There were a couple of bye elections in England yesterday.
They were both rather strange in their own way & while not at all alike they were both very different from the norm.

One was at Batley and Spen & was caused by the murder of the siting Labour MP (Jo Cox) by a Brexit nutter. It was unusual in that the 3 major parties (Conservatives, Liberal Democrats & Greens) all agreed not to have candidates due to the reasons behind the need for the election.
Hardly surprising that the Labour candidate (a former UK 'soap' star, Tracy Brabin) won the vote by a landslide. Although the turnout was a paltry 25% (at least in some part due to its' non-competitive nature) 85% of those who turned out voted for the winner.
The fact that the other 3 major parties didn't have a candidate did little to reduce the list of candidates though. In total 9 other candidates took their share of the remaining 15% of the votes cast.
They were a pretty motley crew of candidates too. In descending order of success they were..
1. Therese Hirst for English Democrats. A spin off from UKIP who want England to become independent from the rest of the UK. - 969 votes.
2. David Furness for BNP. The British National Party are about as far right wing as you can go in England without getting arrested for your views. - 548 votes.
3. Garry Mervyn Kitchin. Independent. A local man who stood in protest at the 3 other major party's refusal to put forward candidates. - 517 votes.
4. Neil Humphrey (who has changed his name by deed poll to Corbyn Anti). for English Independence Party. Previously Labour & the Lib Dems, he set up the English Democrats (see 1.) - 241 votes.
5. Jack Buckby for Liberty GB. Former member of the BNP (see 2.) his party is now in alliance with English Defence League. - 220 votes.
6. Henry Edmund Burke Mayhew, Independent. Appeared no where during the election, made no known agenda statement. Although a person with the same name stood for UKIP during the 2005 elections in West Ham. - 153 votes.
7. Waqas Ali Khan, Independent. A former UKIP wannabe but was standing directly in opposition of Jack Buckby (see 5) who he believed was promoting anti-islamic views. - 118 votes.
8. Richard Edmonds for National Front. Long time supporter of the far right wing whites only National Front. - 87 votes.
9. Ankit Love, One Love Party. Sort of modern Screaming Lord Such but with little of the formers' humour. Green, free education, legalise cannabis agenda. - 34 votes.

The second bye election was at Witney
This was caused by the resignation of former Prime Minister David Cameron after the mess he left the UK in after the Brexit referendum.
Cameron had certainly been a favourite amongst the Witney voters who gave him a whopping 25,000 majority at the last election.
It was seen by many political commentators as an early indication of how well Teressa May's Prime Minister period was being viewed by the general voting public. Personally I was not sure that it would indicate much - except that David Cameron had been very well liked in the area & that bye elections inevitably go badly for the Government in power - a mini protest vote..

The result was.. on a turnout of 46.74%

Robert Courts (Con) - 17,313 (45.02%)

Liz Leffman (Lib Dem) - 11,611 (30.19%)

Duncan Enright (Lab) - 5,765 (14.99%)

Larry Sanders (Green) - 1,363 (3.54%)

Dickie Bird (UKIP) - 1,354 (3.52%)

Dr Helen Salisbury (NHAP) - 433 (1.13%)

Daniel Skidmore (Ind) - 151 (0.39%)

Mad Hatter (Loony) - 129 (0.34%)

Nicholas Ward (Ind) - 93 (0.24%)

David Bishop (Bus Pass Elvis) - 61 (0.16%)

Lord Toby Jug (Eccentric) - 59 (0.15%)

Winston McKenzie (Eng Dem) - 52 (0.14%)

Emilia Arno (Love) - 44 (0.11%)

Adam Knight (Ind) - 27 (0.07%)

So a greatly reduced Conservative majority, but still a healthy win. The Lib-Dems leap back into second place over Labour. Hard to say if that is a backlash against the Labour leader but I have a feeling that it has more to do with the Lib-Dems being forgiven slowly by their core voters for their disastrous alliance with the Conservatives..
Again a real mish mash of fringe candidates who manage to pull in very few votes indeed. There seem to be so many of them standing now that it must be difficult to decide which one to vote for if you genuinely want to stick two fingers up to the main parties..

Great to see the "Loonies" get a whopping 129 votes although I feel this could have been tripled if Tarquin Lim Bim Wim Bin Limbert dot ptang ptang ole buiscuit barrel had been available to stand for them :-"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVI5ZOT5QEM

It does appear to confirm that an increasing number of the UK turkeys who voted for Christmas are experiencing voter’s remorse.

The biggest fall in Witney was experienced by UKIP (the PC party of choice for racists, bigots and fascists) who in the 2016 By-election lost three quarters of the votes that they got in the 2015 General Election, dropping from third to fifth (behind the tree-huggers).

Conservatives (under the lemming like leadership of Theresa May) were not far behind in losing half of their 2015 vote and Labour (with its Michael Foot wannabe leader) lost nearly 43% of its vote.

The only real gainers were the Liberal Democrats who, in nearly trebling their vote, leapfrogged Labour and UKIP into second place (I have to confess that I can’t remember who the Liberal Democrat leader is – he must be the one who had a really successful charisma bypass operation).

While the motley collection of independents and fruit & nut cases did increase their total vote by nearly 10%, it was only an increase of 89 votes to 1,049 votes and was split across 9 candidates whereas in 2015 the 960 votes they received were split across 7 candidates.

A comparison of the change in vote from 2015 to 2016:

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Well the third bye election in England since the Brexit vote was also a strange one.

It was called because the sitting MP, Conservative Zac Goldsmith had resigned as the representative of Richmond Park.
He resigned because the Government approved plans for the third Heathrow runway & the high property value London constituency is on the Heathrow flight path. He had won a resounding victory in the General Election (winning by 32% of the vote) as the Liberal Democrat vote disappeared.
However, as was seen in the other bye elections, the traditional Lib-Dem voters seem to have forgiven the Party for its' shocking betrayal in joining the Conservatives in the coalition Government.

Mr. Goldsmith was standing as an Independent this time around & the Conservative Party did not want to split his vote so fielded no candidate. UKIP also fielded no candidate, given Mr. Goldsmith's stance on the issue.

The Heathrow runway concern was not too much of an issue in the contest though as Mr. Goldsmith's main opponent, Liberal Democrat Sarah Olney, was also anti the expansion.

What became the main issue was Brexit.
Mr. Goldsmith was a staunch & verbal supporter of leaving Europe, Ms. Olney was firmly in the remain camp. In the referendum the constituency had voted heavily in favour of Remain.

So the result might have the headline of a 'shock' one, but really should not come as much of a surprise..