Jon Sopel unintentionally referring to the Oldham by-election panel as “the three great geezers to my left” was probably the high point of BBC’s coverage of this entirely exceptional event. The “three great geezers” in question: MPs Michael Fallon, Norman Lamb and Sadiq Khan aren’t exactly the A Team. Fallon, once a bright young Thatcherite, is now grey, pompous and deeply dull. Lamb, bright eyed and bushy tailed enough to know that short of an electoral deal with the Conservatives he is toast in his North Norfolk seat, Khan stumbled and mumbled his way through unimpressively.

By-election programmes require politicians to waffle on for an indeterminate time until the returning officer reaches a conclusion. It leads to a series of plainly daft statements where everyone claims to win. Fallon managed the daftest statement, claiming that Labour would normally have expected its majority in Oldham East and Saddleworth to have increased from 1997 when Phil Woolas gained the seat from the Liberals, through to 2010. Amazingly he was allowed to get away with it.

John Stewart, Strathclyde University number cruncher, tried in vain to inject some reality, pointing out the benchmarks by which the election might be judged. His view was that Labour should produce a shar of around 42% if it were to reflect its standing in the polls. Electoral Calculus, a number crunching website which projects results from an average of recent opinion polls, suggested Oldham East and Saddleworth would produce a result of Labour 44% Conservative 27% Liberal Democrats 16% and minority parties at 13%, but with the Conservatives in third place at the General Election their vote was always likely to be squeezed and the Liberal were never likely to crash to that extent.

For some inexplicable reason the sound but dull Mr Curtis was replaced by someone called Mike Smithson who edits politicalbetting.com, a website. He said nothing of note, hardly surprising as politicalbetting.com says nothing of note. Quite what he was doing there remains a mystery.

At the count Labour made a big show of presenting their candidate Debbie Abrahams with flowers on her arrival. All slightly corny and embarrassing. Pudgy bad loser, Elwyn Watkins arrived looking glum to no fanfare and certainly no flowers. The BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, a correspondent who comes over as spiky, vacuous and not really knowing her stuff, conducted dull interviews with the ever wooden Andy Burnham, the Liberal Democrat Party President (whatever thant means)  Tim Farron, who looks a more ginger Simon Pegg and represents the middle of nowhere, and an insignifcant Tory called Andrew Stevenson. Farron has some good one-liners. Stevenson has hair gel and one of those funny quiffs. All solidly second division.

By-election programmes are not what they were. Serious figures like Tony King, the late Anthony Howard, Peter Kellner, Bob Worcester, Ivor Crewe, Vincent Hanna and Co were trotted out for these events. They gave an air of authority, they had been round the block, understood how it all worked. Kuenssberg gives the impression of not having the faintest clue what is going on and having got the job because she did a good sixth form project.

The result finally came through with Labour winning on a higher numerical vote than they managed in May with a much lower turnout, a majority of 3558, bigger than in 1997 and a share of 42% – up around 10%. An 11% swing to Labour from the Tories. That was about as good as it was going to get and a cause for quiet pleasure and a little relief in the Labour camp.

Given the result and the turnout it is self evident that the Conservative vote was heavily squeezed, but there was also, clearly, significant switching direct to Labour. For the Conservatives it wasn’t so much a squeeze as a crushing hug from a Yeti. They lost nearly two-thirds of their General Election vote, some staying at home, some switching to Labour but the bulk clearly moving to the Liberals. Normally quite enough to win the Liberals a seat with such a slim majority. An educated guess would suggest that the Lib Dems probably retained between 6,000 and 8,000 of those who voted for them at the General Election and borrowed the rest.

Barnsley Central, because of the circumstances, may be a more difficult seat for Labour. A lot can change in four months, but the local elections in May look pretty grim for the Liberal Democrats.

This was, nonetheless, the election that never should have been. Courts have no business overruling the electorate. The electorate has a way of telling them that. In that respect Mr Watkins, a bad loser, got his just deserts.

The result in Oldham East and Saddleworth (13 Jan 2011)

Labour    14718       (42.13%)
LD             11160       (31.95%)
Con             4481      (12.83%)
UKIP          2029         (5.81%)
Others      2542*       (7.28%)

Majority  3558        (10.18%)

* of which BNP 1560