Could the university seats be Blair’s undoing?
July 31st, 2004
Newcastle LibDem leaflet
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Does retaining the university seats hold the key to Tony Blair’s premiership?
Applying the Martin Baxter caculator to the latest poll figures gives Labour 346 seats - 22 more than is required for a majority and the bottom of the current spread markets on the party.
But how safe are the 22? Could disproportionate swings or highly focused targeting take away this number or even more seats leaving Tony Blair without a majority. Could those targets include traditional inner city Labour strongholds which have high university, student and academic, populations that might be vulnerable to the Lib Dems?
- With one in every four Labour voters from 2001 now having abandoned the party Tony Blair’s ability to hang on to power with a workable majority could well depend on seeing off the Lib Dem challenge in the university areas.
A striking feature of the seats where the Lib Dems were second to Labour in 2001 is that many are in university areas - where issues such as the war and the imposition of tuition fees might have a bigger impact on the student and academic voters than in the rest of the country. Although many of the Labour majorities are large there are several factors that could put many of them within Charles Kennedy’s reach.
The Lib Dems came second to Labour in one or more seats in the following University cities:- Aberdeen, Cardiff, Bristol, Birmingham, Cambridge, Durham, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Oxford and Sheffield.
Given the scale of the threat would Blair be better off holding the election during the university vacation?
A classic example is Manchester Withington where the university population is well into five and the result last time was:-
LAB 19,238: LIBD 7715: CON 5,349: OTH 2,747. With Labour polling at more than a quarter less than it got in 2001 and the Lib Dems doing a third to a half again better then on a crude move with the national swing it goes LAB 14,000 to the LIB DEMS 11,000. Add the effects of heavy targetting, to the big squeeze on the Tory vote and then build in an element of Labour disenchantment over university fees and you have a real Lib Dem possibility. This in a seat where the percentage Labour majority was 32.
Although some of those mega-majorities look beyond reach University seats might react differently than the norm with significant parts of the electorate that are more political and more unified. Many of these voters will not need reminding that one of New Labour’s first acts on coming to power in 1997 was to abolish student grants and to introduce fees.
Our call remains - SELL LABOUR in the spread markets and BUY LIB DEM.
Mike Smithson
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A nice theory - but I don\’t agree. You name twelve cities with what - at most - twenty potential seats to gain? When you add the other possible Lib Dem gains off Labour you\’ve got 30-35 max.
If the Lib Dems are doing that well then chuck in 15 gains from the Tories. Assume with this sort of swing against Labour the Tories pick up some. But the problem with your theory is that if the Lib Dems are doing well enough to win 30+ seats off Labour - yes they\’ll come from third to win a handful, but in many they\’ll simply go from third to second or stay in third with a bigger percentage.
If the Lib Dems are doing as well as you say they are then they will pick up seats from both Labour and Tories - they will prevent the Tories winning some of their targets at the same time.
I agree that Martin Baxter\’s model underestimates the Lib Dem potential gains - take a look at the current predicted result for Hornsey. But a big Lib Dem surge pushes down the Tories - yes the Lb Dem benefit - but so does Labour.
The spread markets in my view are now just about right for Labour - the Tories are still an obvious sell - to make them a buy they have to win 70 seats. The Lib Dems are getting to the top of what\’s likely at the moment so a spread becomes dangerous - 72 seats wins you not very much - and 52 (what they got last time loses you more).
We should wait till after the conference season to see the bigger picture.
This is not an overall General Election prediction - I\’m working on that for next week. What the article is saying is that beause of the special nature of many of the Lib Dem \”2nd place to Labour\” seats there could be disproportionate moves not included in the Baxter \”uniform national swing\”. There are many other categories of seat, not looked at here, that could switch because of disproportionate swings such as the ten that were held by Labour last time against the overall pattern because of the incumbency effect.
I\’m not even looking at the Tories at the moment but when I do I\’ll need to take a view on the scale of the continued UKIP effect, tactical voting unwind and whether anti-Tory tactical voting will continue and on what scale.
Whatever the election will bring Labour many more seats in proportion to its vote though, as I argue in the article, not on quite the same scale as 2001 of because of the Lib Dems taking a few inner city seats with low tutnouts helped by the university factor.
1) students \”don\’t vote\”
2) the election is likely to be slap bang in the middle of exam period - which will only serve to reduce student participation (or worse - during the holidays)
3) I think you massively overestimate the extent both the number of votes which Labour has available to lose (ie. most students didn\’t vote Labour last time) and the extent to which they would base their vote on one issue, like top-up fees. Top-up fees won\’t effect existing students after all.
FWIW, and feel free to disagree, but I think you\’ve got to be a bit careful you don\’t let your pro Lib-Dem views cloud your view of what they are capable of. I would have thought that any Lib Dem supporter would be extremely wary of any promises of sweeping gains and \”seismic shifts\” in the political landscape after what happened to the Alliance Party in the 80s. There is no doubt that the current levels of Lib Dem support are a reflection, not of what they are FOR, but of what they are (perceived to be) AGAINST - most voters could name very few Lib Dem policies, and those they think they could they would probably be wrong (Privatisation of the Post Office anyone?).
As long as their status remains one of \”protest party\”, whose polls are at the moment is boosted by the lack of protest votes going to the Tories, it must be very dangerous to make any predictions of how they could play in a General Election.
I enjoy reading this sort of analysis. But most of the contributors seem to believe that the Iraq war is a vote loser for new Labour. I think the opposite, for two main reasons.
Firstly, amoung the employee-voting-labour classes(as opposed to the chattering-classes-voting-labour), they are entirely relaxed about British troops shooting foreigners. To them, it is the one tradition that Tony Blair has not tried to eradicate. Blair says that it is in Britain–and the Iraqui people and the world\’s–interest that Iraq is \’liberated\’ and Saddam removed. They believe him.
The second reason is more subtle. The BBC has a significant pro-labour bias (and always has had). But they are anti the Iraq war. They cope with this by strongly criticising labour government ministers on Iraq, and giving extended air-time to critics of the war. To maintain \’balance\’, the govt gets an easier time on other issues, just as the tories can be given no leeway at all on any issue. This looks like it is being \’fair\’.
It used to be that with the majority of Fleet street pro tory, and the BBC much more left-leaning, that there was some rough balance in the media. But with most newspapers now being pro new labour, and the BBC\’s position being unchanged, it is now extremely difficult for any tory leader to get a good press.
Is there anything Michael Howard can do to prevent a third labour landslide? Not much seems obvious. What would Tony Blair do if he were in that state himself? He would build alliances (in private) where ever he could. Will the tories do the deal they need to with UKIP? If UKIP agreed not to fight the top 150 tory target seats, would the tories give them a free run (ie no tory candidate) in just 2 seats? This should guarantee 2 UKIP MPs. If UKIP then concentrated all their efforts on say 10 other constituencies, they might even gain more than 2 MPs, without wrecking the chances of the most euro-sceptic of the three main parties.
I do not think that opposition to new labour is yet well enough organised to beat them. I believe that they will lose their majority at the election after next, and that will be more due to their \’staleness\’ than any astuteness of the opposition.
All this has nothing to do with policies. A philosophy may sometimes win or lose an election, policies never do.
What supporters of other parties often fail to appreciate is the ruthless way that the Lib Dems target seats in General Election and how much better they are on the ground wininng support and getting people out to vote compared with Labour and the Tories of now, though perhaps not the Tories of old.
There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of LD activists who get a real buzz out of campaigning and will travel a long way for the thrill of working in a target seat where there\’s a chance of victory. By the end at Leicester South the number of volunteers turning up became almost an embarassment because there were so many. It will be the same in Hartlepool.
When they are fighting Tory seats the electorates are usually much larger and so are the turnouts. Compare that with those seats that I\’m identifying where the electorates are small and there\’s a tradition of low turnouts. This means that the number of votes you need to get for victory is much much lower. That is ideal territory for heavy Lib Dem targeting.
I am a Lib Dem but I call things as I see them. Much to the annoyance of Lib Dem friends I called against Simon Hughes saying that only Norris was capable of challenging Livingston in the London Mayoral Elections. I called, correctly, for the Lib Dems in Leicester South and against them at Birmingham Hodge Hill and was correct in both seats. When I think there is betting value I bet against the Lib Dems.
I like David Kendrick\’s analysis - the polls also back this up - wiht Blair seen as a strong, effective leader, but not liked.
It is always better in politics to be respected than liked.
David\’s points about policy also ring true - I\’ve looked at the Mori historical stuff - and on policy issues over the last 20 yesrs both Labour and Tories popularity on particular policies has declined (in-line with their vote share) - but the Lib Dems have made no impact. This unpopularity has simply resulted in people saying \’none of the above\’ - which indicates low turn-out, negative campaigns and people voting for a strong and respected leader who\’s policies they dislike. Personality is now more important than policy.
Lib Dems will win Cambridge, that is for sure…
\”Is there anything Michael Howard can do to prevent a third labour landslide? Not much seems obvious. What would Tony Blair do if he were in that state himself? He would build alliances (in private) where ever he could. Will the tories do the deal they need to with UKIP? If UKIP agreed not to fight the top 150 tory target seats, would the tories give them a free run (ie no tory candidate) in just 2 seats? This should guarantee 2 UKIP MPs. If UKIP then concentrated all their efforts on say 10 other constituencies, they might even gain more than 2 MPs, without wrecking the chances of the most euro-sceptic of the three main parties.\”
That would be madness. Similar deals by the Liberals in the early 1900s allowed Labour in. The long term danger for the Tories is their replacement by a less-establishment, more grass-roots right wing party, whether lead by a businessman (the Berlusconi option), a mixture of small business resentment and nationalism (Lega Nord, Haider), the racists (Le Pen, Haider nods this way too with his pre-1945 nostalgia, although it is not part of his party policy or (I would say) the reason for FDP growth). The currently most competitive vehicle for replacing the Tories on the right is UKIP. They would be foolish to let it establish itself at Westminster.
Be careful when you look at the Baxter projections because they assume that the distorting factors of 2001 will contine.
The big question is whether there will be anti-Tory tactical voting on the scale of 1997 and 2001. Tactical voting knocked 40-50 seats off the Tory total and unless it is sustained it will, without any change in the Tory share, unwind producing a bonus for Howard. The Lib Dems who who switched to Labour last time are much less likely to do so now. Anti-Tory tactical voting to the Lib Dems will continue.
Labour are also going to have some problems with Respect in inner city seats where the electorates are small and the turnouts are low. Labour are certain to end up top party but there\’s going to be no landslide.
UKIP is a single issue party and so there is no chance of them replacing the tories. (They don\’t actually want to). That is why it is sensible for the tories to have some sort of electoral pact with them. I haven\’t done the analysis of some of the other contributors ot this page, but I would have thought that if there is no deal, then UKIP might cost the tories 20/25 seats next election.
Respect is also a single issue party. But I cannot believe that they are going to have much impact at the next election–the Lib dems would seem a more natural way to vote if being anti the Iraq war is important to you.
I do agree with the hypothesis that the way the Lib Dems target cetain seats, the key is not the swing that they need to win so much as the number of votes they need to change. Clearly, it will require fewer voters to change their mind in small constituences where there is expected to be a very low turnout–and they are almost all labour held seats. If Mr Smithson can help us on which they are going to be…..
For enthusiastic spead betters like myself, there is now another firm to use. Spreadfair.com (owned by Cantor) is person to person spread betting. It is very similar in idea to Betfair, and they are hoping it will have as much impact in their market. All the fixed odds companies had loads of whinges and whines about betfair, which has gone from stregnth to stregnth. So what happened to the traditional bookies profits–were they hammered? Not exactly, in fact the have gone up considerably. Why? Because they have moved into slightly different markets eg FOBTs. So although I do not forsee spreadfair having much impact on political betting directly, I think that the mainstream spread betting firms will be much quicker to offer different markets. I think that firms like IG and Sporting will be much keener to treat political betting as important business, and will offer many more markets next year, maybe even on certain individual costituencies. Their spreads will continue to be \’greedy\’ so we will need all the information we can get.
WRT UKIP, much will depend on where their vote is concentrated. If they pile up votes in safe Conservative seats, but come nowhere in marginals, I suspect their impact will be very limited.
If they do well in the marginals, then they will probably damage the Conservatives considerably.
If their vote is strongly regionally concentrated, as in the European elections, then the outcome is more intriguing. They \”won\” all four seats in Devon which are currently held by the Lib Dems, plus a couple in Cornwall. 3 of the Devon seats are marginals (Teignbridge, N. Devon, Torridge & W.Devon). Would they pull more votes away from the Conservatives or Lib Dems in those seats? In the Euro elections, they probably took more votes off the Lib Dems in those seats.
David,
Spreadfair looks very interesting. I like the notion of it very much and it lends itself well to elections.
Alas I don\’t have the list of Lib Dem targets - I can make a fair guess and one or two members of the Lib Dem campaign team have contributed comments on Politicalbetting from which you can deduce certain factors. But they might just be trying to throw the other parties off the scent!
I think that as well as the obvious targets there will be one or more of the small innner-city seats where Lord Chris Rennard, the LD campaign guru, determines that the elements are there to make a go of it. It might be that the LDs are in 3rd place at the moment but if not many votes are needed and there are good activists on the ground then the conditions might be right.
There will be four or five huge surprises on eleoction night.
Rennard himself built his campaigning reputation in Liverpool so he\’s used to fighting Labour.
\”UKIP is a single issue party and so there is no chance of them replacing the tories. (They don’t actually want to).\”
Maybe not now, but later, if established at Westminster, their ambitions will grow. Objectively, they are the organisation with the most capability to replace the Tories on the right. This capability, and not naive assessments of intentions which can later be changed, should drive Conservatives to decline any sort of pact.
I agree with Sean that UKIP took votes off the Lib Dems at the Euro elections - but whether they took more or less from the Tories is debateable. I think everyone agrees that UKIP will not poll anything like their Euro score in a general election - but they will clearly get more votes in the South and West than elsewhere (not sure about the E Midlands) - the question then will be with UKIP on say 5% nationwide and 10-12% in the SW - which party does that damage more? My view is that about 60% of UKIP votes come from non-voters, the far right and the generally disillusioned. Of the remaining 40% about half would normally vote Tory, with Labour and the Lib Dems sharing almost evenly the rest. So a 10% UKIP vote probably represents a 1% swing away from the Tories to Labour and Lib Dems.
The interesting thing would be if the Tories could manage an effective UKIP squeeze. If so they could benefit from a swing towards them as the 60% of UKIP voters who don\’t normally vote for the three main parties start to look seriously at the Tories as an alternative.
I certianly don\’t think it is in the long-term interests of the Tories to do any sort of deal with them.
The spread firm IGindex is now featuring UKIP on its spreads for the General Election. Currently its 1.4 SELL 2.6 BUY.
I suppose that Robert Kilroy-Silk might win Hartlepool in e by-election and then go on to hold it but without deals with the Tories its hard to see them getting anymore.
The SELL bet might be worth it.
If I were running UKIP, I\’d concentrate on about 50 or so seats, and then put all the party\’s resources into them.
Running 500 or so candidates, as they did last time, is extremely foolish.
I don\’t think it matters how many seats UKIP stand in - what matters is the number they seriously fight - I\’d go for no more than half a dozen spread between the regions where they Euro MPs.
An interesting spread on IG index - not sure there\’s any value in selling at 1.4. My guess is the most likely number of seats for UKIP is 0, but there is a very slight possibility they could pick up a handful (maybe some Tory defections?). So I\’d buy - you\’re only really throwing away your stake twice and if they did come in with 6 seats you\’d be quids in. The most you could win with a sell is your stake and a bit.
\”If I were running UKIP, I’d concentrate on about 50 or so seats, and then put all the party’s resources into them. Running 500 or so candidates, as they did last time, is extremely foolish. \”
I see your point. But isn\’t there an incentive to stand for lots of seats in terms of eligibility for party broadcasts, and \’equal time\’ in the media?
Of course if you pick up 1,000 votes in 500 seats - you get half a million votes nationwide - if you can get 5,000-10,000 votes in 50 more you get close to a million votes nationwide. That\’s a result for UKIP and will guarantee them airtime and a launchpad for next time. I can\’t see them doing it though.
UKIP will get nowhere in the General Election whether they field 50 or 500 candidates. Last time they got 1.5% of the vote and lost their deposit in almost every seat. That 1.5% might be a bit higher - but not much. The only possiblity will be if Kilroy-Silk wins the Hartlepool by-election and goes in as an incumbent.
People vote on Euro matters differently than on UK ones. On June 10 the Tories got 38% in the locals and 26% in the Euros - for the Lib dems the figures were 29% and 15% - all of this from the same voters.
Cut Hair Kid…
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