Is anyone in Oxford West/Abingdon? What the hell happened?

[TheHeathenOfSuburbia]

How did Evan Harris lose his seat on such a massive swing? What happened?!

I went to bed last night thinking Lib Dems were going to lose a few seats, but a 13% swing? WTF? Did he punch a granny in the face or something?

[Brollyflower]

Off to google...

he has always seemed a little, er unusual

[policywonk]

New boundaries screwed it for him, apparently

I'm so depressed about this result (night as a whole not too depressing IMO). He is such a brilliant, stand-up guy.

[policywonk]

The abortion stuff is one of the main reasons I like him so much

[ASecretLemonadeDrinkerDAVE]

extending the limit??

[TheHeathenOfSuburbia]

I know about the Dr Death thing, but he's held those opinions for the 13 years he's held the seat... was there some church campaign against him? I know the Telegraph and the Mail have run a lot of articles bashing him, they must be delighted today

(MintHumbug - that's voluntary euthansia, a subtle but important difference...)

It's just that he's a bit of a hero to the scientific community, and OxW/Ab is a pretty well-educated area, a lot of high-tech industries. If a liberal supporting evidence-based policy and secular politics can't get elected there... well, I guess they can't get elected anywhere.

[TheHeathenOfSuburbia]

Looked up boundary changes, they only account for a ~4% swing.

Oh well, it's just the crowning turd on a shitty night. Only bright spots Barking and Brighton IMO.
And my own constituency, Lib Dem hold against all the odds.

[crystal123]

I was at a count last night, I could not believe what was happening, only that 10 police were present, with people getting more tired and angrier, sadder, I think electoral reform will certainnly happen. UKIP polled 850,000 votes not a single MP.

[abr1de]

The Tories worked very, very hard in Abingdon. They were there doorstepping and canvassing in a very consistent manner.

Dr. Death had a lot of people from all areas of life who didn't like him. Someone I know well who was canvassing for the Tories was getting quite friendly with two Goths from London who were campaigning against Dr Death because of animal testing. A lot of church people dislike his views intensely, too.

As far as the Tories were concerned they were going to fight for that constituency tooth and nail. They were very, very organised and determined.

[TheHeathenOfSuburbia]

Tough luck, crystal, if you wanted electoral reform you should've voted lib dem. not a chance now.

There was an 'anti-animal-tesing' candidate standing against him who polled bugger all.. a Green too.

Yes, abride, I'm sure a lot of church people do dislike his views, but since people (hi, crystal) have been telling me how endangered and marginalised Christians are in this country, I thought it might be possible for someone in a relatively well-educated, liberal constituency to piss them off and still get elected. Apparently not.

Sigh.

[dickyduckydido]

only 176 votes in it though - i for one am gutted

[TheHeathenOfSuburbia]

abr1de makes a good point about campaigning; it's surrounded by some really safe Tory seats. If you're an activist in Witney, say, you just have to check your mates at the golf club are all still voting for Dave, hey presto, massive majority.

Result - shedloads of tory campaigners free to toddle down the road to the little yellow island in the sea of blue.

And the Lib Dems probably got over-excited by their poll boost, and started directing resources (such as they had, compared to the Ashdown cash) to 'winnable' seats, when actually they should have been protecting the ones they had.

[abr1de]

Well my Tory canvassing close friend certainly does not belong to a golf club, he works getting long-term unemployed back to work.

You see you're falling back on all the old cliches about Tories that aren't true.

[MrsBadger]

grr

[azazello]

I voted for EH but he hasn't been terribly helpful as a constituency MP. I know DH has written to him a couple of times and hasn't had an acknowledgement, let alone a reply so if other people have had the same thing, it might account for a bit of a difference.

Also, I got rather irritated with his campaigning (AND I VOTED FOR HIM). It was all anti-tory, nothing about why to vote for the lib-dems. Purely a campaign on keep DC out. I know the main rival was tory but suspect more people were keen to get labour out nationally than keep the tories out so IMO there was a bit of a misjudgement there.

It will be interesting to see what will happen in the next election (in 6 months time?)

[Theochris]

This makes me really sad, but to be honest when stuff like this article from the telegraph
appear on a national newspaper website you kind of must think your time is gone. The comments are vile I can't understand why the ones linking him with Mengele and Shipman are allowed to stay.

[policywonk]

Is that the Cristina Odone piece, theochris? She is such a silly woman.

Interesting what you say though, azazello.

[longfingernailspaintedblue]

Apparently he was a crap constituency MP.

I've heard that he didn't answer correspondence, spent all his time abusing Tories on his Twitter feed, and thought that buttering up Ben Goldacre from the Guardian was more important than actually dealing with peoples' problems.

Anyway, Parliament is surprisingly full of doctors (GPs have an obvious advantage in name recognition and trust when it comes to campaigning) so it is no great loss. Lawyers are perhaps the only group who are more overrepresented.

[Theochris]

No, Damian Thompson, who seems to be a rabid poster on the subject of Religion. Makes Cristina Odone look like a secular feminist

It does seem from my quick check of the net though he doesn't carry mainstream religious opinion with him. Still he is depressingly permitted a platform.

still in this blog entry by the cartoonist for the Church times of all places the cartoonist says "As I said to someone yesterday, if I?m ever in doubt about what I think on an issue I just look up Damian Thompson?s opinion and know I should think the opposite."

Still really disappointed for Evan Harris.

[Theochris]

Quite a number of ex-teachers as MP's too.

[policywonk]

Oh I've met Dave Walker, he's a good guy

Harris will be back, one way or the other - into the new second chamber if not back as an MP. He's too clever and well respected not to. And if it's true that he was a shite constituency MP, that'll be a good lesson for him to learn.

[Theochris]

As an aside, I don't understand the politicians love of twitter. So much potential for a 'bigot' type moment.

Hope you are right!

[abr1de]

Damian Thompson certainly doesn't represent most Catholics' views, as far as I know, as a Catholic myself. Most of his followers seem to be men of a certain age who don't much like women. Sometimes I post there to put the viewpoint from a Catholic mother trying to bring up children in the modern world.

That said, he was one of the first journalists to raise red flags about the handling of the paedophile scandal within the Vatican.

And he is probably right to point out that some of the attacks on the current Pope are unjustified and that, possibly, Pope JP II, much loved as he was, must bear some responsibility for the scandal. This is not a point I have even bothered trying to make on the threads on the sexual abuse scandal on MN because nobody will have it for a second that Pope Benedict might not be as 'guilty' as he has been painted, and this concentration on him is actually deflecting attention from those who should be asked some hard questions. Damian T. is right to make this point.

[abr1de]

And, returning to the Catholic issue for a moment, I'm surprised that Labour doesn't recognise that Catholicism in Britain is now very largely left-wing in ideology. As a centre-right person this naturally irks me at times, but the Bishops or England and Wales are essentially the Labour party at prayer. Get our parish priest started on rail nationalisations and you'd be there all day.

Managing, just, to bring this back to Dr Death, I think one thing people forget is that although Abingdon and Oxford are full of clever science-minded people, quite a few of them are Catholics or members of other religions.

In our local RC churches we have consultant paediatricians, archivists, doctors of philosophy, maths teachers, physicists, etc. We're not all a bunch of scientific illiterates (probably I am, I admit, though). And reach conclusions that might not be the same as EH's.