NOP: Labour set to win back the safest seat in Wales
June 2nd, 2006
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But what if the poll is as accurate as the Hartlepool one?
An opinion poll by NOP for ITV isuggests that Labour is on target to win back what was its safest seat in Wales - Blaenau Gwent - in the coming parliamentary by-election. Such a result would restore Labour’s Commons majority to what it was before the Dunfermline loss and ease some of the jitters within the party.
In a phone survey of with a sample of 1,000 NOP found the following shares LAB 47%: IND 35%: LD 6: PC 6%: CON 5
Labour lost the seat to Law in May 2005 (see pictures above) who stood as an independent in protest against the imposition of an all women short-list. His former agent is standing this time while his widow, Trish is running for his Welsh Assembly seat where the poll suggests that she is leading by 3%.
But opinion polls in Westminster by-elections do not have a good record - because it is very challenging measuring turn-out which is critical to the Labour vote in particular. Paty supporters have a long history of telling pollsters that they they will be voting - but then don’t.
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The last NOP by-election poll at Hartlepool in September 2004 predicted that Labour would hold on with a massive 33% majority - they got in by 7%.
What might help Labour here is that supporters still sore by the short-list row might decide to “kick the party” in the Welsh Assembly vote by supporting Trish but stay loyal for the Westminster seat.
A worry for Labour campaigners is that the poll itself might induce a level of complacency which could lead to reduced turnout. It could also prompt those backing Law’s ex-agent to campaign even harder.
After that Hartlepool poll I suggested that Labour’s margin would be nowhere near what NOP was predicting - I believe the same will happen here and this race is much tighter than it might seem.
Betting on this by-election with Betfair has not really taken off yet and you can get 0.7/1 on Labour. The “any other party” option is even tighter at 0.67/1. The total a amount of matched bets is just £1,300 and there is no liquidity.
If the poll causes the “any other party” price to move out to 1.75/1 or longer then it might be worth a punt.
In the Bromley betting the Tories are 0.12/1 to retain the seat.
Mike Smithson
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EVERYONE in Blaenau Gwent is a “Labour voter” so you would expect polls in this constituency to have a better chance than most.
A 12% lead margin for Labour 4 weeks out is appalling, being 3% behind in the Assembly poll is a disaster. The key about by-elections is that the campaign makes all the diffrence and it is the last fortnight, especially the last few days that the bulk of people make up their minds.
The Independents needs momentum entering the last weekend, this poll gives them real credibility. If they can maintain this level of support for the next couple of weeks Labour are in very serious trouble in both elections.
Nigel Farage has announced he’s standing in Bromley & Chislehurst - what sort of impact will a serious UKIP campaign have on the Tory vote?
2 - you could just as well argue it was a ‘disaster’ for the independents. They are holding the seat after all and their main campaigning issue doesn’t exist any more.
2. uhm, I suppose Labour has a better organization and could call people from other places to help. I don’t know how many helpers the Law’s camp has. I would have thought that a shorter campaign would have benefited the indies and a long campaign Labour
Hesitate to predict as I don’t know the place, but there seem two significant differences from Hartlepool: (a) not much third-party support left to mop up and (b) no national party for the indies to pile in helpers from other constituencies. I think Bullseye is a bit off-target in describing this large swing to Labour as “appalling” for the party (I’d accept a 12% lead in Broxtowe for now, thanks), but he’s obviously right that it’s too early to be confident.
What are we expecting from the next national polls? One Tory poster was predicting an increase in the Tory lead. The nightmare fortnight for Labour has been followed by a series of more low-key problems, but I don’t get the impression that things are actually getting worse for us. I’d think we’ll see a continuation of the last couple with the LDs fairly low - maybe 38/32/19.
3. Bullseye - I think the problem for UKIP will be that with Europe not really in the news of late, they may appear an irrelevance.
Re. Blaenau Gwent I agree with you that these polls are worrying for Labour, not reassuring.
If the Independent uses the poll wisely then he could pull it off by gathering the anti-Goverment vote to give them another kicking. The use of the famous bar-charts - vote for us, look how close we are etc.
Its still early in the campaign. Labour have been working hard and the other parties have taken their time to get going.I still think Labour will win the westminster seat and the independents the assembly seat…
When I was a pollster for Harris I probably took more individual constituency polls than anyone else, and they were notoriously hard to do. It’s not just the turnout (as Mike suggests)as many of them were during general election campaigns; there is also the problem that not being a national sample it is much more difficult to know that you have the correct sample, as there is less information available at constituency level to use as targets to replicate.
I delivered a paper at the Political Studies Assdociation EPOP group (Elections, Public Opinion and Parties) at Essex U in 1987 on the perils of constituency polling.
Although Blaenau Gwent is more homogeneous than most and the Independent support should be spread fairly evenly around, the NOP poll should be treated with considerable caution.
However, it is surely far too early to treat this poll as a ‘prediction’, and I would imagine the same would have been true of that Hartlepool poll Mike quotes. It wasn’t an exit poll, was it? My experience with byelection exit polls was generally very good.
re 10. Thanks for that Robert which is very helpful.
The NOP Hartlepool survey took place about a fortnight before polling day.
Mike Smithson
11. the election was September 30. I’ve found a piece on LD website of Rennard commenting the NOP poll dated Sep 14th. So I suppose the poll came out the 13th or 14th September
The key point seems to me to be the difference between the figures for the two elections. It’s a unusual opportunity to both kick and support a Party which most voters will have been wedded to lifelong. I expect quite a few voters to use this option and for Trish Law to be the main beneficiary. That’s doesn’t mean the Westminster seat is definitely returning to Lab - looks too close to say that. I guess the local Lab party would rather it was the other way around, as the Assembly seat looks the more important.
[9][13] Seems about right to me…
I think these are very good polls for the independents with four weeks to go.
There is a huge difference between telling a pollster ‘Labour’ and voting for them when the local Labour option is split between local independents and national Labour.
I would have expected the indepepndent option to have been in the 20% as the ‘default’ setting would be Labour. I would also expect about 80% of Peter Laws supporters to consider themselves Labour when asked.
I would be very surprised if Labour win back either seat.
HTV’s ‘Waterfront’ programme had all the candidates on last night. Owen Smith was streets in front of everyone. Hardly surprising given that he is as bright as button. As a former producer of ‘Dragon’s Eye’ BBC Wales’s main political programme, he will have no problem handling any thing that is thrown at him in the by election. In the selection process he won over 120 votes out of the 183 present on the first ballot.
The assembly seat is a differenr kettle of fish . Trish Law is obviously out of her depth but she should get the sympathy vote and Labour’s candidate has the disadvantage of being Leader of the local council.The real message from last night’s programme was the poor quality of the average politician in Wales . On a low turnout the odds are Smith for Parliament and Law for the Assembly. Labour will then regain the Assembly seat in next’s year’s Assembly election.
anyone who thinks that polls done two weeks before an election “predict” anything, or that polls done four weeks before an election tell us who is “set to win” should not be writing supposedly informed commentary
If all the parties work on the angle of ’send a message to Blair’ and tories and lib dems back off then both will be independent wins.
The assembly seat looks to be in the bag, it’s the parliamentary seat that will need the resources.
re 17. Nick - what you write is in essence is the point I was making. In both cases - Channel 4 News at Hartlepool and ITV Wales yesterday the results were presented as predictions and in both cases I was stating that these were probably wrong.
Polls are always reported in these terms by the media organisations that commission them.
Mike Smithson
No one listens to me, you are all too arrogant. Back to licking Hart’s lovely chode, me think.
The problem for the Independents in the Westminster election in Blaenau Gwent is the old Lloyd Bentsen quote to Dan Quayle about JFK. Some of us knew Peter Law and Dai Davies their Westminster candidate is no Peter Law. In fact he is not that popular as an individual in the constituency. In the next few weeks Owen Smith will prove to be an outstanding candidate for the Labour Party. He will be the MP for Blaenau Gwent for years to come. There is really no alternative but to vote for the only candidate who will be able to represent in the famous words of Nye Bevan the ‘hopes and aspirations ‘ of the people of Blaednau Gwent in Parliament.
21- How’s John Hopkins?
It is a rare event for the governing party to gain a seat at a parliamentary by-election. Correct me if I am wrong, but I think it has only happened thrice since 1945.
1953, Sunderland South (Con gain from Lab)
1960, Brighouse & Spenborough (Con gain from Lab)
1982, Merton, Mitcham & Morden (Con gain from SDP)
22.-John Hopkins is a genuine guy who has been a reasonable Leader of the Council. His problem is that he isn’t charismatic and he expected to be facing Dai Davies in next year’s Assembly election. He also has a real difficulty with Trish Law. How do you criticise her without being seen to be disrespectful to the memory of her husband? I even understand from my sources that some people booed Rhodri Morgan at the funeral. Even the press are not treating her in the same way as the other candidates. She was genuinely weak on Thursday night and showed that she will not do anything for Blaenau Gwent in the Assembly. At times her performance was embarassing. Labour’s tactic has to be to ensure that their vote isn’t split and to stress the irrelevance of the Independents and their inability to do anything for the area on either the national or regional scene. It is possible,however, that the other parties vote could collapse and go to the Independents because their candidates were also poor. The disappointed party must be the Lib Dems who have a few seats on the local council and would hope to use the by election as springboard for next year’s Assembly election. Their Assembly candidate was on a council junket out of the country according to HTV and their parliamentary candidate was a young girl who seemed totally inexperienced. What was also interesting was that all the candidates just told the audience what they wanted to hear. The two Labour candidates, for example , opposed the police mergers and said that no one should pay any money back after the recent tax credit fiasco.The press argued that this showed that they were ‘free thinkers’! Next week all the candidates will be promising the voters free beer for life and free tickets to the Millennium Stadium for every Welsh rugby international.
The council…like most Labour run valley councils has a poor reputation and this will damage Hopkins….
Tricia law can achieve lots of the constituency as she will be holding the balance of power in the assembly……
However for Labour to even be struggling here is amazing…
Byelections are a oppertunity to kick governments and have a “free” protest vote. If you couple that with the sympathy vote for a widow surely trsh law has to be the favourite. To further aid her the Lib Dem Byelection machine will concentrate on Bromley and the fact that people will have two votes will also aid her. The fact that some labour voters can vote labour in the Commons election will help in my view.
To suggest that she can’t do anything for the seat when she would hold the balance of power in the assembly is a bit patronising in my view.
26. I think she would have benefited from a short campaign more than from a long one (as it’s this one)
25+26- You really should be objective . Labour regained control of RCT and Caerphilly at the last council elections.Not every Labour controlled authority has a poor reputation. Even in the Councils where Labour lost control such as Bridgend the Labour partry polled more votes than the LIb Dems and Tories put together! The real world of politics means that Tricia Law will achieve nowt for Blaenau Gwent. Labour in the Assembly managed to cope with Peter Law. The simple fact is that the other parties have no intention of doing anything before the next Assembly election. They can defeat Labour on individual votes but it really is pretty meaningless. Sadly Trish Law was poor and if her husband had lived then she would have probably shown no interest whatsoever in standing for elected office. Owen Smith is the class actin this by election who will make an impact on the national scene.Andrea is right . Trish Law is going to be exposed as the campaign gains momentum and her runner mate Dai Davies is not popular or that quick .The real contest is for Westminster and it will be difficult to defeat Owen Smith given his media background and his ability and real guts. Also look carefully at the opinion poll–Labour is in front in both contests but a large percentage of voters haven’t made up their minds. This is bad news for Trish Law because she isn’t going to persuade anyone n the next few weeks.