Well, at least the Conservative and Labour parties passionately agree on something.
They both believe that the election of George Galloway as Member of Parliament for Rochdale is a worrying development.
And they both made extraordinary and personalised attacks on Mr Galloway.
Obviously, both parties decided that the risk of their criticism making him even more of an anti-establishment figure was outweighed by the threat to security he poses, in what is a difficult time for British politics.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said his election was “beyond alarming”.
The Labour Party issued a statement describing Mr Galloway is as a “damaging force” who is “only interested in stoking fear and confusion”.
Usually, politicians congratulate their opponents when they win an election.
But George Galloway is different. Many were worried when he talked about “tectonic shifts” in areas like Ilford and the constituency of Bethan Green and Bow in London, the West Midlands and North West where the Asian population ranges from over 30% to over 40%.
This is coming at a time of increasing tensions over Britain’s stance on Gaza. Three MPs have had to be given round-the-clock police protection because of threats. A debate on Gaza was cut short because of fears for MPs safety.
The pro-Palestinian protests in London are still running every two weeks and the policing bill has totalled £30 million according to the National Police Chiefs’ Council.
A North London Tory MP said recently that he will not be standing in the next election because of an arson attack on his constituency office.
Parliamentarians will remember the murder of Conservative MP David Amess by an Islamic extremist in 2021 and that of Labour MP Jo Cox by a right-wing extremist in 2016.
There has also been an upsurge in pro-Palestinian protests that have halted council meetings and other events.
Prime Minister Sunak was prompted to make an address to the nation outside No 10 Downing Street following Mr Galloway’s election.
He warned that democracy was under threat from both Islamic and right-wing extremists.
“There are forces here at home trying to tear us apart,” he said.
Labour leader Keir Starmer issued a statement saying he agreed with him.
Right-wing newspapers like The Times, The Telegraph and The Daily Mail congratulated the Prime Minister.
The Times had a front-page opinion piece saying it was the best thing he had ever done.
The Daily Mail in its editorial also described the election of Mr Galloway as a “dreadfully dark day for democracy”.
This was despite the fact that the newspaper virtually assured Mr Galloway’s electoral success by publishing audio recordings of the Labour’s Rochdale candidate, Azhar Ali. That led to his suspension from the party when it was too late to put up another Labour candidate.
The recordings were made at a meeting of Labour Party members shortly after the Hamas attacks on 7 October – over four months ago.
Mr Ali was heard to repeat a conspiracy theory that Israel had let the Hamas attacks happen so it could use them as a justification to attack Gaza.
However, the story was only published on 10 February after it was too late to take Mr Ali’s name off the ballot paper and get another Labour candidate.
There is also the question over who supplied the audio recording to the Daily Mail. Either it was one of Mr Ali’s own Labour colleagues, or it was someone else who had bugged the room.
And someone decided to hang on to the recordings until nominations for the Rochdale by-election were closed.
Presumably that was done with the intent of causing the maximum possible damage to Mr Starmer’s leadership. But a foreseeable by-product was the election of Mr Galloway.
Meanwhile, the issue of Gaza and specifically the Labour leadership’s failure to call for a ceasefire, continues to cost the party dearly.
Eight front bench spokespeople resigned over the issue while others have been suspended for comments judged to be antisemitic.
This has led to a sharp drop in support for Labour among Muslim voters. It has gone down from 86% to 60%, according to one poll by Survation.
However, a study by The Swingometer has concluded that this would not lead to loss of seats for Labour in a General Election. This is because the constituencies which have the highest numbers of Muslims also have huge Labour majorities.
The Labour Party is adamant that they would still have won against George Galloway in Rochdale if they had an official candidate.
However, there is also the possibility of Labour rebels running as independents in future.
One election that will be closely watched is the contest for Mayor of the North East Region which is taking place alongside local council elections in May.
Jamie Driscoll was dropped as a Labour candidate because he shared a platform with ‘Wind That Shakes the Barley’ director Ken Loach, who had been expelled from the Labour Party during the antisemitism controversy.
Mr Driscoll is now running in the Mayoral contest as an independent and the bookies have him as second favourite, just behind the official Labour candidate.
If he were to win that might give encouragement to anti-Starmer elements in the party to run as independents.
And Rochdale was not just a bad result for Labour who lost a seat. It was also a disaster for the Conservatives who experienced a drop of 19 percentage points.
In fact, the percentage vote for the three main parties combined – Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats – was under 27%.
Mr Galloway got nearly 40% while a local independent candidate came second with over 21%.
Although it was only a by-election, it was an unprecedented result.
So, the Conservatives and Labour can share concerns about turmoil in voting trends as well as turmoil on the streets.
