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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Claire Phipps and Ben Quinn

Rochester and Strood byelection – polling day

A Ukip supporter cleaning the windows of the Rochester campaign office.
A Ukip supporter cleaning the windows of the Rochester campaign office. Photograph: Ray Tang/Rex

I’m wrapping up this blog now, but you should jump over to this one in order to follow Andrew Sparrow’s masterful byelection night coverage.

In the meantime, here’s the sound of bells ringing out this evening from Rochester Cathedral. Ask not for whom they toll?

The ‘white van man’ at the centre of the Emily Thornberry twitter storm has apparently been tracked down by Jamie Ross of Buzzfeed.

Ross reports that an occupant of the suburban house which featured in Thornberry’s tweet said he is baffled by the attention and is consulting his lawyer.

But what’s his view on the byelection? He told Ross:

I’ve not voted yet and I’m probably not going to vote.

Back to Emily Thornberry’s ill-judged tweet now, and the Spectator’s Isabel Hardman writes that the resulting controversy makes it difficult for Labour to argue that its coming failure in Rochester is down to its wisely refusing not to waste resources into a seat where it was always going to come third.

Hardman adds:

Thornberry’s three-word tweet had an incendiary affect because it as opened Labour up to the charge of being too posh, too remote, too Oxford/Primrose Hill to understand a place even like Rochester – which is just a 45-minute train journey away from Victoria Station.

And those on the left who think Miliband’s Labour is too posh are using Thornberry’s tweet to prove their point.

So the scene is set: Ukip will probably win tomorrow but the biggest loser will be Ed Miliband. The postmortem of tomorrow’s result will include an examination of Labour’s attitude towards the working class voters.

The clock is ticking down for any last minute voters and the main three contenders are still attempting to drum up support on social media and elsewhere:

https://twitter.com/KellyTolhurst/status/535526517737271296

Updated

Away from the Rochester frontline again now, but an issue that undoubtedly has political traction: bankers’ bonuses.

George Osborne has conceded defeat in his attempt to overturn the EU cap on bonuses after a senior legal advisor at the European court of justice rejected his arguments.

The chancellor instead raised the prospect of forcing changes to the way bankers are paid, by having their salaries – not just their bonuses – clawed back when errors are made.

Jill Treanor and Jennifer Rankin report:

He took his decision after one of the ECJ’s advocate generals, recommended upholding the EU law on bankers’ bonuses that restricts payouts to 100% of a bankers’ salary, or 200% if shareholders grant their approval.

The opinion – although not binding – was seen as a blow to the chancellor who gave his backing to ideas floated by Mark Carney and other central bankers to force change in the way bankers are paid.

Osborne: 'I’m not going to spend taxpayers’ money on a legal challenge now unlikely to succeed.'
Osborne: ‘I’m not going to spend taxpayers’ money on a legal challenge now unlikely to succeed.’ Photograph: Philip Toscano/PA

There is at least an hour before the polls here in Rochester even close, and yet it’s fair to say that Ukip activists are in a jubilant mood.

That includes their leader (spotted wearing what looked like a Bayeaux tapestry tie). My colleagues Rowena Mason and Madeline Ratcliffe here on him saying that “all bets are off” about the result of the general election if his party sins its second MP now.

Rowena and Madeline add:

Senior sources in the Tory party were talking in terms of their candidate, Kelly Tolhurst, potentially having halved Reckless’s 10,000 majority, rather than beating him.

They also expressed hope that the seat could be won back in May after voters have had the chance to give the government a kicking.

All the polls conducted in the runup to the byelection have indicated a Ukip win but it is still possible that supporters of other parties could lend their vote to the Conservatives in order to keep out Nigel Farage’s party.

A senior Labour source at the heart of the Rochester campaign said he thought Ukip could be pushing towards 50% of the vote.

(Read the piece in full here)

Ukip leader Nigel Farage leaves the 'Sweet Expectations' shop in Rochester this evening.
Ukip leader Nigel Farage leaves the ‘Sweet Expectations’ shop in Rochester this evening. Photograph: Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA

Farage added that predictions of a significant victory may have been “slightly over-egged” but he added:

I feel our vote is solid, I think we’re going to win but I think it might be a bit closer than people think.

Updated

Whatever about the turnout here in Rochester today, voters in general are alienated by the rowdy tone of the weekly Commons joust between Cameron and Miliband.

That’s according to the Speaker, John Bercow, who said that MPs are damaging the reputation of parliament by “spray painting our shop window” during prime minister’s questions.

Nick Watt reports:

In a sign of his deep frustration at the noisy parliamentary session every Wednesday lunchtime, the Commons Speaker said that voters are generally alienated by the “almost incontrollable cacophony” in the chamber.

Bercow criticised MPs in an interview with the House magazine in which he suggested that ancient titles such as “the right honourable member” could be dropped and members of the public could be invited to a special session of prime minister’s questions on the parliamentary estate.

Emily Thornberry has received something of a dressing down from Ed Miliband following her controversial tweet earlier in the day, according to Labour sources.

Following the Labour leader’s call to the Islington MP, a Labour source told the Guardian:

It is fair to say that he made his view very clear that people should fly the England flag with pride.

Here’s Thornberry’s tweeted apology by the way:

Meanwhile, another Labour MP tweets:

The Guardian’s Rowena Mason notes this though:

Updated

It seems like we can rule Peter Bone out of being the next Tory defector to Ukip … for now anyway.

In a piece for the Guardian, the Conservative MP for Wellingborough writes that he plans to remain in the party, but believes that Ukip is “a good thing”.

He says of Farage’s party:

It has filled a vacuum on the right of British politics because the Conservatives have spent too much time worrying about the centre ground, not the common ground.

The party has been chasing centre-left voters under the mistaken apprehension that people on the right would have no other party to vote for apart from the Conservatives.

So why doesn’t he defect?

In part, because I have always believed in what the Conservative party stands for. But more practically, it’s because only Cameron can deliver an in-out referendum on the EU.

Yes, he will have a renegotiation to see if we can get back to something like a common market, but he will then put it to the British people.

Updated

The Labour leader has been on the phone to Emily Thornberry in the wake of the controversy surrounding her tweet from Rochester, Spectator online editor Sebastian Payne has been told:

The Daily Mirror’s political editor tweets this meanwhile:

Updated

For a fuller picture of the Labour MP currently in the eye of a very unwelcome election day Twitter storm, it’s worth reading this piece by the Guardian’s Aida Edemariam, who shadowed her for a week in 2009.

The MP, who entered parliament in 2005, told Aida that she could remember the bailiffs who ejected her from their home, and moving with her mother and siblings to social housing in Guildford.

Aida, who shadowed Thornberry to see if her local MP was worth the money, wrote:

They were raised on benefits, secondhand clothes, free school dinners, food parcels; often, she says, they couldn’t afford to heat the house.

Her mother became a Labour councillor and later a mayor; she joined the party, she says, because “it wasn’t fair that things had been so hard”.

She failed the eleven-plus, went to a secondary modern, and had to do courses to get enough A-levels to go to Kent University, where she read law (she met her husband at law school, over a game of bridge).

“It was the first time I’d seen the upper middle classes en masse” - and she was so put off she started looking for something else to do.

Emily Thornberry MP and her team canvassing on the Corporation Street Estate in her constituency of Islington South & Finsbury in 2009
Emily Thornberry MP and her team canvassing on the Corporation Street Estate in her constituency of Islington South & Finsbury in 2009. Photograph: David Levene/David Levene

Updated

So is there really a problem with the flag of St George? Most people don’t think so, if research cited here by the director of thinktank British Future is anything to go by.

Here’s another take :

Updated

Among Thornberry’s critics was one of her own colleagues, Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk, who said:

Everyone will know exactly what she meant by that comment. I think she was being derogatory and dismissive of the people. We all know what she was trying to imply.

Danczuk, sometimes tipped as one of the Labour MPs most likely to defect to Ukip, told the Mail Online:

I’ve talked about this previously. It’s like the Labour party has been hijacked by the north London liberal elite and it’s comments like that which reinforce that view.’ He added: ‘I want to see more people flying the British flag.

Updated

Emily Thornberry.
Emily Thornberry. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA

Labour MP Emily Thornberry has been been reacting to the Twitter storm surrounding her tweet from Rochester, accusing her critics of showing “a somewhat prejudiced attitude towards Islington” (full story here).

The shadow attorney general, who represents Islington South & Finsbury, told my colleague Rowena Mason that there was a lot of “mischief making” going on.

The MP, who was accused of implicit snobbery after sending a tweet of a picture containing a white van and St George’s flags outside of a house, added:

I’ve been down in Rochester, you know, and I’ve been tweeting one or two quotes that, what people have said to me on the door step, and images that I’ve seen … and then I came across a house that was covered absolutely from the roof all the way down to the ground with England flags, they couldn’t even see out of the window.

It was an amazing image so I took a photograph of it and I put it on Twitter.

Updated

A little earlier I spotted Naushabah Khan, the Labour candidate, leaving her campaign headquarters with a bunch of activists in tow. They seemed to be in fairly good spirits.

The office of Tory candidate Kelly Tolhurst is a short walk away and, while the lights were on, there wasn’t really much activity. In contrast to the rather busy Ukip office further along the high street.

The spin machines are cranking up ahead of tonight’s vote. The Daily Mirror’s Kevin Maguire tweets what he says will be the Conservative Party’s approach to likely defeat:

Back to that tweet now, and the Guardian’s Anne Perkins writes that the byelection should have been a contest between Ukip and the Tories, but Labour MP Emily Thornberry has put the focus on Labour as the party of the metropolitan elite.

Just to recap, the MP tweeted (without any apparent context) a picture of a white van parked outside a modern terrace with the crosses of St George festooned over the front.

It is really quite hard to come up with a more lethal tweet to send out to the party’s core vote on polling day, writes Anne, who adds:

Anne Perkins.
Anne Perkins.

Emily Thornberry, the shadow attorney general, should have stuck to getting the vote out.

Instead, with one tweeted image she has turned the fire back on to Labour.

So much for Labour’s fight for hearts and minds. So much for this week’s efforts by shadow cabinet members like Yvette Cooper and Rachel Reeves, launching policy initiatives tailored to persuade these voters, and millions of others like them, that Labour feels their pain.

One click, just one click, that’s all it takes. Ed Miliband’s Labour is once again the party of the metropolitan elite.

Updated

In politics, it seems that it’s never too early for a post mortem. ‘What went wrong in Rochester and Strood?’ is the title of this blog post on Prospect’s website by Josh Lowe.

Among the lessons which he says have been demonstrated during the by-election is that “slamming Ukip doesn’t work”. He adds:

It may not be pretty, but there have been many examples of successful negative campaigning in British politics.

Unfortunately for the Tories, Ukip have proved time and again to be immune to the tactic. In the run-up to the European elections in May, their support swelled in the face of a sustained media onslaught.

In Rochester they’ve held their own despite the attack ad, leaflets claiming Reckless is only in the race for the purpose of “political point-scoring,” the somewhat dubious claim that returning a Ukip MP will harm local house prices, and other smears.

It seems that Gove has also had a little flutter on tonight’s result, revealing:

I’ve got a £50 bet on the Conservatives winning so I hope I will be able to wipe the smile off the bookmakers’ face later.

Gove: 100% sure of no more defections to Ukip

The Conservative chief whip, Michael Gove, has hit back at Ukip claims that two MPs are on the verge of joining Nigel Farage, saying he is “absolutely 100%” sure there will be no more defections in the wake of the Rochester and Strood by-election.

Rowena Mason and Madeline Ratcliffe have filed a piece which you can read in full here.

They write that the senior Tory, who is in charge of party discipline, said he is “quite confident” his party will win, despite all the polls over the last seven weeks suggesting Ukip is on course to have its second MP.

Asked about the MPs who may be plotting a switch in allegiance, Gove said:

There aren’t any. I’m one of the MPs Mark Reckless has spoken to in the last seven weeks. I bumped into Mark and said hello during the course of the campaign, so I must be one of the two.

No one’s going to defect… I’ve talked to lots of different people across the party. I’m absolutely 100% convinced no one else will defect.

Conservative Party chief whip Michael Gove says that he is100 percent sure that there will be no more defections in the wake of the Rochester and Strood by-election.
Conservative Party chief whip Michael Gove says that he is100 percent sure that there will be no more defections in the wake of the Rochester and Strood by-election. Photograph: Amer Ghazzal / Barcroft Media/Amer Ghazzal / Barcroft Media

Updated

In contrast to the buzz - and parking attendants - around the Mark Reckless campaign HQ this evening, my colleague Rowena Mason says meanwhile:

The Conservative shop on Rochester high street is completely dead in comparison to the Ukip HQ, which is brimming with jubilant looking activists.

There are few glum-looking faces inside but no one who’s up for talking.

While the Greens are not expected to finish in the top three in Rochester this evening, there is evidence that their surge is a very real one elsewhere.

The New Statesman’s George Eaton has penned a short piece about a new poll by YouGov for the Times’s Red Box which how Natalie Bennett’s party could overtake Nigel Farage’s.

He concludes:

The greatest obstacle to the Greens’ advancement remains, of course, Britain’s antiquated first-past-the-post voting system.

Only in a handful of constituencies can the party claim to be in contention for first place, allowing its competitors to warn of the danger of “wasted votes”.

There’s still time before the polls close, and the candidates are still hard at it. Here’s Kelly Tolhurst, the Tory candidate, on Twitter in the past half an hour.

Among those picking up on that earlier tweet from Emily Thornberry is Ukip expert Matthew Goodwin, who tweets a link to a graph suggesting that her party isn’t faring so well when it comes to support from ‘White van men’.

I should also mention that Farage came face to face with Howling Laud Hope, the current leader of the Monster Raving Loony Party.

Farage told him that if Ukip wasn’t around then he would be with the loonies.

The Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, has arrived in the centre of Rochester, and is having some fun at the expense of his Tory opponents.

I might visit the Conservative Office. I’ve been told that the lights have been turned out and the doors have been locked.

Asked if those voting Ukip today were voting for the part or for Mark Reckless, he replied:

It’s a vote for both isn’t it. It is a vote for Reckless because he has actually had the guts to put his neck on the line. Not just join join Ukip but resign his seat.

Electoral popularity isn’t enough to save you from parking tickets however....

On Twitter, Islington South Labour MP Emily Thornberry is meanwhile getting a bit of flak for tweeting the following image of a white van parked outside a house where two flags of St George are hanging:

Some of the commentary:

They really love their dogs in Ukip. The scene outside their Rochester HQ includes a pit bull, a terrier and a couple of others all bearing the party’s colours.

I spoke a bit earlier to Ukip MEP Diane James about Sky, one of her rescue dogs, who was decked out in a party coat. Must admit though, I’m not entirely convinced that Sky is a Ukip supporter.

Updated

To one of the other major political stories today now – David Cameron’s comments before a Commons committee, where he said that English MPs should, as a matter of principle, be given a veto over legislation affecting only England.

The Guardian’s political editor, Patrick Wintour, has filed a piece on the prime minister’s appearance before the liaison committee of senior select-committee chairs, which you can read in full here.

A snatch:

The prime minister also revealed he expected Northern Ireland to be given powers to set its own corporation tax, probably through an announcement in the autumn statement next month.

He ruled out changes to the Barnett formula that distributes cash to Scotland, but said the mechanism’s importance will diminish as Holyrood is given more tax-raising and borrowing powers.

For the first time Cameron suggested he would be willing to see universal credit transferred to the Scottish parliament as part of a transfer of powers over welfare to Scotland, but said the basic state pension should remain the preserve of the UK.

David Cameron answers questions over his proposals for wider devolution in the wake of the Scottish independence referendum vote.
David Cameron answers questions over his proposals for wider devolution in the wake of the Scottish independence referendum vote. Photograph: PA/PA

Updated

A victory tonight for Ukip could, according to some, present one of the gravest challenges yet to David Cameron’s hopes of staving off the threat to Conservative hopes in next year’s general election.

Here’s a gentleman I encountered a little earlier on the High Street who was of the view that the situation is even more serious than that.

The end is nigh?

Updated

Here is a bit more about some of the other names in the race (you can read about the three main contenders in this earlier post), courtesy of my colleagues Rowena Mason and Madeline Ratcliffe.

Clive Gregory, Green party

A freelance musician and sound engineer who runs a local PA hire business, he is focusing on high housing prices, bringing back the railways, and the beleaguered NHS.
Geoff Juby, Liberal Democrats

Elected to Medway council in the 1997 council elections, he is the leader of the Liberal Democrat group. A key policy is to increase funding for mental health in the Medway.

Mike Barker, independent

Has been campaigning as Father Christmas, his priority is clearing around 1,400 tonnes of old explosives from the wreck of the SS Richard Montgomery, an American ship wrecked on the Nore sandbank in the Thames estuary in 1944.

Christopher Challis, independent

Wants to promote prosperity in the area by getting people off benefits and paying taxes.
Hairy Knorm Davidson, Official Monster Raving Loony party

Keen to improve the hospital, he will also look into education issues as well as trying to bring a little joy into politics.


Stephen William Goldsbrough, independent

Hopes to restore Rochester’s city status, and host an international peace summit in Rochester


Nick Long, People Before Profit.

A key tenet of the party is the re-nationalisation of transport and council support services.
Dave Osbourne, Patriotic Socialist party

Osbourne’s party hopes to marry patriotic love and defence of the nation with the principles of public ownership and cooperative management of the economy.
Charlotte Rose, independent

An Exeter sex worker campaigning for sexual freedom.

Jayda Fransen, Britain First

The party, whose membership includes a significant number of former British National party members, is opposed to building a mosque and community centre in nearby Gillingham, and immigration.

Updated

Good evening from Rochester High Street, where a herd of photographers are gathered outside Ukip’s campaign HQ in anticipation of tonight’s result.

I’m Ben Quinn - you can follow me on Twitter should you wish - and I will be taking the helm at the liveblog before Andy Sparrow takes over a little later.

Just outside the window of the cafe where I’ve based myself, Ukip supporters have been doing some DIY to create these makeshift billboard vans which are dominating the traffic on the High Street.

Ukip van on Rochester High Street
Ukip van on Rochester High Street. Photograph: Rowena Mason

Updated

I’m now handing over the liveblog to my colleague Ben Quinn for the rest of the afternoon. He’ll steer the ship until Andrew Sparrow takes over this evening for the countdown to the byelection result. I’ll be back tomorrow to liveblog the implications/celebrations/recriminations after the result. Thanks for reading and for all the comments here and on Twitter (@Claire_Phipps).

Some commenters below the line and on Twitter are wondering why the BBC and other TV broadcasters don’t have much to say today about the byelection. It’s not a conspiracy, but to do with broadcasting regulations – you can read more here, but the key guideline is this:

On polling day the BBC, in common with other broadcasters, will cease to report campaigns from 06.00 until the polls close. Coverage will be restricted to uncontroversial factual accounts, such as the appearance of politicians at polling stations or the weather. Subjects which have been at issue or part of the campaign, or other controversial matters relating to the election, must not receive coverage on polling day, to ensure that nothing in the BBC’s output can be construed as influencing the ballot while the polls are open.

I’m afraid I haven’t had much to say about the weather. It looks pretty November-ish as far as I can tell.

Candidate profiles: part one

My colleagues Rowena Mason and Madeline Ratcliffe have put together this potted guide to the candidates standing in the byelection today. Here are the three main contenders (although Mark Reckless is firmly ahead in the polls); I’ll do a separate post later on the other names in the race.

Mark Reckless.
Mark Reckless.


Mark Reckless, Ukip

Reckless, 43, was elected Conservative MP for Rochester & Strood in 2010. He previously worked for Herbert Smith LLP, and the policy unit at Conservative central office, and unsuccessfully challenged the Medway seat (the predecessor consitutency to Rochester and Strood) against Labour’s Bob Marshall-Andrews in 2001 and 2004. He was a particularly rebellious MP, defying the Conservative whip on 56 votes this parliament, most importantly leading a rebellion of 53 Conservative MPs to vote with Labour on an EU budget cut that led to the coalition’s first defeat. He has always been a strident eurosceptic and critic of the European Court of Human Rights, as well as the government’s energy policy. He was one of only a few Tory MPs to vote against increasing tuition fees. In 2010 he had to apologise for missing a vote on the budget in the House of Commons after having too much to drink. He defected to Ukip in September – on the eve of the Conservative party conference – and has been campaigning on the NHS and local primary schools as well as the more traditional Ukip topic of immigration. During the campaign, he has got into hot water over comments that suggested some migrants might only be able to stay for a fixed period if the UK left the European Union.

Kelly Tolhurst.
Kelly Tolhurst.

Kelly Tolhurst, Conservatives

The 36-year-old Tory councillor owns a marine survey business. Her local roots, her dad’s boat-building business in Borstal, and her own in the constituency are a key, if not main, feature of her campaigning and profile. Her ‘Kelly Talks’ leaflets contain light-hearted features on her interests and hobbies in the style of a glossy magazine, with few mentions of the party she represents. In one, it says she “told the prime minister this area needs action, not just talk, on immigration”, suggesting she is distancing herself from Cameron and the Conservative brand to appeal to voters. Another letter sent to constituents caused controversy for its focus on worries about immigration, including talk of people not feeling safe on the streets. Like the other candidates, she is also campaigning on improving the local NHS and schools. She narrowly won the candidacy in an open primary against Sevenoaks councillor Anna Firth.

Naushabah Khan.
Naushabah Khan.

Naushabah Khan, Labour

Khan, 28, joined the Labour party at the age of 20, while studying history at the University of Birmingham. She lives in the Rochester area and works for Curtin & Co, a lobbying firm in London, and was previously employed by the Department for Education. Her campaign focuses on the NHS, primary schools and more affordable housing. At one point, she was forced to defend Ed Miliband’s housing policies after it emerged Curtin & Co had released a survey earlier this year that found many voters were sceptical that Labour had a viable solution to the housing crisis. She is a keen kickboxer and has come across as a poised candidate in the debate.

Updated

The population of Rochester appears to be about 75% Ukip activists today. Rowena Mason has spoken to some of them:

One Ukip activist tells me he thinks there are more supporters in Rochester than there were at the party’s conference in Doncaster. He might be right. The high street is crawling with Ukip MEPs. Diane James is out and about with a dog clad in Ukip branding, while Janice Atkinson has been posing in front a a van bearing a rude cartoon about David Cameron.

Extensive research suggests this might be the Ukip-branded dog, pictured on the campaign trail yesterday, although it’s possible there may be more than one. Latest updates on that as soon as I get them.

A Ukip supporter with a guide dog in Rochester.
A Ukip supporter with a guide dog in Rochester. Photograph: Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA

In a hugely scientific poll, a confectionery shop in Rochester has been asking sweet-buyers to pop a bonbon in a jar to indicate which way they’ll be voting. Ukip is clearly edging out the Tories here. It’s hard not to feel sorry for the Lib Dems’ rather paltry haul. Still, it’s good news for their teeth.

Updated

Spotted! Labour candidate, Naushabah Khan, with shadow energy secretary, Caroline Flint, on the last-minute campaign trail:

Updated

Eagle-eyed Buzzfeed reporter Jamie Ross has spotted the Conservatives’ chief whip, Michael Gove, hovering around Tory campaign HQ in Rochester. Gove, apparently, believes the Tories will win the vote today.

While speculation swirls – well, a bit – about which Tories might be next in line to defect to Ukip, one MP has counted himself out.

Michael Fabricant wasn’t on the list of suspects, but these are jumpy times…

My colleague Madeline Ratcliffe has bumped into supporters of the Monster Raving Loony party candidate, Hairy Knorm Davidson (quite possibly not his birth name), in Rochester. He’s hoping to beat the Lib Dem candidate, Geoff Juby, in today’s vote. I’ve yet to see any pictures of the Lib Dem campaign today, but I have my eyes peeled.

Rochester's Monster Raving Loonies.
Rochester’s Monster Raving Loonies. Photograph: Madeline Ratcliffe/Guardian

Updated

Andrew Sparrow has posted his summary of David Cameron’s appearance before the liaison committee this morning – you can read it in full here. In a nutshell, Cameron said:

  • English MPs should accept that scrapping the Barnett formula would not release “a pot of gold” for England.
  • He favoured a version of “English votes for English laws” (Evel) that would ensure that votes on the detail of English-only government bills would only involve English MPs, and criticised Labour for not having any plans to address Evel.
  • He would be happy to see Scotland take power over housing benefit.
  • The government would not rule out changing the proposals for draft legislation on further Scottish devolution published by the Smith commission.
  • There was a strong case for the Northern Ireland government getting control over corporation tax.
  • He was opposed to giving councils new powers to levy tax.

Updated

My colleagues Rowena Mason and Madeline Ratcliffe are in Rochester and send this dispatch:

Margot Parker and Tim Aker, both Ukip MEPs, described the party as being ‘quietly confident’ of victory. Parker said she had a cheering arrival in Rochester after her taxi driver told her he had recently informed a softly spoken Tory cabinet minister that his family were voting Ukip.

Aker said the party’s get-out-the-vote machine this morning had been ‘phenomenal’ and the transformation of its organising powers since the Eastleigh byelection was ‘breathtaking’.

Howling Laud Hope, the Monster Raving Looney candidate, said his chances ‘will depend on turnout. But we think we might beat the Lib Dems, which would be something.’

A Ukip delegation (left to right): Margot Parker MEP; Dan, an activist; Peter Whittle, Ukip culture spokesman; Tim Aker MEP
A Ukip delegation (left to right): Margot Parker MEP; Dan, an activist; Peter Whittle, Ukip culture spokesman; Tim Aker MEP Photograph: Madeline Ratcliffe/Guardian

Updated

Nicola Sturgeon faces first minister's questions

Nicola Sturgeon has finished her first FMQ’s as Scottish first minister (too many “firsts” in that sentence). She began by saying she’d like to do things differently, working across party lines; here’s what watching journalists made of it:

Sturgeon says that, subject to parliamentary backing, automatic early release for the most dangerous prisoners will end:

The spirit of consensus lasted … well, quite a long time (for politicians):

Some found the whole experience rather disconcerting:

Updated

The Washington Post has been taking a look at “quintessentially British” Rochester ahead of the byelection, concluding that “a triumph in Rochester will probably be seen here as proof that Ukip can win middle Britain”. The constituency was formerly ranked by Ukip as its 271st most-winnable seat. The report points out that:

Ukip’s candidate here, a bald and bespectacled Oxford-trained economist who has an MBA from Columbia, is no one’s idea of a working man’s hero.

But it’s the non-typical-Ukip nature of this constituency – unlike “economically depressed” Clacton – that might indicate a real shift in the party’s fortunes. Farage himself said as much to the Observer recently:

Personally I think that if we win well on Thursday, it will be different. This is not an ‘end of the line’ place like Clacton.

There will be MPs sitting in constituencies with a particular socioeconomic makeup, on a blue badge, who will say to themselves on Friday that we are pretty doomed on this approach and we are better off on a Ukip ticket.

Updated

Labour’s shadow work and pensions secretary, Rachel Reeves, has written an article for LabourList with her colleague and shadow employment minister, Stephen Timms, pledging that a future Labour government would not set targets for benefits sanctions. You can read the full article here, but here’s the key part:

Rachel Reeves, shadow work and pensions secretary.
Rachel Reeves, shadow work and pensions secretary.

For Jobcentre staff, who want to focus on supporting and engaging jobseekers, targets for sanctions are an unwelcome distraction from their efforts to build a relationship with those they are trying to help, and risk bringing the entire system of mutual responsibility into disrepute.

That’s why we have pledged that there will be no targets for sanctions under a Labour government so that Jobcentre staff are focused on helping people into work, not simply finding reasons to kick them off benefits. We will also ensure that rules and decisions around sanctions are fair and properly communicated, and that the system of hardship payments is working properly.

The coalition is set to overhaul the current sanctions system after an independent review pointed out that the rules were “complex and difficult to understand”. The Department for Work and Pensions had denied that Jobcentres were given targets for applying sanctions, but was forced to concede after leaked emails showed staff being warned they would be disciplined if they did not refer enough benefits claimants for sanction.

Updated

David Cameron has finished his turn at the liaison committee. It doesn’t sound as if he enjoyed it all that much:

Andrew Sparrow has full coverage on his liveblog.

The Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, is doing what he does rather well: gadding about, talking to voters. Here he is at a primary school which is doubling up today as a polling station, where he says he chatted to 20 people in 10 minutes. This voter looks rather chuffed about it.

Updated

The Tory candidate in Rochester and Strood, Kelly Tolhurst, has cast her vote. We’ll have to wait until the early hours to find out whether the multiple appearances from Conservative grandees (David Cameron visited five times) have boosted her chances. The most recent poll, by Lord Ashcroft, put Ukip 12 points ahead of her.

Conservative parliamentary candidate Kelly Tolhurst after casting her vote.
Conservative parliamentary candidate Kelly Tolhurst after casting her vote. Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

And here’s an intruguing tale: London mayor Boris Johnson has said he will not pay an “absolutely outrageous” US tax bill, for which he is apparently liable due to his dual citizenship. My colleague Haroon Siddique has more here:

The mayor of London, who was born in New York and holds a US passport as well as a British one, visited the US last week to promote his book and said during an interview with NPR (National Public Radio) that he had been hit with a demand for capital gains tax.

He said the US demand related to his first home in the UK, which was not subject to capital gains tax in England.

All US citizens, including those with dual citizenship, are legally obliged to file a tax return and liable to pay US taxes, wherever they are living, even if the income is earned abroad.

Asked whether he would pay the bill, Johnson initially avoided the question. But when it was put to him a second time, he replied: ‘No is the answer. I think it’s absolutely outrageous. Why should I? I think, you know, I’m not a … I, you know, I haven’t lived in the United States for, you know, well, since I was five years old … I pay the lion’s share of my tax, I pay my taxes to the full in the United Kingdom where I live and work.’

Boris Johnson in Times Square, New York, in 2009.
Boris Johnson in Times Square, New York, in 2009. Photograph: Ramin Talaie/Getty Images

It’s a slightly uncomfortable position for the mayor, given that he has repeatedly criticised the US embassy in London over its failure to pay its congestion charge fines. The embassy has refused to do so, claiming its diplomats are immune from taxes.

Updated

Over on the other politics liveblog, Cameron is getting a grilling on the Barnett formula:

Cameron says if you took all the extra money that Scotland gets from the Barnett formula and distributed it among 55 million English people, it would not go very far. It is not a “pot of gold”, he says. There are 55 million English people and only 6 million Scots.

Nicola Sturgeon has been officially sworn in as Scotland’s first minister this morning. Press Association reports:

Sturgeon received the royal warrant – formal approval of her appointment – at the court of session in Edinburgh. The formal proceeding, which took place before 15 senior judges, came less than 24 hours after MSPs at Holyrood elected the former deputy first minister as the new head of the Scottish government.

She is due to take first minister’s questions at the Scottish parliament for the first time in her new role this afternoon.

Her formal appointment took place before a “full bench” of 15 judges and was presided over by the Lord President of the court of session and head of the Scottish judiciary, Lord Gill.

Sturgeon bowed her head in agreement as she was asked to ‘solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm that you will well and truly serve Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, in the office of first minister of the Scottish government’.

Nicola Sturgeon leaves the chamber of the Scottish parliament on Wednesday after receiving the nomination as Scotland's first minister.
Nicola Sturgeon leaves the chamber of the Scottish parliament on Wednesday after receiving the nomination as Scotland’s first minister. Photograph: Ken Jack/Demotix/Corbis

Updated

Away from Rochester, Nicky Morgan – who is minister for women and equalities as well as education secretary – has penned this column for Comment is Free on the gender pay gap. Here’s a snippet:

We need to encourage girls, while they are at school, to know that no career path is closed to them, and to take pride in having ambitions. We must ensure that girls do not close off career paths by limiting the subjects that they study – this is why continuing to study science, technology, engineering, and maths is so important.

We should also make sure that girls have the confidence to aim for jobs and careers that they may think are out of their reach. It is well known that men will apply for a job they are half qualified for, but women do not apply unless they meet every requirement. We want to see girls have equal levels of confidence and take the necessary leaps and risks …

Much of this change needs to come from men too. The majority of people on boards and in senior management positions are male, and so attempting to tackle the gender pay gap without the help of men is like running with your shoe laces tied – it will take us much longer to get there.

Yesterday, figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed that the gender pay gap – the disparity between what men and women earn – has narrowed to 9.4% in 2014 from 10% in 2013. It is the lowest since records began in 1997, when the pay gap was 17.4%.

Updated

David Cameron is speaking now at the liaison committee on the Scottish referendum and devolution: there’s live coverage here.

Nigel Farage is – of course – in Rochester today. He’s pictured below with Ukip candidate Mark Reckless, and there is nobody in this photo whose facial expression is not fascinating:

Nigel Farage shakes hands with Mark Reckless on polling day in the by-election in Rochester.
Nigel Farage shakes hands with Mark Reckless on polling day in the by-election in Rochester. Photograph: Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters

The usual guardian of this liveblog, Andrew Sparrow, has a rival politics blog that’s just started up over here:

David Cameron is giving evidence to the Commons liaison committee at 10.30am. These hearings can be a bit of a yawnathon, but today’s will be about the Scottish independence referendum, devolution, the Barnett formula and English votes for English laws (Evel) – topics which are going to be at the centre of political debate until the election and beyond – and so it should definitely be worth tuning in. I’ll be covering it in detail.

This liveblog will focus on the Rochester and Strood byelection, but I’ll keep an eye on the Cameron blog, too, for any key developments.

I’m sure Mark Reckless will be thrilled to have been stopped by photographers at just this spot…

Ukip candidate Mark Reckless arriving to vote.
Ukip candidate Mark Reckless arriving to vote. Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA

Mark Reckless has spoken to reporters after he cast his vote at the polling station close to Rochester High Street. Hat-tip to Press Association for the quotes:

Today is not a day for politicians but for the people of Rochester and Strood. I ask their permission. We will see what their answer is later today.

The first week or two of the campaign were quite tough, then it has been going as hoped, to plan generally.

It has been an invigorating experience. Elections are the purest aspect of our democracy and I always enjoy them.

Updated

And here we go: the first polling station photo op of the day, and it’s Mark Reckless, the Ukip candidate.

Mark Reckless arrives to vote with his wife, Catriona Brown, in the byelection in Rochester.
Mark Reckless arrives to vote with his wife, Catriona Brown, in the byelection in Rochester. Photograph: Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters

Updated

A clarification on an earlier post that said Rochester and Strood had been held by Labour prior to 2010. That’s not quite right. Rochester and Strood constituency came into being in that election, having previously been Medway constituency (the name was changed because it was confusing, given there’s also a unitary authority called Medway), and was chopped from 13 wards to 10. So commenters below the line who’ve pointed out that it’s not a direct comparison: it’s a fair cop.

The All That’s Left blog has a bit more detail on the change:

Despite a name change in 2010, the constituency has been little altered since 1983, when Rochester and Strood were separated from neighbouring Chatham to form a seat called Medway. By 2010, it was decided that this caused confusion with the unitary borough of Medway, created in 1998, which covers a much larger area. That borough includes the entirety of this seat and neighbouring Gillingham and Rainham, and 60% of the Chatham and Aylesford constituency …

In fact, Labour could feel a little aggrieved by the Boundary Commission in Medway: if it had opted to link Rochester to Chatham (which it merges into) instead of those areas west of the river, the seat would currently be a lot tighter between them and the Conservatives.

A pretty-as-a-postcard view of Rochester Castle last week.
A pretty-as-a-postcard view of Rochester Castle last week. Photograph: Andrew Winning/Reuters

Tory party chairman Grant Shapps was up and about early this morning in support of candidate Kelly Tolhurst:

The Conservatives have, of course, been love-bombing/plaguing (depending on your view) the constituency, with Cameron making five trips to Rochester and Strood during the byelection campaign, and other cabinet ministers taking frequent trips.

Incidentally, as we’re counting, Nigel Farage has paid four visits, Ed Miliband and the Green party leader Natalie Bennett have been just once. Nick Clegg hasn’t popped up at all in Rochester during the campaign.

Updated

While I’m waiting for pictures of quirky polling stations to arrive, here’s a quick round-up of other politics news from the Guardian this morning.

  • Michael Gove’s former special adviser Dominic Cummings has said that the cabinet secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, has David Cameron “by the balls”:

Heywood is more important than anyone in the cabinet, apart from Cameron and Osborne and arguably more important than Osborne. He sits right next to the prime minister. He has him completely by the balls and Cameron does not do anything without Heywood’s permission.

  • Cummings also claimed Cameron and his team had no political priorities:

They operate in a bubble in which it is at most 10 days planning or more usually 48 hours or 72 hours. There is no long-term priority. There is no long-term plan. The central people operate in that kind of culture. They don’t think anything can change. They just think that is politics. His most important advisers are Ed Llewellyn and Craig Oliver – both of them are totally and utterly useless.

  • Ken Clarke is also putting the boot in to Cameron, attacking plans for an in/out EU referendum, as well as criticising the sacking of Dominic Grieve as attorney general. He also turned on former PM Sir John Major over his recent forays into the debate over immigration:

If you all start saying how wise Mr Farage was and how we must persuade everybody to let us tackle this problem [of immigration] it is not surprising, angry, disappointed, protesting people go out and vote for Mr Farage. I would have hoped that John would have avoided that trap.

  • The Tory response to Ukip is “feeding the credibility of Farage”, Clarke added:

We are giving him too much credibility. It is the background to this current byelection. You’ve got to have the courage to challenge some of this.

Although Rochester and Strood has been billed as a showdown between a resurgent Ukip and a rattled Conservative party, Labour is of course also fielding a candidate in the seat it held until 2010 [09.51 edit: see this later post for clarification on boundary changes]. But expectations appear to be pretty low. As my colleague Alberto Nardelli noted in his analysis of pre-byelection polling:

Ed Miliband’s party has set the bar of expectation in Rochester and Strood so low that probably only finishing behind the Liberal Democrats (on 3%, 1%, and 2% respectively in the three sets of figures) or the Greens would be considered bad news. In the longer-term though, looking ahead at May next year, the drop in support for Labour across these polls, if confirmed on Thursday, is further evidence that Ukip’s vote is now coming from both main parties. YouGov analysis has found that the proportion of Ukip voters coming from the Labour party has trebled since January 2013, from 7% to 23%. While this is still lower than Tory converts (36%), compared to earlier Ukip support, Nigel Farage’s votes are now more widely distributed.

Labour’s candidate today is Naushabah Khan, who has been polling at between 16% and 21% in recent surveys. The others, in alphabetical order, are:

  • Mike Barker, Independent
  • Christopher Challis, Independent
  • Hairy Knorm Davidson, Official Monster Raving Loony party
  • Jayda Fransen, Britain First
  • Stephen William Goldsbrough, Independent
  • Clive Gregory, Green party
  • Geoff Juby, Liberal Democrats
  • Naushabah Khan, Labour
  • Nick Long, People Before Profit
  • Dave Osborn, Patriotic Socialist party
  • Mark Reckless, UK Independence party
  • Charlotte Rose, Independent
  • Kelly Tolhurst, Conservative

Updated

Mark Reckless, the Ukip candidate, has sparked another flurry of speculation following his claim that two further Conservative MPs are poised to jump ship to Ukip if the party snatches Rochester and Strood today:

During the campaign I have spoken with two Conservative MPs about the possibility of their moving over and I think they will want to see what the result is before making any decisions. One of them I had discussions with by telephone and the other I met in an undisclosed location, not in the constituency. It is a very individual decision. And I feed back to Nigel [Farage] on those conversations.

Eric Pickles, the Conservative communities secretary, who was out campaigning in Rochester yesterday alongside the Tory candidate Kelly Tolhurst, dismissed the claims. But my colleague Nicholas Watt has this list of possible defectors – Philip Hollobone, John Baron, Peter Bone, Martin Vickers, Philip Davies – all of whom might expect to come under a bit of scrutiny as they go about their business in the next few days.

Eric Pickles and Kelly Tolhurst campaign in the Rochester and Strood by-election.
Eric Pickles and Kelly Tolhurst campaign in the Rochester and Strood by-election. Photograph: Ray Tang/REX

Morning summary

Welcome to the politics liveblog as voters in Rochester and Strood go to the polls in the second byelection prompted by a Conservative MP switching to stand for Ukip. The first, Douglas Carswell, became Ukip’s debut elected MP. Could Mark Reckless follow in his footsteps today?

I’m Claire Phipps, not, despite the title of this blog, Andrew Sparrow – he’s covering the appearance of David Cameron in front of the liaison committee this morning, but will be steering live coverage from Rochester this evening from the close of polls until the result is in.

Yesterday, the final day of campaigning in the byelection was mired in rows over immigration, after comments by Reckless raised the spectre of forced repatriation. The Ukip candidate was slapped down by his party leadership after he suggested Polish plumbers and other EU migrants could be asked to leave Britain if Ukip were in government. A Ukip spokesman was forced to point out:

It is absolutely not our policy to round up EU migrants and put them on a boat at Dover and send them back to wherever they came from.

Nonetheless, Reckless is the clear favourite to win the seat today. As the Guardian’s data editor, Alberto Nardelli, reports, if opinion polls are right, Ukip will walk this one. In the most recent numbers, from a Lord Ashcroft poll published on 11 November, Ukip lead the Conservatives by 44% to 32%.

I’ll be covering the last-minute campaigning in Rochester, and searching out obligatory quirky polling station pictures throughout the day. You can follow me on Twitter here, @Claire_Phipps, should you like, as well as sharing your comments below.

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