Sean Fear’s Friday slot
March 16th, 2007
The Strange Death of Labour England
I, and others, have commented on Labour’s ongoing decline in local government representation. What is striking, however, is just how much of England the Labour Party has now disappeared from.
There are now 69 English local authorities without any Labour representation whatsoever, compared to 37 without any Liberal Democrat councillors, and 19 without any Conservatives. Councils without any Labour representation are mostly district councils, some of which are very rural. There are however, 6 unitary authorities, which combine County and District functions, where Labour is unrepresented.
Labour can take a little consolation from the fact there are no Metropolitan Boroughs without any Labour councillors, whereas there are 5 without any Conservatives.
However, it still means that there are enormous tracts of the Country where Labour has no local base any more. What is more, the situation is likely to get worse on May 3rd.
Typically, even the wealthiest or most rural local authorities have had at least a few Labour wards, based perhaps on a council estate, or an active farm workers’ trade union. That vote now seems to be vanishing. In addition to the 69 authorities without any Labour representation, there are another 35 where Labour has 3, or fewer, councillors left.
If these tiny groups are wiped out, then Labour will be absent from more than a quarter of all English local authorities. In at least two of these authorities, Watford and Fenland, Labour held overall control quite recently.
On numerous other authorities, some of which were Labour-controlled in the 1990s, such as North Hertfordshire, Dacorum, Cherwell, Hertsmere and Pendle, Labour are likely to be reduced to very low single figures, assuming they survive at all.
It is very difficult to see Labour recovering this lost ground, at least so long as they remain in government.
At one level, it doesn’t matter hugely to Labour if they are wiped out in these authorities. Few of their Parliamentary seats are located there (Watford and Pendle being obvious examples of ones that are, which are very vulnerable). But it is a striking demonstration of how Labour have been driven back into their heartlands of the Metropolitan Boroughs, and former mining areas.
And it is, of course, very difficult to stage any sort of a recovery in an area where your local councillor base has been wiped out, even when you recover in popularity across the Country as a whole. This is something the Conservatives have discovered in Manchester and Liverpool.
There were no by-elections last night.
Sean Fear, a Tory from London, contributes a weekly column to PBC
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Gooad article Sean, and yes Labour are in trouble. Labour have 2 district councilors in my local council, Mid Sussex. In one of the wards there was a by election for a twon councilor, and whilst the Labour vote held up both the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives overtook them puching them into third!
So it could well be grim.
I don’t think the Labour leadership understand how badly this will hit them come a general election. We certainly didn’t!
Sean I haven’t looked in detail at the seats in question but the disappearance of Labour in some shire districts must be benefiting the LDs as they try to squeeze the Labour vote either to hold on to seats under pressure from the Tories or- much less likely next time-capture one or two themselves. It’s far easier to exert a really effective squeeze on the third party when Labour activists have had the stuffing knocked out of them by losing their local government base. Watford is a rareish three party marginal. The Tories will be hoping the Labour vote doesn’t collapse completely here but my hunch is 1 LD 2 Con 3 Lab. Pendle is different where the LDs rocketed up to a decent third place but the Tories may get the seat next time.
Another example of where Labour hold the parliamentary seat but risk seeing their local council base disappear is South Dorset. Labour lost their last seat on Purbeck council (the rural bit of the seat) some time ago, and are down to just seven councillors in Weymouth & Portland. This total is likely to dwindle further in May.
It just goes to show that these huge spells in government i.e. 2 terms plus are no good for the country or the party in power! First the tories got anhilated then the Labour party. Whilst the Lib Dems the Maggots of the political system nibbled at the side of the respected carcusses!
Another thought by the way, they always say that Blair is the only Labour prime minister to win 3 elections in a row. You could say that Attlee won 3 in a row - certainly in the popular vote 1945, 1950 & 1951!!! (Although the tories got more seats(About the only time it has benifited them!) and they had a tory majority government).
2. It helps the Lib Dems in some places. But in a great many districts, the Conservatives hardly face any opposition at all now.
4. As it happens, the Conservatives were still very strong in local government well into their third term (9,242 councillors in 1989, compared to the 5-5,500 that Labour will have after May 3rd). It wasn’t till the fourth term was reached that things became dire for the Conservatives.
4. The corollary is that Churchill was Prime Minister for almost 9 years, without ever persuading the plurality of the people to vote for him.. (1945,50,51)
2/5. I suppose that Cameron’s Tories should be able to attract some former Labourites in those seats too (depending on what type of voters still back Labour there)
Even in 2005 GE there were some Con/LD seats where Labour went down, the LDs unchanged and the tories went up…then in those seats there could have been a Lab to Con swing or a Lab to LD followed by a LD to Con switch…I don’t know
Sean Thanks I was trying to tease out in how many marginal seats the situation you describe might benefit the Tories compared to how many marginal seats it might benefit the LDs. As you rightly say Labour can theoretically write off little or no council base in many parts of the country. I seem to remember Tory MPs in the early 80s sitting for seats with little or no local government representation. However, sooner or later it catches up with you. As Benedict says it certainly did with the Tories.
8. That would take a good deal of research. To take Fred’s example, there’s no doubt that Labour’s disappearance would benefit the Conservatives in South Dorset. In Watford, it would benefit the Lib Dems. It would probably benefit the Conservatives indirectly in Pendle, as the Conservatives are a pretty close second to Labour.
The other problem with disappearing from 25%+ of the Country is, of course, that your opponents no longer need to work very hard there, and can shift resources into the seats you still hold.
I think the fact remains that, with some notable exceptions, the Conservatives have not swept the cities like they did in the Labour midterms in the mid-60s and mid-70s when Labour and Liberal Councillors were swept away (1968 and 1977 are the years that spring to mind).
Back then, I imagine, the Conservatives would have swept back in cities like Newcastle, Sheffield and Liverpool. That doesn’t of course mean the Conservatives won’t or can’t win the next election but it does show that urban seats in these areas are now out of their reach.
Re 11, Stodge, You should say currently out of our reach.
9. Another SW seat with a similar local government situation is NE Somerset, where Labour again hold the Westminster seat (Wansdyke as was) but have only half a dozen councillors.
13. Are you looking for Labour parliamentary seats with very few Lab councillors left?
14 I believe Labour have no councillors in Colne Valley, and only one out of twelve in Edgbaston.
15. None in the new seat of Sefton Central. Mind you they only had one in the old Crosby seat, but won it with an 18% swing in 1997!
15. I think no-one is left in Calder Valley too.
In Hampstead and Kilburn just 1 Lab councillor is left after May 2006. Just 3 in Battersea.
In Edgbaston the sole Labour councillor left can be out by next GE. In Selly Oak they’ve just 1 councillor (up this year) and in Northfield they’ve 3 councillors up this year or next year in wards already won by the tories in 2006.
12. Benedict I get the impression from talking to Conservative officials there that the likes of Liverpool are far more than ‘currently’ out of your reach.
16. Rod do we have any news yet on whether Claire Curtis-Thomas is going to stand for Sefton Central?
An excellent article as usual, however the local elections in Pendle could be an exception to the general Labour slump for two reasons:
Firstly, the Labour Party Council base collapsed to just 5 Councillors on the back of a Lib Dem surge a few years ago. This May Labour will not be defending any of these five seats as all 17 seats that are up are Conservative or Lib Dem held. This means they will be able to focus all their efforts on gaining seats like Bradley Ward in Nelson, where the large Muslim community has shown signs of returning to Labour now Iraq is not the issue that it was.
Secondly, the Lib Dems are in disarray having three Councillors who were elected as Lib Dems four years ago standing as Independents against official candidates this time. This could present opportunities for the Labour, the Conservatives or the BNP (who gained their first seat in May 06).
The clear challenger to Gordon Prentice MP at the General Election will be the Conservatives and their campaign looks like it is already well underway!
Wasn’t the 1951 result distorted by the fact that there were uncontested seats - where the Tories had a candidate and Labour did not? So the Tories won a number of seats without having any votes going on the national aggregate and these were in places where the party would have chalked up a lot of votes. Thus Labour contested 590 seats whereas the Conservatives/National Liberals put up candidates in 617 seats. So the often repeated notion that Labour lost power in spite of wining a plurality of votes is not quite as clear cut as it sounds.
17 - I think that was the position in Battersea in 2005 although it was won by Labour - just. I think Putney had no Labour councillors in 1997 and 2001, when it was won by Labour.
re 18, galloglass, that implies we will never ever get a seat there, which is a dubious claim.
That said it will take a lot of hard work and time to get somewhere in places like Liverpool.
Re 21, Mike, Ah yes, that used to happen a lot. Conservatives returned to parliament unopposed. Not a good thing, but not our fault!
Bob Wareing (Labour, Derby West) has just lost the trigger ballot. He has to fight the full selection process now (against other hopefuls)
The example of Bradford is I think quite interesting. Bradford was I believe the birth place of the Independent Labour movement, the party control the three city Parliamentary seats - Bradford North, South and West. The council is NOC and in actual fact Labour has more seats than the Conservatives, it was however a Con/LD pact that has kept them out.
Their are two other Parliamentary seats in Bradford; Keighley, which is Anne Cryers seat at the moment (although the leader of Bradford Council Kris Hopkins, who happens to be a very good local candidate, is standing there so that will be very interesting to watch on election night). There is also Shipley which has just switched Conservative in 2005 with Mr Philip Davies winning it from Chris Lesley. As I understand Labour are also seriously in danger of losing Bradford West and perhaps even Bradford South (although this is far less likely, for the Tories to win there would have to be a serious Tory/LD pact going on). The point is though that this is THE old textile city of England, not particularly in the height of good luck at the moment (half the city has been knocked down and now no-one wants to lease the new buildings that they are meant to be constructing, at the moment there is just a really quite large pile of sand in the middle of the city, I kid you not its huge and its been there for a good year now) one would have thought prime ground for Labour. If Labour cannot win here, where can they win? The May local elections will be very interesting and it wouldnt at all suprise me if the Conservatives gain back the numbers to control the council by majority.
23 Send for Hezza!
21. Mike - Labour Fielded 617 candidates in 1951, with only 4 seats being uncontested.
http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/area/uk/ge51/partycand.htm
For thew full breakdown.
Mike at 21 - thanks for that I hadnt heard that before. Suppose will have to wait for the next election for Tories to get fewer seats than labour with many more votes.
23. As I posted recently, the Tories held 6 out of 9 Liverpool (city) seats in 1959 with nearly 50% of the vote. At the last general election they scored 8% city-wide. At the last council election they finished 4th city-wide behind the Meadowcroftian Liberals with 6%, and usually finish in 5th or even 6th place in individual wards. They are a very distant second in 1 ward out of 30.
No news on Claire Curtis-Thomas. I suspect she’ll stand and win narrowly in Sefton Central…
20. ‘Pendle witch’ - my mother comes from Barrowford and is also a Pendle witch. I wonder if we are related?
26 I can’t see any one party taking control of Bradford. I also think the BNP make gains there on May 3rd, making one party control even harder to achieve. I can’t see any prospect of Bradford South going Conservative. The result in the most recent local elections was Labour 34%, BNP 28%, Conservative 25%.
re 28. Table 1a of this Parliamentary paper states that Labour only contested 590 seats in 1951 against 617 by the Conservatives-National Liberals
http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp2003/rp03-059.pdf
If Galloglass is correct - and the link seems to back him/her up then cancel 29.
I cannot believe that the Labour party can hold a six week election for leader with only one candidate. If Brown is the only nominated candidate then he surely becomes PM there and then.
23. Benedict I can only repeat what I was told by one the outgoing constituency Chairman (outgoing because the associations in the city have now all been merged due to lack of members), which was that their only real hope was the Woolton Ward in which they are now down to 20% and still losing votes.
Mike and Galloglass can’t both be right - Andrea could you arbitrate please?
Mike and Galloglass can’t both be right - Andrea could you arbitrate please?
Re 35, galloglass, perhaps replacing the chairman was a good idea then!
Seriously though, it does need new and energetic blood to turn that sort of situation around. With a bot of luck they will get that!
30 half a century of social change - in that time we’ve seen the Orange Order decline, better off move out, immigration, Merseyside has come and gone, decline in manufacturing & docks etc. The Lib Dems did a good job, helped by the Thatcher Govt versus Hatton regime, of establishing a strong local base and becoming the alternative. The Tories could restablish a presence but they need to buld a strong local base - not sure the energy required is there in sufficient quantity.
33. Not sure why there is a discrepancy between the Figures Mike. The Keele figures are usually drawn directly from Craig and checked with Primary sources where they are available. Perhaps Andrea can tell us?
33. Mike, I have seen that paper before and they have the results for 1950 and 1951 totally screwed up. It says there were only 9 Labour candidates in Wales in 1951!
30. the Sefton Central seat will be very interesting, whether or not Clare C-T re-stands. The Lib Dems totally dominate three of the seven seats at local govt level. The Conservative Candidate is a rather poor populist who I presume got in ahead of the ‘A’-list?
Clare, whatever your view of her politically, is quite a clever person who uses many ‘campaign tricks’ to considerable effect.
Does anyone know whether there is a single Labour councillor in Ruth Kelly’s Bolton constituency?
32. Labour may not quite lose South but I do not think that the BNP will prosper there in the local or General elections they appeared on the surface to do fairly well in some last time however overall lost seats in Bradford and haven’t got anywhere near the support to really do damage.
As for the overall local outcome, I would certainly think that we are going to hold in many areas of Bradford and with the new organisation in Bradford as a whole the party can move forward there. Where we will see real gains is in the outlying wards such as Baildon where we are fighting the LibDems; we increased our majority there from 40 to 500 last year and that has given the candidate who is fighting for the ward this time around an advantage. I can see areas like Windhill and Wrose which are fairly built up villages on the outskirts of Shipley switching to Tories despite the fact we came in 3rd last time. There are a hell of a lot of seats where all it is going to take is 200 voters switching to give us a massive upper hand if not a majority in Bradford. As I understand it the candidate for Bradford West has already starting campaigning there which will effect Labours hold over the Horton seats.
Labour have been wiped out in the London Borough of Sutton and also in Wokingham. They werent helped in Wokingham when their one Cllr they had was convicted of various offences! Labour are under major pressure in Reading this year for the first time in donkey’s years and it is not inconceivable that they could lose control next year or in 2009.
Interestingly in Sutton, Wokingham and Reading the Lib Dems are also on the retreat in the face of Conservative pressure.
38. Well Benedict as he is pushing 70 so I’m sure he’d agrees with your sentiments. The problem is, that outside of an active Conservative Students body in the Universities there are few, if any other activists under 60 in Liverpool.
26. One of the things that will be a complicating factor in Bradford will be the performance of the BNP, who won 25% or more in 10 of the 30 wards last year (and only stood in 16). Although they only won one - knocking out a Conservative - they came close in a lot more.
On a parliamentary level, yes, Keighley and Bradford West both have very good Conservative candidates who ought to start as favourites if the polls are anything like they are now. Bradford North / East will be vulnerable to the Lib Dems, but then it was last time and Terry Rooney held on fairly comfortably. South will be interesting. It should stay safeish Labour, but contains most of the wards where the BNP have scored heavily and if these protest votes consolidate around any mainstream candidate, that could be troublesome for Gerry Sutcliffe (who I regard as the best of the three city of Bradford Labour MPs).
43 T
44 - on the retreat! We increased our number of seats by 20% last year in Reading!
42. Zebidee, there’s 1 Lab councillor in Bolton West at the moment: Arthur Price in Westhoughton North and Chew Moor
Btw, Frank Dobson has came out as a Cruddas’ supporter
41-I don’t think Labour stood in Northern Ireland seats, while the Conservatives did. Unionists took the Conservative whip through to the early 1970s…So 12 seats straight away where Labour didn’t stand. Is a difference being made between Labour and Labour&Co-op Very rarely they appear separately.
48 - Sam you have the same number (6) that you had 6 years ago when I was elected a Cllr but whereas Lib Dems used to threaten in a number of wards you have faded away. Now you may take Redlands to compensate for losing Peppard but that is about it this year!
43 The Conservative performance in Bradford last May was very poor especially so in Bradford West with a constituency wide vote down from 10,300 in 2004 to only 6,800 in 2006 , the Labour vote increased from 8,600 to 10,400 . Bradford South wards were nearly as bad and Bradford East only a little better .
The results in Calderdale were poor too especially in the Halifax part of the Borough . Something seems to be wrong with the Conservative party in Halifax which is a reasonably marginal seat but membership fell by 60% between the end of 2003 and end of 2005 . The Calder Valley half looks rather better for the Conservatives where the councillor split is Con 10 LibDem 15 Ind 2 .
re 50. Even taking out Northern Ireland that still leave a seats contested gap of 15.
I’ve never researched this before but some years ago I did hear an academic in Oxford make the argument about uncontested seats in 1951 distorting the aggregate vote shares. It was for this reason that “Labour losing even though it won on votes” was not a big issue at the time.
15 - Sean, Labour have one councillor left in Colne Valley - Molly Walton in Crosland Moor. She has a big personal vote which has kept her in place.
52. As I understand it the Labour party is in much the same position though, the only real difference being that they have MPs in the City seats with offices, but this only does so much, it does not mean that they have effective election fighting abilities. CF is I think planning to assist in Bradford in an attempt to shore up support. There is however an issue between the current West Yorks CF Chairman and Bradford Exec as he has been telling them that there is a massive CF branch at the Uni which is going to support the election campaigns (this is what I have heard from a Bradford councillor who was getting very excited about it anyway) when in fact there is not. For sure the BNP scored quite well in Bradford last year, but they did not win most of them and I do not think that they are going to get the votes to win big. Conservatives seem to be in a better position going into the locals this year than they were last year. While both the Tories and Labour seem to be in the same position organisation wise the fact that Tories are seen by many as electable now in general. This single factor will count for something in the locals, especially with the situation with the Labour party nationally.
55. Realistically though, which wards do you think are winnable? Baildon, Wyke and possibly an inner-city one or two - but beyond that?
33. Per that paper:
In Wales, Labour stood in 9 seats but won 27 seats.
Clearly there is something wrong here.
56. The Hortons are surely winnable along with Windhill and Wrose? What are we on at the moment, 33 or 34 seats? Labour have 35? To take 4 or 5 would give us a big boost. As David said it does depend on the BNP turnout, but they do simply not seem to have the resoruces to win, what they can do is cause us trouble by taking votes away that would have won us the ward.
58 It may be that the accusations of postal vote fraud by the Conservatives last May hit the Conservative vote city wide and boosted BNP and that memory of that may have faded this year .
58 Labour are pretty certain to gain both City and Keighley East from the Conservatives . They won the first by over 2,000 votes last May and the latter by nearly 600 .
30 Rod Wasn’t there a suggestion that Clare Curtis-Thomas would try to get the Bootle nomination if Joe Benton retired (which she would be allowed to do now that most of thee town of Crosby is being put in Bootle constituency)
Dawn Butler and Ann Coffey have declared for Harriet H
51 - you’re sounding very bullish about Peppard. Have you got a very strong local candidate this year, or is it a metropolitan blow in? (: (smiley make not work as I’m not good at them)
re 57. I think you must be right - just shows you cannot believe everything that comes out of parliament!
What did happen in 1951, of course, was that the Tories stood aside in Bolton W, Huddersfield and possibly some other seats to give the Lib Dems a clear run against Labour
64 - Tories also stood aside in Montgomeryshire (Clem Davies), Carmarthen and Cardiganshire. Only Jo Grimond (Orkney and Zetland) won against two party opposition. I guess if the Tories had stood in all these seats, Grimond would have been the only party member in Parliament.
53. Mike, its an obvious mistake in the Parliamentary research paper. See table 1d for Wales - Labour have 9 candidates but win 27 seats.
In fact Labour had 617 candidates for 625 seats in 1951 and the exceptions were all in Northern Ireland.
There were only 4 unopposed returns in 1951 - Antrim North, Antrim South, Armagh and Londonderry. If you add a notional vote for these and also for the seats where the Conservatives gave the Liberals a free run against Labour (Bolton West, Colne Valley, Huddersfield West, Cardigan, Carmarthen, Montgomery) you could make the argument that a full slate of Conservatives would have won more votes than Labour, but its a bit tenuous.
32. What are Bradford’s prospects next General Election. Conservatives pernially tipped in Bradford West and perenially only get within 4.5k or so it seems but Andrea mentioned Bradford East as a Lib Dem prospect. I re-paste his post below if there any comments.
Anyway here we go (and some opinions about them)
Islington South: well, it was a Lab/SDP marginal back in the 80’s. Chris Smith won 2 very close elections in 1983 and 1987. I would expect a good fight again and Labour not being out of contention.
Durham (7.4% majority). Good opportunity for Libdems. I would wait to see this year’s locals in Durham City to have a clear picture. Labour elected a new MP in 2005, it can also depends on how she performed.
Liverpool Wavertree (8.7%). Labour did have good local elections in Liverpool in 2006 and they gained a seat in Wavertree wards. But the Libdems are still dominant at local level here and I would expect them to push hard here and they can make it
Leicester South (8.8%). I would say it’ll be a Lab hold as Eastbourne was a Con hold in 1997 after they regained it in 1992 GE (after the byelection loss)
Bradford East (12.6%). It actually fell to the tories in 1983, but the deselected Lab MP stood as an Indy and won 8% (Lab lost to the tories by 3%). Okish local election for Lab in 2006
Swansea West (12.9%)
Blaydon (13.4%). Good LD presence at local level.
Burnley (14.8%). I’m not a fan of local Lab MP, so I can be biased in judging her (and her perfomance in the Commons).
Edinburgh East (15.6%). There’re 2 better targets in Edinburgh (South and North), so I suppose it can be a Lab hold because of the other 2 seats will get more attention
Holborn and St Pancreas (16%). Good Con and Green presence. I think it can depend on how much the LDs will push here (they potentially have lots of targets in North London areas and I think they should just some of them to concentrate their resources in)
Sheffiel Central (16%). I suppose it’ll be LD main target in the area.
Manchester Gorton (16.4%). Good 2006 local elections for Labour: they made gains from Libdems.
East Lothian (16.6%)
Newcastle East (17.4%) and Newcastle North (16.9%). I think just one can fall if targeted. If they go for both (considering Blaydon is near), they can risk to have 2 near misses. IMO North is the most vulnerable of the 2.
Brent Central (18%). I think it’ll be a close run. Teather will help LDs, but Dawn Butler shouldn’t be under-estimated
by Andrea March 11th, 2007 at 5:53 pm
61. Yes. I’m sure she would if she could. But JB indignantly denied he was retiring. I don’t recall if CCT gave a categorical statement she would fight Sefton C.
Anyone know anything of the O’Hara/Howarth situation in Knowsley?
8&10. Overall though aren’t Labour approaching critical meltdown in Local Government south of the Trent and outside London and some largeisj towns i.e Exeter. What does this portend.
11. See 67 re Sheffield. The Labour retreat there, in Newcastle and in Cardiff must hit them right. Long term I see three out of four Cardiff seats held by the Lib Dems. Remarkable when you consider Jenny Willott is their first MP in South East Wales since 1923.
I think the criticism of Labour losses is unfair. We have of course more MPs than all the other parties put together. The loss of a few hundred more local councillors is a price worth paying to keep Tony Blair in office for a bit longer. His record is second to none as an election winning machine for the party and it is right he should stay until the time is right for him. His policies have transformed Britain for the better, cutting crime and making Britain a safe place to live in, with increased investment in schools and hospitals. Tony’s courage in standing shoulder to shoulder with America makes us proud to be British. The fact that the Tories are copying nearly every policy of Tony Blair (Iraq war, Trident replacement, green policies etc) shows that they have no ideas or principles of their own and they recognise that Tony had it right. Some may not agree, but the legacy of Tony will be one of a fondly remembered PM who left Britain a far better place.
25. That’s a Lib Dem target. Are they feeling he is not doing enough to combat the threat.
68. If JB has applied for reselection and CCC has applied for Bootle too, they should have a run offs. If CCC has just applied for Sefton Central, she should face the trigger ballot there. If then JB decideds to retire later and she has already been re-selected for SC, she has to stay there (unless she asks the NEC a special provision for her to switch seat)
I didn’t read anything about Knowsley situation..and it’s strange as things should have been clear by now (in all other areas with a seat disappearing it’s already clear what the situation is).
71. well, it’s a 45% majority…not sure if even the most optimistic Libdems will consider it as a target
73. There are two aren’t there. Wavertre and………
25. Could this be the cue for George Howarth?
75?
58. The Conservatives haven’t won Little Horton in many years, though as with all inner city wards, it does depend on the candidate (we did get within 27 votes in 1998); Great Horton’s a possibility - I don’t know if John Godward’s standing again (if he does and wins, he’ll have won the ward four times in four years which must be some sort of record!); I contested Windhill & Wrose last year and it’s going to be very tough to win that starting in fourth although we do have a better candidate this year (though I would say that as I’m his agent).
60. I wouldn’t be too sure about either Keighley East or City. City is an inner city ward where last year’s candidate was hard working but not really from that part of the district; the Conservative defending Keighley East has a better track record than the one last year, though Labour did do very well there.
69 Nearly right Punter , Swansea West had a Liberal MP Walter Runciman from 1924 to 1929 .
75. RodCrosby, in a Howarth/O’Hara run offs, who do you think the favourite will be?
76. Neighbouring Knowsley North & Sefton East is being abolished. MP George Howarth has basically two choices: hope his elderly southern colleague Eddie O’Hara (Knowsley South) retires, or ?
he could change Wareing now for West Derby.
78. Nearly right Mr Senior! Swansea is a little too far west to really be considered South East, but south certainly.
80. I think he has to do the run off with O’Hara first before being able to apply to seats that don’t contain old parts of his old seat (always unless if the NEC allow him to do so…and maybe they can do it in the case of the disappearance of a seat because of boundary changes)
81 LOL Mr Punter .
79. Dunno… they are both as dull as ditchwater. Howarth nearly 58, O’Hara nearly 70.
71. Liverpool West Derby is probably the last seat the Liverpool Lib-Dems would Target. The presence of Steve Radford and the Liberal rump make it a difficult seat to fight. It’s more Bob Wareing’s age than anything else thats is causing a move to re-select. If, as expected the parliament runs its full course to 2010 then Wareing will be 80 by election day.
84. Howarth would have some claim on Sefton C (only because of another daft decision to move Maghull and Aintree into Knowsley under the 1997 boundaries, so moving them back would put Howarth in contention) but if by some chance he sought and won the nomination I suspect the seat would be a sure Tory gain….
blah, I did a round up of the situation in all areas where a seat is abolished, but it got lost whilst posting
67. St. Pancreas??
70. Nice spoof…Adrian Harper flying under a new flag of convenience?
85. I suspect Wareing will retire. Didn’t he survive a deselection in 2001 or 2005 only due to NEC intervention? As far as I can recall he has been in precarious health for seemingly the last 20 years. He’s had a good run for his money. He did well to come back from losing Edge Hill to David Alton in 1979.
70
89. In 2001 he was forced to do the full selection process against other candidates and he survived. In 2005 he managed to win the trigger ballot.
He seems keen to fight judging from his quote after the trigger ballot.
Actually I’m a bit surprised he has tried to get reselected…he’s 77 this year. Going on would mean being 83 in 2013!
Re 45, galloglas, without wishing to give anything away, we have plenty of young blood in our area.
Obviously we need to work in the area to get some in. Maybe Cameron should so a lot of visits just to get membership up!
Benedict - have you seen the cartoon in this weeks Private Eye - Worth the £1.50 - something about Blogs.
Re 93, Icarus *cough* no, I had to stop reading it on page one to blog something
(See my blog here: http://aconservatives.blogspot.com/ )
What page is it on?
91. He was one of 12 who voted for an inquiry into Iraq, so I doubt the NEC would come to his aid if he makes any noise about irregularities in the selection ballot. Interestingly of those 12 rebels 3 were Merseyside-born (Wareing, Glenda & Alan Simpson)
O/T tragic news. Sally Clark has died
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6460595.stm
Re 95, Rod, yes I had heard. Very sad. Would it be too strong to say she was virtually murdered by Professor Roy meadow? Perhaps it is best left unsaid.
Any way, Must dash now. back later
95. RodCrosby, John McDonnell was born in Liverpool too. So 4 Meryside-born one
80 Rod - Doesn’t a big chunk of Eddie O’Hara’s Knowsley South (Halewood etc) get put into Maria Eagle’s seat in Garston ? Whereas the heart of Howath’s seat (Kirkby) is in the new Knowsley constituency. Would think Howarth would be in prime position
99. The new Knowsley is 52% from Knowsley South and 48% Knowsley North, so no clear advantage there.
98. Wow, never knew that. That makes Scousers over-represented by a factor of 12 in the rebels’ ranks… Makes one proud…
Labour has four seats on Rushcliffe out of 50. I wouldn’t be totally surprised to see them all go.
101. Rod my old aunt would be spinning in her grave to here someone from Crosby claim to be a scouser
103. I’m Liverpool-born, Bootle-bred, Crosby-berthed! Grandparents’ MP was TP O’Connor!
Oh blimey …. Nottingham’s full of Tories this weekend!
East Mids local news featuring a local Tory who’s defected to UKIP 
News from the selection hustings - Zac Goldsmith selected to fight Richmond Park.
Old Man Luntz being amusing on Newsnight …
106. I’m sure Richmond Park would be even more agreeable with fewer aeroplanes flying overhead, so it’s up to Zac and Dave to sort them out.
Susan Kramer and the Richmond Lib Dems will be depressed by Zac Goldsmith’s victory tonight.
106 thanks
109 -
107 Indeed Brown came across well. Seems slick Cameron may have over-egged the pudding.
112 - the public are perhaps less credulous than the Fourth Estate.
Tabman - do you reckon that Ms Kramer isn’t even slightly troubled by the prospect of fighting a handsome, articulate and personable young candidate with strong local links, outstanding green credentials and very deep pockets?
Yeah, right!
109 - I’m not so sure. Apart from his wealth (which is of course vast) he is a pretty inexperienced candidate. He even admitted tonight he had never done any doorstep campaigning.
He also has to be able to say something on other issues than the environment - which after his performance tonight (and the special treatment he received from the questioners) may be quite difficult.
It promises to be a very hard fought battle and very far from the shoo-in promised by Goldsmith Junior…
114 - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=406989&in_page_id=1879&in_a_source=
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4153/is_20040405/ai_n12078292
113 Luntz does get a bit wierd sometimes - stating that Ming Campbell could win the next GE was off the scale.
His real point though seemed to be Gordon Brown is not going to be a pushover. Any tory who thinks otherwise is living in cloud cuckoo land. That said bonkers Brown is more than capable of wasting the few years of power left to this version of the Labour Party.
So, if Labour are doing so badly at a local level, why have they done so well in Carlisle? Since 2001 Labour have slowly but steadely increased their support, with their vote certainly holding up for the last two elections. The Conservatives have not made a single gain for five years…..
Zac Goldsmith is a bit of a gambler and a (rather unsuccessful) bookmaker. I think he deserves our support.
117 For me the interesting message was that Mike’s rule that - the more you see Cameron the better it gets for the Tories - is not necessarily true.
Cameron was associated with Blair. He ws seen as someone who would sell his Mother for a vote. He appears to have overdone it.
His star has burnt brightly. Too brightly perhaps.
Labour is selecting in early June in Richmond Park. Not that they’re going to be competitive…
Tabman, if you’re relying on dragging up Zac’s personal life to stop him, you’ve lost already.
Richmond isn’t Little Snortington-in-the-Marsh, circa 1950.
I have met Zac Goldsmith and he does seem a personable guy. He was then just an environmental campaigner and scathing about all political parties. He was very anti nuclear power and I think he would fall out of love with DC if there is even a whiff of supporting nuclear power stations.
The Newsnight Luntz panel was solely labour and lib dem voters, Ming could have done better on the vote count at the end as Cameron bested him. A lot of projection from the panel regarding what they expect from Brown, he really can’t live up to everyone’s post-Blair expectations, diverse as they are.
119.
“Zac Goldsmith . . . deserves our support.”
How you recycle your used trusses is your own business Kevin! The young man seems to have two things in common with his dad - large amounts of money and short amounts of political nous. One trusts the moral turpitude gene has skipped a generation!
120 I doubt it - since he became leader people have said he will implode. People do certainly see Broon as serious and heavyweight and so they should but Cameron has consistently proved the doom mongers of the right wrong.
When he takes over Brown has an opportunity to be different. He has a track record of blowing these opportunities. I think he will get a poll bounce but getting past the low 30’s seems unlikely without some dramatic change. The current core vote strategy from Labour won’t do that.
I wouldn’t ignore Luntz but neither would I place too much faith in him.
123 He better prepare for a falling out. The tory party will support an increase in nuclear power. There’s no sane alternative.
124,126 In fact these were currently undecided voters who had backed Labour or the LibDems last time. I.e. precisely those types who Cameron has to win over in spades if he is to win a majority. It would be one hell of a spin to claim that Cameron did well with this bunch.
Always take Luntz with a ton of salt. But, to say Cameron is home and dry and that Labour is down and out is clearly not true. We can sleep a bit easier tonight.
One of my sisters lives in Richmond Park. She has never voted Conservative before but is warming to Cameron, much to the derision of her family and friends. Not sure what she will make of Zac.
128 - Keep ignoring the polls then…
As for Brown people expect him to be what they want but he can’t be what they all want as they are expecting him to move left/continue Blairism/increase spending/decrease taxation and so on.
He’s on a hiding to nothing with that lot.
Strange. A few months ago, for many posters on this site, Luntz was a cynical voodoo pollster using scurrilous trickery while at the same time being on Cameron’s payroll. Are we now saying that he’s a psephologist of integrity and wisdom whose cutting-edge methods are the very embodiment of fairness and reliability?
128 - I certainly never claimed ‘we’re home and dry’ in fact I said the opposite. I would suggest that the panel provided support for the Mori numbers on the previous thread. Tories have a lot to do but they don’t have to persuade ALL these people just some of them and Cameron appears to be doing that.
I would still say that the RodCrosby Hung Parliament Hypothesis is the most likely outcome of the next GE. Who will be the largest party is still open to question. I think the Goblin King will fail as a PM but I accept some of that is not based on objective analysis
132 - Missed it - were the panel people who voted Labour / Lib Dem in 2005 or those saying they were Labour / Lib Dem now? If the latter possibility of a few more converts?
Agree hung parliament still most likely
130 Ignore polls, beleive polls. It’s all the same to me especially mid term.
Labour supporters learnt to take mid terms polls with a pinch of salt in the 87-92 parliament. Sometime I sense that Tories on this site need a reversed ‘92 rerun to really truely appreciate what it means to be a supporter and why 97 happened in the way it did.
The fact remains that in terms of seats Cam is still starting from a worse position from Foot. In the end it’s the individual battles in seats that counts. I would not want to have to win so many seats, whatever polls say. The fact that Cameron’s is not having it all is own way, suggest the possibility that we will be safe from him until 2014. Phew.
132 was the former I’m afraid.
134 - It’s the labour position that’s important, leaking votes and on a downward trend since 97. What Cameron does isn’t particularly important to me, except in how much he takes away from labour, he’s only part of the equation.
If labour are focusing on Cameron then they are forgetting how they are being assailed from all quarters.
Jonathan the message from the Luntz focus group ( a panel thatwas made up of solely LD and Labour voters at the last election - NB no Tory voters at all) suggested about a third of the the participants are now prepared to back Cameron.
That is not a real poll of course, but even if that is indicative of the peel away from LDs and Labour to the Tories then the plates are really shifting.
134. Cameron is clearly in a far better starting postion than the Labour result under Foot.
In terms of votes, Foot lost by 16%, Howard lost by 3%.
Post Boundary review we are now in a position where the average Labour seat has almost exactly the same electorate as the average Conservative seat. An analysis was done by a poster on this site a few weeks ago to demonstrate this.
If as seems likely we see a marked reduction in tactical voting, I expect the Conservatives will only need a lead of around 3% to 4% in votes in order to get the most seats. This is well within range although a majority would obviously be far more difficult.
137. MikeL. I rather think you’re letting your optimism run away with you. Yes Foot lost by 16% but he gained 209 seats. Howard may ‘only’ have lost by 3% but he just got 198 seats.
It took Labour a further 3 elections to climb back to power from that seat deficit and I think RodCrosby has the right of it when he predicted that it would be unprecedented for Cameron to make up so big a gap in one election.
Where we living in a ‘proper’ democracy where elections mirrored votes cast your optimism might be well founded, but I’m afraid to say we don’t. Welcome to the nasty world of 1st past the post….
re 130, UKPaul, you have summed up Brown’s dilemma in a couple of lines.
138,Having followed UK potics for 20 years,I foresee:
(a)DC getting the Tories to the 250-260 seat at the next GE-from where they could aspire to win with ‘one more heave’
(b)My personal inkling is that Gb will narrowly fail to win an overall majority next time-historical precedents prove that agovt can survive for a long time,as so many different blocks of opposition MPs exist-imagine the nightmare of whips trying to herd them in for one vot of no condience:lol:
Seriously,Great Britain does need a viable opposition,and to that extent I further (albeit limited) good wishes to DC
Re 134, Jonathan, without wishing to sound difficult or contrary, could i point out that Labour won in 2007 because it had built its councilor bas, and destroyed ours.
We are now in the reverse position.
141. Labour won in 2007 Benedict??? Did I fall asleep and miss something important?
140 - Patrick, if the Conservatives get to 260 then Labour will be a long, long way short of a majority - they’ll be at around the 300 point (unless you forsee a Lib Dem collapse).
Re 138, Galloglass, and to some extent 140, Patrick, the fact is that the seat distribution last time owes more to electoral quirks of the day than psephalogy. We all know that in terms of sheer seats that the Conservatives have a very big mountain to climb.
However we need to remember the situation to pre 1997. Labour moved to Thatcherite ground, and in many ways have gone beyond it to capture the votes needed because they were concerned that Labour would never ever be in power again.
Activists organised on tactical voting on the ground. It was a massive push.
1997 was a landslide of epic proportions, and if it were not for the Ecolstone affair etc. followed by the latest example of sleaze, cash for honours, it would still be safe.
The fact is though that this government is the least popular in history, it is a very assailable target from our point of view.
Re 142, Steven, *cough* I plead the lateness of the hour, I did of course mean 1997
138. Question: Has a Party ever won the popular vote by 3% and not got the most seats? Answer: No
So why should the next election be the first time this will ever have happened? Especially when you consider that the next election will be on almost totally fair boundaries (boundary bias to Labour will be 6-10 seats).
Labour got such a good seats result last time (compared to what would be expected based on votes) because of:
1) Strong anti-Conservative tactical voting
2) Much lower turnout in Labour safe seats
Both of these factors will be substantially reduced.
143,On the basis of the new boundaries,the Lab-Con-Lib Dem-Other split would have beenb 343-213-63-31 at the last election.I can see the LIb Dems taking a moderate drop in seats,to c.45-of these losses,c 10-12 would be in the south,to the Tories,I can see some marginals,again in the south,flaking from Labour to the Tories-30 ish.
At this point,the Labour Party woud still hold c.313 seats in a 650 seat chamber-add on Plaid Cymry,even the bloody SNP,and whichever Ulster MPs are inclined to maintain the status quo-and oh dear,Gordon Brown can safely anticipate a full four-year-term,with which to build on the excellent work of his predecessor-I commend this to the House!! :lol::lol:
146,(a)Working class people will not suddenly vote in Barnsley etc
(b) The possibility of a change of govt nexst time will at least be there
(c)However disingeniously the card ‘Vote Lib Dem,get the Tories’ was played in 2005,its resonance will surely be massively magnified in 2008/9/2010.
(d)Some anti-Tory tactical voting will remain in that enough will think ‘We don’t want the Tory bastards to win’-sorry if that is a bit blunt!
147,148
Pure pie in the sky
Labour looks on course to lose at least 70 seats in the next general election.
148 Patrick. I’m pleased you are happy with your Party and rightly so. Unfortunately many voters in England see NuLab as very anti-English. Just look Scottish nurses getting early pay rises but English ones don’t.England contributes at least 85% of the total Barnett Formulae and devolution taxes yet derives no benefit from it and has English Parliament. Scottish MPs voting on English only matters, etc., etc. This is the cause of Labour’s decline in England and the word has got around that Labour say England doesn’t exist. Please help Labour to dump these Anglophobic policies, otherwise your party will follow the path of the Scottish Tories!
150. meant England has no English Parliament.
Picked up on this late. In some places, Labour have continued to win Parliamentary seats despite the absence of a local base. I believe that in Calder Valley (mentioned in comment 17) for example, Labour has won just a single Council seat on only two occasions since 1997; all the rest of the seats have been won by Tories, Lib Dems and latterly the odd independent. Yet Labour held the seat in both 2001 and 2005.
136. The Luntz focus group as far as I could make out was not L and LD voters only, but weighted towards Lab and LD. (Otherwise how could you track Con opinions - the blue line during the speeches?)
Without knowing the previous voting of the particpants it’s difficult to make a call. From looking at the footage, my reading was that people had given Cameron a chance but a lack of policy and apeing of Blair (’showman’ kept being mentioned) was turning voters off.
Not altogether sure the focus group was that illuminating to be honest…
146. Er… yes. General election results:
1847: Con 42.2%, 325 seats; Lib 53.9%, 292 seats.
1852: Con 41.4%, 330 seats; Lib 58.4%, 324 seats.
1874: Con 43.9%, 350 seats; Lib 52.7%, 242 seats.
1910(Jan): Con 46.8%, 272 seats; Lib 43.5%, 274 seats.
One thing to remember though is that Labour won’t necessarily lose seats where there are no Labour councillors. They held Islington South despite the fact that every single councillor was Lib Dem in 2005. But it would be hard to take a seat where they had no councillors. Watford is an interesting case because it’s the Lib Dems who run the council but the Tories who came second in the general. That gives Labour a lot of protection there. Of course, it doesn’t matter too much for either of the big parties if they get wiped out in no-hope seats, although it’s very good for the Lib Dems.
Long term, I’m starting to look at it like this. If there’s a hung Parliament with Labour ahead or close behind the Tories, we can anticipate a Labour-Lib Dem pact as significantly more likely than a Tory-Lib Dem pact. (We can’t make predictions about who’s more likely to go into minority government, although it might be more disadvantageous to Labour as the Tories would be able to burnish their centrist credentials and gain credibility, in a way that’s not necessary for a party recently in government. The Lib Dems should of course jump at the chance if they’re given it.) If Labour hold any kind of power after the next election we can anticipate them being decimated at local level during the following Parliament. The election after next would then probably be a Tory landslide, and the third would be Tory too.
Just noticed this by-election result from Wales:
THE Labour Party has described its win in a Caerphilly County Council by-election as tremendous. Labour’s Hefin Wyn David secured the seat with 820 votes compared to 368 for the Independent candidate with Plaid in third place with 265. The vacancy was created in the St Cattwg ward by the death of Councillor Keith Derrick.
Not sure of the result last time around, but Labour will talk this one up as they are under huge pressure from Plaid in Caerphilly & Islwyn seats (making up Caerphilly County Borough).