Does postal voting have a more secure future than Kennedy or Blair?
May 29th, 2004
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The Chief Executive and campaign guru of the Lib Dems, Lord Chris Rennard, has done a brilliant job attacking the postal voting experiment and not just over printing problems, the prospect of sealed letter boxes because of industrial action and fraud. He has rightly pointed out the constitutional implications of the Government ignoring the Electoral Commission’s ruling on the scale of the experiment.
But will Lord Rennard’s first action after the Euro Election not be on the postal voting debacle but to have a quiet word with Charles Kennedy about his future?
- Could it be that all 3 of the men who led the main parties just nine months ago might be out of their jobs by the General Election?
Already IDS is gone and there is little doubt that the pressure is on Kennedy and Blair.
The less than helpful comments in recent days by John Prescot are putting the focus on Blair - if the Prime Minister is secure then his usually forthright deputy should be saying so clearly and not raising more doubts with every utterance.
If the poll prediction that the Lib Dems might come in 4th place behind UKIP turns out to be correct then the “dump Kennedy” calls within the Lib Dems could be impossible to stop. He is already blamed by many in the party fo not taking the huge opportunity available to the party during the hapless Tory leadership of IDS.
- Only being able to come 4th in the post-Iraq war climate would confirm everything his party detractors have been saying.
We have been saying for months that we have not been convinced that either Blair or Kennedy will go but that at least one of them might. Our ongoing call has been to LAY Kennedy and Blair in the Party Leaders -market.
We now believe that as well there is good value in backing the NONE option - meaning that both Kennedy and Blair will be gone. The prices, at 10 or more are still good value.
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There are no constitutional implications of ignoring the Electoral Commission. It\’s just a quango, and it\’s views, often banal, should not be seen as determinative, and certainly not constitutionally authoritative.
I saw a presentation on postal voting experiments which suggested that the big gainers were the Tories, since more elderly women can vote. So it\’s not clear which party will benefit most.
Some people seem to be getting their knickers in a twist. The question might make some sense, if the opinion polls were to be considered reliable, something which even some MPs are currently questioning.
Unless I am greatly mistaken……..
Most of the polls are national in their data base. However, some take special additional data from Scotland in order to calculate results for the Scottish seats. In the case of Martin Baxter, the figures go back to December of last year, when apparently the SNP was doing surprisingly well. However, this gives us the most accurate approximation for the results of the next general election in Scotland. But we have to recognise it for what it is.
This ought to leave Scotland out of the general calculation. However, the other polls which are used to calculate movements in voting intentions for the country as a whole presumably include the Scottish element. I have seen no statement to the contrary. So is there double counting for the Scots? If the Scots were representative of the county as a whole, this might not matter. But they are not.
The Lib Dems nationally are standing at about 22%. They are currently the great jokers in the pack; a lot depends on how they do. Looking at the projections for the Lib Dems, based on the Scottish figures, they are calculated to gain under 20% of the vote in 45 of the Scottish seats. In only 13 of the new seats are they calculated to take more than 20% of the popular vote - which includes the nine new seats they currently hold, plus two they won in the Scottish parliament (Edinburgh South and Aberdeen South) and possibly two new ones, Inverness and East Dumbarton - with the political fragmentation in Sotland being as it is, this seems quite feasable. Possibly a total of thirteen.
The projections for Wales, according to Martin Baxter - based on national figures, give only three seats to the Lib Dems. In the vast majority of seats, based on national figures, the Lib Dems will have under 20% of the vote.
The problem for the calculations is that, if nationally the Lib Dems do relatively worse than their national average in Scotland and Wales, they will have to do relatively well in England to make up for it, to maintain their average of about 22%.
According to Martin´s projections, based on a national swing, there are only five sets that the Lib Dems would pick up in England: Bristol West, Oldham East and Birmingham Yardley, in addition to Cardiff Central in Wales; and Taunton and Orpington from the Tories).
However, if the pollsters were to factor in an increased purely English swing, surely there would be very many more seats that would fall to the Lib Dems - not only from the Tories (probably between ten and forty more), but also from Labour (probably twenty more). Plus the 53 they already hold…… (of which Martin calculates that none will be lost.
We shall have to see what happens in real elections, of course, not least in Leicester South, but I think Charles Kennedy is not at risk, however much postal voting and Blair (probably in that order) may be.
On the opinion polls being accurate both YouGov and ICM got pretty close at the 2001 General Election.
Leicester South is going to be a critical by-election and its outcome will provide a good pointer to the General Election.
What is the depth of the Tory revival? Can the Lib Dems demonstrate that they can take votes from Labour. Will the Lib Dems benefit from the large Muslim population moving away from Labour because of the war? Will Labour hold on because the opposition is split? All three parties are in with a chance of winning.These are the figures from 2001
LAB 22,958 54.48%
CON 9,715 23.05%
LIB 7,243 17.19%
A lot has happened since the last general election in 2001.
A year ago, the local elections in Leicester South produced the following totals:
Lib Dem 11,294 46.9%
Labour 7,157 29.7%
Conservative 5,580 23.2%
Perhaps it is not going to so much of a three-horse race as Mike thinks.
Thanks John - but a year ago the Tories were still being led by IDS. This will be the first big challenge for Howard.
I made money on Brent East and I\’ll make money on Leicster South. The great thing is that all three parties will have to throw everything into it - what a wonderful prospect. In a by-election situation like this you would be foolish to bet against the Lib Dems.
I don\’t see that NONE is overpriced at 10.0, looking at the prices for Blair (1.6 - 1.7) and Blair/Kennedy (1.72 - 1.89)
It can only be correct to back at 10.0 if you believe Kennedy is bigger than 1.3 to be leader at the election and that looks over large to me. I\’d have Kennedy in the 1.1 - 1.2 range although post election volatility may give you a trading position of sorts.
The whole kennedy thing is overstated. even if we were over taken by UKIP we will still alomost certainly defend our current seats and pick up a few more. given that there are less euro seats than last time even standing still in seat terms will be seen as agood result. you also have to remeber that Euro lections are always the lib dems weakest area. so while poll ratings of 16% to 18% look poor in the light of recent national ratings either of these would be 4 to 6 pints up on last time and see gains of MEP\’s. anyway I\’m slighlty skeptical about the UKIP surge. I\’ve no doubt they\’ll do well and muc better than last time but… the Telegraph kicked tis whole media storm off by presneting there YOU GOV results in a very iased way really designed to flatter the UKIP score. UKIP themselves have then published some very baised polling from MORI (biased in terms of the questions not the methodolgy). while this is a brilliant way of getting cover and building momentum i think they may be a slight sense of anti climax.
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