtake the Liberal Democrats. But the Lib Dems just about managed to see off this threat, finishing in third place (after the Tories), with 6 per cent of the vote — just 88 votes ahead of Ukip. The party avoided embarrassment this time, but the tiny gap portends the electoral wipe-out the Lib Dems could face in the next general election.
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It’s also worth noting the low turnout. At just 28.8 per cent (23,298 votes), this was the worst turnout in a by-election for 11 years.
Finally, the headline figures in full: Labour received 12,639 votes (54 per cent), followed by the Tories on 6,436 (28 per cent), the Lib Dems on 1,364 (6 per cent), and Ukip on 1,276 (5 per cent).