In article <xw$wHUQ8ysEIFw+G@blueyonder.co.uk>, pah@invalid.invalid (Paul 
Hyett) wrote:

> *From:* Paul Hyett <pah@invalid.invalid>
> *Date:* Sat, 26 Apr 2008 06:52:16 GMT
> 
> On Fri, 25 Apr 2008 at 12:58:00, Colin Rosenstiel 
>  wrote in uk.politics.electoral :
> >
> >Hinckley and Bosworth BC, Hinckley Castle
> >LD 802 (57.0;-10.0), BNP 264 (18.8;+18.8), Con 226 (16.1;-8.7),
> >Lab 116 (8.2;0.0)
> >Majority 538. Turnout 29.6%. LD hold. (Percentage change since May 
> 2007).
> >
> Interesting the BNP took votes almost equally from the Tories & LD 
> (not that there was much of a Labour vote to eat into).

As ever, with a turnout like this and say a 5% register churn since 2007 
you can't say that the exact same electors voted in 2007 as voted on 
Thursday. Better to look at absolute votes rather than vote share.

The presence of a BNP candidate might mean that extra voters come out to 
vote both for and against them that did not last year. Balance this 
against a fall in turnout that you often get for by-elections as compared 
to an all-up council election.

FWIW result in 2007 was:

LD   1093
LD   1076
C     405
C     388
Lab   133
Lab   131

Turnout unknown but higher than on Thursday.

Ian Ridley
"Intelligence? Intelligence has nothing to do with politics", 
Ambassador Londo Mollari, Babylon 5.