The Leicester South by-election - a market to look forward to
June 26th, 2004
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Can Labour hold on? Can the Tories show that they are on the way back? Can the Lib Dems jump from third to first? When will the betting markets open?
This weekend huge numbers of Tory, Lib Dem and Labour party activists from all over the country will be heading for Leicester South where the parliamentary by-election has been set for July 15. Michael Howard has already become a frequent visitor.
This will be a tough three-way fight and the outcome could have a big effect on UK politics in the countdown to the General Election. The Tory and Lib Dem campaigns have been made harder by the decision to to hold on the same day as the Birmingham Hodge Hill by-election - a seat where Labour was in an even stronger position in 2001.
The bookmakers have yet to open up markets but we are sure that they will because this is a seat where there will be a huge amount of betting interest - not least from the party activists themselves. This is how the votes split in 2001.
LAB 54.5% : CON 23% : LIB 17.2%
The Case for Labour is that at the last General Election they held it with a huge majority; they have a popular and very well-known former leader of the city council as candidate; and the opposition to them could be split between the Lib Dems and the Tories. CHANCES OF WINNING 30%.
The Case for the Conservatives is that they have won the seat before - by just seven votes in Margaret Thatcher’s landslide General Election victory in 1983. They were well ahead of the Lib Dems at the General Election; they are 4% ahead of Labour in the national opinion polls and the party organisation has been rejuvenated under Michael Howard who is putting his reputation on the line with this fight. But they have no by-election “form” and even the most ardent loyalist would find it hard to tell you when they last gained a seat. CHANCES OF WINNING 25%.
The Case for the Lib Dems is that they won 46% of the votes in the local elections there last year which reflects a good organisation. This will make it much easier to present themselves as the only way of beating Labour - the standard Lib Dem stategy. One prediction’s for sure - their leaflets will present the election as a “two horse race” - it’s worked before so why should it not work this time? The Lib Dem opposition to the Iraq war has made them them popular within the large Muslim communities; and when it comes to fighting by-elections they are by far and away the “form” party. CHANCES OF WINNING 45%.
And the United Kingdon Independence Party? CHANCES OF WINNING 0%. Strangely it won’t be fielding a candidate even though Leicester South is within the East Midlands - the region where it had its best performance in the Euro Elections. Lack of money is blamed - which seems odd, as the commentator Anthony Wells has pointed out, given that the party leader, Roger Knapman said this week that they “had a financial warchest unparalleled in British history“. Maybe they don’t want to risk coming in a poor fourth that would take the gloss of their Euro Election performance. But getting 10% of the vote, surely, would still have kept them on the map?
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I swear that adds up to 110%
Whoops - you are right. I\’ve amended the figures. Good job I\’m not a bookie!!
A good try, Mike, to try to attract the interest of the bookmakers and betting public. But even you recognise that the Lib Dems are the favourites to win in Leicester South (corrections to mathematics and all!).
And how is it possible to present the Labour candidate as \”popular and very well known\”, when the people who knew him best - his constituents (also part of the Leicester South constituency, of course) threw him out at the last local elections?
On the other hand, I think you have overlooked some of the points that now operate against the Lib Dem candidate:
1. University students have finished their term and gone away - who knows how many without a postal vote to back up their democratic right to cast their vote? According to the polls, the Lib Dems are the most popular party amongst students.
2. The fact that the Lib Dems are now the largest political group on Leicester City Council, shouldering all kinds of responsability for decisions that are - after all - taken or effectively decided by the Labour Party in London. Obviously, Labour are very busy trying to blame them for all sorts of difficult decisions (see their web page), but one wonders with the track record of the Labour candidate, how much this will wash with the Leicester voters.
It is, of course, praiseworthy of you to try to generate interest in the electoral process. But I thinnk that, in spite of all the difficulties, the Lib Dems are fair set to take Leicester South. Which means that the betting public and bookmakers are not going to be much interested.
However, since there is also a by-election in Birmingham on the same day, the question of a double Lib Dem victory is much more interesting. After all, I remember 1973, when the Liberal Party, from a much lower base, took Rochdale, Ripon and Ely on the same day. Can they pull off the double twenty years on?
My means of gaining access to what is going on is by means of the internet. The Lib Dem pages are renewed on a daily basis. Those of the Tories and Labour are not. I learned of the identity of the Tory candidate two days before it wa announced on the Tory pages (via the Lib Dem pages, of course).
So much for your \”rejuvenation of the Tory Party\” under Michael Howard……….
Your prediction seems rather too favourable to the Conservatives. The chances of a Conservative victory in Leicester South are probably nearer 10% than 25%. The fact that the Conservatives won the seat in 1983 is an indication of how far their fortunes have fallen rather than evidence to be adduced to suggest that the Conservatives have a chance of victory. The Conservatives narrowly won Ipswich in the 1987 general election, but in the 2001 by-election the Lib Dems were close to overtaking the Conservatives.
Labour\’s chances of winning Leiceter South are probably better than 30%. Leicester South looks as if it going to be a very tough contest between Labour and Lib Dems
As for Birmingham Hodge Hill. If the Conservatives are in a position to challenge Labour they should be aiming to win Hodge Hill, after all Hodge Hill is based, in substantial part, on the old Stechford seat. When the seat was contested last in a by-election, in 1977, the Conservatives took the seat from Labour, despite Stechford being considered at the time a safe Labour seat. If the Conservatives really are in a position to challenge Labour for government they should be at least running Labour close in Hodge Hill and Leicester South. As it is the chances are that it will be the Lib Dems who will prove the strongest challengers to Labour on July 15th with the Conservatives struggling in third place.
it\’s gotta to be the lib dems in leicester south i then fancy blair to resign leadership. The student vote is vital to the lib dems but 10000 postal votes have been applied for out of the 70000 voters. Tories counld not win if it was just them and the BNP they are very very poor and losing support all the time the opposition party should be destroying such a poor goverment as labour esp. with the iraq war issue
The Tories still have a long way to go but I reckon they could pull this off. Two years ago, they were losing on the opinion polls despite Tony Blair\’s falling popularity. The Tories are in a much better shape now, under Michael Howard than under IDS, and if they win this by-election, that shows they are making progress.
daniel the tories went backwards they are a joke !!!!!!!!!!!!!! the main oppostion and they cant even mount a serious challenge in a by election ! howard out i say