This brings us neatly to the Oldham West parliamentary by-election, where Labour defied widespread expectations of an only narrow win by romping home against a very disappointed and deflated United Kingdom Independence Party. Labours majority, at over 10,000, was seven per cent up on May, a result that on the face of it flies in the face of everything we see in polls, polling internals and local by-elections. But any reliance on such a superficial impression would display, once more, a failure to see these things historically. In the Oldham East by-election, held nine months into the last Parliament, Labours vote went up by 10 per cent; at Barnsley Central, two months later, the Partys vote increased by 13.5 per cent; and two months later, its vote went up by more than 12 per cent at Leicester South. In this context, Oldham West once again showed us a Labour Party that is significantly under-performing even its anaemic performance in 2010-15, a Parliament which ended in a dramatic and decisive defeat. Trailing the early by-election successes of 2011 by between about three and six per cent is by no means out of line with an opinion poll performance eight or nine points shy of what it was then, especially when we take into account a slight UKIP decline in polls conducted since the general election.
