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Commentators speculate about what the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election means for the three main political parties.

that the by-election, which marks Ed Miliband's first test as leader of the Labour party, has already shown him to be brave:

"Nick Clegg would be humiliated if the Lib Dems, narrowly defeated last time, are pushed into third place by the Tories. Mr Cameron would also be appalled by such an outcome. The biggest test, however, is for the Labour leader, who has branded the contest a referendum on the Coalition.
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"This challenge may be the first sign that Mr Miliband is braver than his critics suppose. Gordon Brown, little talked of now, casts both a short and a long shadow over his protégé and successor. Mr Brown, risk averse to the point of phobia, ran a government in which projects such as constitutional reform were tested as rigorously as space shuttles yet never implemented. To succeed against a radical government, Mr Miliband must banish that culture of timidity."

the by-election spells danger for the Lib Dems:

"The by-election is dangerous for the Lib Dems because it asks two horribly awkward questions: if you support Cameron's Government, why vote Lib Dem? And if you oppose it, why vote Lib Dem? The Prime Minister is doing his best to supply answers - for instance, by asking Simon Hughes to promote the various Lib Dem victories in the tuition fees debate. So, having spent a few months presenting a united front, a pre-election hunt has started for harmless dividing lines.
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"The reason these are hard to find is because, remarkably, the two parties have been on the same side of the major battles."

rumours that the Tories want to lose the by-election to keep the coalition together:

"Tory activists have been contacting me to say that they have been asked to go to Oldham and it's clear that a late attempt is bring made to get the blues back into the game.
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"What will be critical is whether the polling shows that the blues are in a better position to beat Labour than their coalition partners, the Lib Dems. The experience of previous by-election battles is that the party perceived to be third place gets squeezed in the final days."

A contributing editor of Labour Uncut that traditionally, by-elections are used by the electorate as a protest or a wake-up call. The problem in Oldham East and Saddleworth is that everyone appears to be trying to wake up everyone else.

"If the Lib Dem vote does flat-line, it will raise further questions over Clegg's tattered leadership. A good performance for the Tories, particularly if they were to run Labour a close second, would, paradoxically, herald a furious response from Tory backbenchers angered that the niceties of coalition politics had robbed them of a red-blooded byelection triumph. Similarly, anything other than a comfortable victory for Miliband, at a time when the streets are burning, VAT is soaring and the cuts are biting, would lead to further muttering about his own leadership, and his courtship of the Lib Dems in particular."

Labour MP that one way of identifying with the electorate, class, is no longer relevant - something politicians are yet to get used to:

"Money obviously matters, but in so many aspects of our lives our way of life is converging. We buy our furniture at Ikea, travel with Ryanair and watch X Factor at the weekend, and increasingly we rely on grandparents for childcare.
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"This 21st-century version of the progressive centre is comprised of people who do not simply vote out of economic interest, but according to their judgement of who offers them the best chance of building a better life. This new pragmatism has taken political parties beyond the ideological or tribal loyalty that they relied on to build majorities in the past. So our politics has to find a way to talk about people in the way that they see themselves, which is increasingly not defined by the job that they do but the life that they lead."

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