Will Labour’s by-election struggles hinder us this week?

With two by-elections this Thursday, it’s time to look at Labour’s chances. While Clacton looks like a done deal for UKIP, Labour remain favourites in Heywood and Middleton, despite some fears of a UKIP threat.

Of the 18 by-elections that have taken place so far in this parliament, 13 have been won by Labour – which is a less impressive statistic that only one of those was a gain from another party (thanks again, Louise Mensch). We lost another to Respect, and in Eastleigh and Newark we didn’t come close to winning. The other two were Sinn Fein holds in Northern Ireland.

The coming by-elections seem to follow a similar pattern: we are fighting and expecting to win Heywood and Middleton, but it looks like we are writing off Clacton and, according to Mark Ferguson, Rochester and Strood too.

How can we assess how well we have really done in the post-2010 by-elections, then? Over at May 2015, the new website from the New Statesman, they have looked into how parties have fared with vote share as a proportion of the entire electorate of the constituencies. For Labour, the news is not great.

With turnout at by-elections tending to be much lower than at general elections, it is of little surprise to discover that Labour’s share of the electorate is consistently down – only in Oldham and East Saddleworth have we managed to get more votes than in 2010.

What is more troubling is that there is scant difference between our performances and those of the Lib Dems and Tories. Labour have lost 8% of constituency support on average, while the Lib Dems are down 9% and the Tories 10%. UKIP, meanwhile are up 3% – although, as May 2015 point out, they have only started to make waves in the past couple of years, where they have improved their support by almost 9%.

None of this points to a UKIP gain in Heywood and Middleton, however. Labour would have to shed votes on a Bradford West scale for UKIP to be in with a chance on their current averages – and that is before we consider that Farage’s party have yet to reach these by-election heights in a Labour-held seat.

While this data points to a Labour hold on Thursday, the fact that we have scarcely done better the the Coalition parties over the past four years should give us food for thought. And when UKIP put in a strong showing in a safe Labour seat this week, we’ll have plenty to chew over.

I’ll be in Heywood and Middleton before polling day to find out what expectations are on the ground and, of course, knock on a few doors.