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The View from East Anglia

East Anglia is a part of the country that the Conservatives have increasingly come to dominate over the past 50 years. For many years after the war, Labour provided a real challenge to the Conservatives in this region, both in rural constituencies, like North, South, and South West Norfolk, Eye, and Maldon, and in urban areas like Norwich, Ipswich, and much of South Essex, with its new towns.

Labour’s (and pre-war, the Liberals’) rural strength was based on the agricultural workers’ unions. British agricultural areas all suffered from cheap imports of food, from the 1870s to the 1940s, and this was particularly acute in East Anglia. Unusually, this prompted a sharp shift to the left among farm workers in the region. At the same time, strong support among urban working class voters helped Labour in the towns, particularly in South Essex.

Yet, those props of Labour support have now largely disappeared. Far fewer people work on the land now, and those who do are not particularly Labour in their sympathies, while the region as a whole has seen its economy boom in the past 50 years, bringing in immigrants from the rest of the country, with new political sympathies.

At the same time, working class Southern voters are nothing like as Labour in their sympathies as they were 50 years ago. Thus, a Conservative lead of about 6% over Labour, across Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire (as it is now) and Essex (on its current boundaries) ** in 1955, when the Conservatives won, had become a Conservative lead of 14% by 2005, when Labour won. On the new boundaries, the Conservatives would have won 30 seats, in 2005, Labour 8, and the Liberal Democrats, 3. Here, as elsewhere, the Conservatives benefit from the boundary changes.

The following seats can be regarded as safe for the Conservatives: in Essex, Saffron Walden, Rochford and Southend East, Epping Forest, Southend West, North Essex and Harwich (formerly North Essex), Brentwood & Ongar, Castle Point, Chelmsford, Rayleigh and Wickford, Maldon, and Basildon & Billericay (formerly Billericay).

In addition, Braintree, and Clacton (formerly Harwich), which were both Conservative gains in 2005, have been converted into safe seats by the Boundary Commission. In addition, a new Conservative safe seat is created at Witham. In Cambridgeshire, North East, North West, South East, South, Peterborough, and Huntingdon. In Norfolk, Mid, North West, South, and South West, while a new safe Conservative seat is created at Broadland. And in Suffolk, Coastal, Central and Ipswich North, South, West, and Bury St. Edmunds.

For the Liberal Democrats, Cambridge, which they gained spectacularly in 2005, should be retained easily. North Norfolk, retained equally spectacularly, likewise. Colchester will be harder to defend, but with a majority 6,000 is one of their less vulnerable Tory targets, particularly as there is still a fair-sized Labour vote to squeeze.

Labour’s position is much tougher. Only two of their seats, Thurrock, and Norfolk North (where boundary changes assist them) can now be regarded as truly safe.
In Essex, neither Harlow, with a Labour majority of 97, nor South Basildon and East Thurrock (formerly Basildon), with a majority of about 1,500, look like bellwether seats any more. Labour could lose the first, and still retain its overall majority, and lose the second, and remain the largest party easily. In Great Yarmouth, the party has a lead of 3,000, over the Conservatives, and if this falls, the parties are likely to be roughly even in terms of seats. Further up the scale are the classic marginals of Ipswich (majority 5,000), and Waveney (majority 6,000). If these fall, the Conservatives will probably just about have attained an overall majority in the Commons.

The Liberal Democrats’ one hope of a gain is in Norfolk South, where Charles Clarke has a lead of only 3,000. It has a large population of students and academics, and a sizeable Conservative vote left to squeeze, making it a classic Liberal Democrat target but Clarke may be saved by the strength of the Green Party in the constituency, who tend to pick up votes that would otherwise go to the Liberal Democrats.

**One can’t give a precise figure as in 1955, some constituencies crossed the boundary of what is now Greater London and Essex.

Sean Fear writes a weekly slot on Politicalbetting

What Will London Tell Us About the Next General Election?

Mike Smithson has written several excellent articles about the London Mayoralty this week, and I do not propose to add to them directly. My intention is to explore what the outcome will tell us about the next general election. Electoral history over the past 40 years suggests that the outcome of the London Mayoralty will be a good pointer to the outcome of the next election.

London is politically volatile. It contains areas of great strength for all of the main political parties, but at the same time, has a rapidly changing population that cannot be taken for granted by any of them, and is prepared to switch between them.

In 1988, Labour organised a conference entitled “Can Labour Win London?” which prompted Terry Colman to comment that “Labour had left no stone unturned in its determination to lose London” during the 1980s. Yet, Conservative dominance vanished within a few years, and in 1997, Labour won 57 seats to just 11 for the Conservatives in the Capital. This produced just as much hand-wringing on the Right, as many commentators concluded that London’s multi-racial population and supposed social liberalism meant that it was now safe for Labour. London is safe for nobody, as Labour discovered in 2005, when the party lost 11 seats.

London’s local elections have proved a useful lead indicator of future general election performance. Landslide victories in the GLC election of 1967, and the Borough elections of 1968, pointed the way to the Conservative victory in the 1970 general election. Massive gains for Labour in the Borough elections of 1971 and the GLC election of 1973 were followed by their election victory in 1974. Once again, the Conservatives pulled off a landslide victory in the 1977 GLC election, and a strong performance in the Boroughs in 1978. The party duly won the 1979 election. In 1982, the Conservatives easily retained their dominance in the Borough elections, and this was duly followed by their landslide victory in 1983. A surprisingly good Conservative performance in the Boroughs in 1990, presaged their surprising win in 1992. A Labour landslide in the Borough elections of 1994 led to an even stronger performance by the party in 1997. And the 1998 Borough elections, easily won by Labour, foreshadowed the outcome of the 2001 election.

There are occasional exceptions to this rule. Labour narrowly won the GLC in 1981, and had a small lead over the Conservatives, in terms of votes, in the 1986 Borough elections. In both cases, it may be that Labour would have done better to lose, as the behaviour of many of their councillors simply confirmed to floating voters in London that the party was unelectable. Remarkably, London actually swung further to the Conservatives at the 1987 general election, due in no small part to the behaviour of those Labour councils who celebrated their election victories with massive rate increases and invitations to Gerry Adams to come and speak to them.

Recent political history suggest that if the Conservatives win the Mayoralty, and perform well in the Assembly elections, then in all likelihood, they’re heading for victory at the general election. By contrast, if Labour outperform expectations, by winning easily, then the next election may turn out better for them then most people are expecting.

There were five by-elections on Thursday:-

Bromsgrove District - Slideslow: Conservative 372, Independent 317, Labour 304, UKIP 104. Conservative gain from Liberal Democrat. For some reason, the Liberal Democrats did not defend this seat, but backed the Independent. Labour did well, as they did not contest this last time.
Ellesmere Port and Neston Borough - Westminster: Labour 227, Conservative 123, Lib Dem 45. Labour hold.
London Borough of Sutton - Cheam: Conservative 1541, Lib Dem 1454, UKIP 260, Labour 106. Conservative hold. This was one of the Conservatives’ safest seats in the borough, and the near loss is most likely down to the disqualification of the outgoing councilor.
Tynedale District - Hexham Gilesgate: Conservative 178, Lib Dem 96, Labour 60. Conservative hold, with a reduced majority.
Shetland Council: Lerwick South. This was one by Jonathan Wills, one of seven independents who contested this seat.

Sean Fear
[Note This week’s appeared late due to a technical problem]

Could 1997 have Been Worse for the Conservatives

On polling day in 1997, I asked my association agent what result we could expect in Hertsmere, where we were defending a majority of 18,000. I can remember my shock when he told me that he wasn’t sure we could hold it, but if we did, it would only be by a couple of thousand (in the end, the Conservative majority was 3,000). Even after polls had closed, I could not believe the results be as terrible as they turned out to be (I still thought the Conservatives could hold about 200 seats). I certainly never expected seats like Brent North, Harrow West, Northavon, Harrogate, and Crosby to fall on gigantic swings to the non-Conservative candidate. An overall swing of 10% to Labour didn’t surprise me too much, but the level of tactical voting, and the swings of 14% + in marginal (and not so marginal) seats were astonishing.

And yet, it could have been even worse for the Conservatives. I can remember at one point in the evening, the BBC was predicting that the Conservatives would be down to about 140 seats, and the Liberal Democrats up to about 60, based on many of the earlier declarations. Somehow, though, the Conservatives were able to cling on to many rural seats, like Totnes, Wells, Bury St. Edmunds, and Norfok South West by narrow margins, when supposedly safer urban seats had been lost. A number of seats that the Conservatives had lost in the past to Labour, like Uxbridge, Aldridge-Brownhills, Meriden, or South West Bedfordshire, were actually retained, albeit, very narrowly.

A vote share of 31% was terrible, but it was undoubtedly better than the 25% that the Conservatives won in the local elections of 1995, when councils like Hertsmere, Fenland, Cherwell, and North Hertfordshire went Labour for the first (and probably last) ever time, and Southern England became a mass of yellow, with just the occasional blue patch showing through. A defeat along those lines would have seen the Conservatives reduced to about 100 seats nationwide.

1997 guaranteed that the Conservatives would be out of office for at least two terms. But a reduction to 140 ( or even 100) MPs would probably have finished off the Conservative Party for good as a contender for government in this country. It’s cold comfort for Conservatives, perhaps, but 1997 could have been worse.

There were four by-elections yesterday, and one, in Northern Ireland, on Wednesday. One of these, Elgin City South, on Moray Council, is counting today.

Banbridge Borough, Northern Ireland, Dromore Electoral Area. On the first round, the result was DUP 1,069, UUP 912, Traditional Unionist Voice 739, Alliance 357, Sinn Fein 350, SDLP 290, Green. On the last round, after the redistribution of transfers, the result was UUP 1,578, DUP 1,505, for an Ulster Unionist hold. The DUP hold three out of five seats in this electoral area, and had expected to gain the fourth easily. They were prevented from doing so by Traditional Unionist Voice, a party founded by former DUP MEP Jim Allister, and a number of DUP councillors who disapprove of the party power-sharing with Sinn Fein. It remains to be seen whether Traditional Unionist Voice can become a rival to the DUP, or if this will be a flash in the pan. Alliance, who didn’t stand here in 2005, also polled well. In all likelihood, had this result been repeated in a normal round of local elections, the DUP would have won two seats, UUP and Traditional Unionist Voice one each, and Alliance or, possibly, Sinn Fein, the last seat.

London Borough of Waltham Forest, Leyton. Lib Dem 1,360, Labour 695, Independent (one of the factions of Respect, I think) 176, Conservative 106, Green 90. Liberal Democrat gain from Labour, with a huge swing. This result comes as no surprise, as the outgoing Labour councillor had been found guilty of calling her defeated Liberal Democrat opponent a paedophile, during the 2006 election campaign, and was disqualified.

Preston Borough, Tulketh. Labour 423, Lib Dem 400, Conservative 292, Respect (the SWP faction) 84, Green 84. Labour hold, but a strong performance for the Liberal Democrats, who leap-frogged the Conservatives.

East Staffordshire District, Stretton. Conservative 661, Labour 366, BNP 327, Popular Alliance (what remains of Veritas) 233, Lib Dem 205. An easy Conservative hold.

Sean Fear

What if There Were a By-Election in Old Bexley and Sidcup?

Unlike Rod Crosby, I don’t anticipate a by-election in this seat. However, it’s worth giving some thought to what would happen if Derek Conway were to step down, and a by-election called.

The seat itself is a mighty Conservative stronghold. Conway had a majority of nearly 10,000 over Labour in 2005. In the local elections of 2006, the Conservatives won all 24 council seats in the constituency, and took 55% of the vote, compared to 17% for Labour, and 10% for the Liberal Democrats? So, a Conservative shoe-in? In all likelihood, not.

Firstly, the circumstances of the by-election would be bound to deliver a protest vote against the Conservative Party. Voters don’t like unnecessary elections, and they like them even less when the outgoing MP or councillor has left under a cloud. Recently, the Conservatives have lost, or come close to losing, several council seats where the outgoing councillor has been involved in a scandal.

Secondly, the Liberal Democrats have shown they have the ability to harness that protest vote and squeeze the other opposition party time and again in by-elections. There are no Liberal Democrat councillors in this seat, and no record of Liberal Democrat success here. Yet, precisely the same was true of Brent East, in 2003, when the Liberal Democrats came from nowhere to win. In all likelihood, the Labour vote (27.5% in 2005) would collapse, as in Bromley and Chislehurst, possibly to as little as 10%. The bulk of that vote would go to the Liberal Democrats, who could expect, at the very least, a vote share of about 33%, rather than the 15% they won in 2005.

Thirdly, there is a significant radical right presence in this constituency. While I accept that UKIP are not the same sort of party as the BNP, there is no doubt that in London, both parties tend to poll well in the same areas. In 2005, they took more than 3,000 votes (7.3%) and in 2006, the two parties won 10% between them in the local elections, with the BNP performing particularly well in Falconwood and Welling. I would anticipate that both parties would take a combined share of at least 10% in a by-election. In all likelihood they would take more votes off the Conservatives than the Liberal Democrats.

So, if it comes to a by-election, by far the safest course of action for the Conservatives would be to treat this seat as a marginal, campaign accordingly, and go for the shortest possible campaign, before the Liberal Democrats can generate momentum.

There were just two by-elections on Thursday , both of them wins for the outgoing party.

North Lanarkshire, Scottish Unitary Authority: Kilsyth. Labour 1855, SNP 891, Green 66, Conservative 50, Scottish Socialist 48, Lib Dem 17. Labour hold. Vote shares were almost unchanged compared to 2007. This is an ex-mining area, which remains solid for Labour.

Kennet District, Upavon: Conservative 218, UKIP 106, LibDem 87 Green 38 Labour 27. Conservative hold. It’s unusual to see UKIP come second in a contest involving all three major parties, although they did better in 2007.

Note: This article was put back from its normal Friday publication because of the Mori opinion poll news.

Sean Fear’s

Could the Lib Dems Replace Labour?

An electoral system based on First Past the Post forces voters to choose between two alternatives. Constituencies that are three (or even four) way marginals rarely remain in that position for very long. Sooner or later, they revert to a two way contest. Sometimes, the party that originally held the seat will be relegated to a distant third place.

What is true at constituency level has historically been true at national level. There is a centre-right party, and there is a centre-left party, and the voters have to make a choice between them. However, that may no longer be the case. There are now 92 MPs who are aligned to neither the Conservative or Labour parties, the highest number since the 1920s. Does this suggest an end to the historic choice between two sides, or will this system reassert itself.

The experience of the 1920s suggests the latter. From 1918 to 1931, there was never any doubt that the Conservatives would remain a contender for national political power. On the centre left, things were much more confused. In 1918, 1922, and 1923, the Liberals and Labour were level-pegging, in terms of vote share, and in the latter two elections, not far apart in terms of seats. In 1924, a Conservative landslide saw the Liberals virtually wiped out, but the party’s vote recovered somewhat in 1929. The Liberals’ decision to support the National Government in 1931 saw it win additional seats, at Labour’s expense, before subsequent divisions, and the absorption of the National Liberals into the Conservative Party, saw the Liberals disappear as a party of government. By 1933 at the latest, it was clear that if you wanted to vote out the Conservatives, you had to vote Labour, and vice versa.

Personality clashes between the Liberal leaders, and poor organisation on the ground certainly contributed to the party’s decline. Quite often, rival Liberal factions fielded candidates against each other, and seats that returned a Liberal MP in one election, were left unfought in the next. Strikingly, the Liberals won around 300 seats at least once between 1918-31, but only 24 in all six elections. Worse for the Liberals was the ongoing loss of support among urban working class voters, particularly in mining areas, and the East End. There was a significant body of working class rural voters, and middle class nonconformists, who switched back and forth between the Conservatives and Liberals, but once urban working class voters switched to Labour, they tended to stay Labour. In 1929, for example, an impressive gain of 38 seats from the Conservatives was offset by loss of 19 seats to Labour. When the Liberals did regain urban working class seats, as in 1931, it was almost always because of electoral pacts with the Conservatives, which alienated left-leaning voters in the long term. Labour was utterly ruthless towards the Liberals. The Liberals’ willingness to form anti-Conservative pacts in the 1900s was not reciprocated by Labour in the 1920s, who preferred to see Conservative MPs elected, so long as their rival on the Left was destroyed. The Conservatives preferred to kill the Liberal party with kindness, entering into anti-Labour pacts that ended up by drawing Liberal MPs and members into Conservative ranks.

So, could the experience of the 1920s be repeated, only in reverse? Could the Liberal Democrats eclipse the Labour party, and restore the traditional two-party system in a new form? Labour’s membership has fallen by more than half since 1997, and the Liberal Democrats have almost as many councillors as Labour do, so they’re unlikely to get a better chance.

Unusually, the Liberal Democrats did make a substantial net gain from Labour, in 2005, eleven seats. Importantly, an important section of former Labour voters, left-leaning urban intellectuals, switched from Labour to the Liberal Democrats, because of their anger over the Iraq War, tuition fees, and civil liberties issues. Where such voters are numerous, there are still seats that the Liberal Democrats can gain, such as Oxford East, Islington South, and Glasgow North. And I think there is a good chance that such voters are permanently lost to Labour. However, the Liberal Democrats cannot expect to eclipse Labour with the backing of just these voters. There aren’t enough of them.

To cause real damage to Labour, the Liberal Democrats would have to win back a chunk of the working class voters they lost in the 1920s, in places like the North East, and Yorkshire. To date, there is little sign that they can appeal to such voters, who form the real bedrock of Labour’s support. What’s more, the Liberal Democrats will have to become a good deal more ruthless towards Labour than they have been in the past. The Labour party has consistently used, and then discarded, the Liberal Democrats (and the Liberals), some of whom appear far keener on forming a “progressive alliance” with Labour, than on eclipsing Labour. For example, it’s hard to see what the Liberals gained from propping up Jim Callaghan’s government, or what they will gain from sparing Labour from defeat over the EU Treaty. Labour would never act in this way, if the positions were reversed, as their appetite for power is much keener.

Last night saw just two by-elections. One produced an excellent result for the Liberal Democrats. The other was disappointing for them.

Basingstoke & Deane Borough: Braughurst. Lib Dem 428, Conservative 368. Liberal Democrat gain from Conservative, with a 20% swing. This means the Conservatives have lost overall control of the council, but will retain the Mayor’s casting vote.

Sandwell Metropolitan Borough: Newton. Labour 844, Lib Dem 809, Conservative 587, Green 45. Labour gain from Liberal Democrat. I have been advised that this seat has been held by the Liberal Democrats for 25 years, so they must be disappointed. In all likelihood, the intervention of the Green, and a modest rise in the Conservative vote share was just enough to cost them this seat.

Sean Fear is a London Tory activist

A note from Mike Smithson: I’m off to London shortly for the PBC party. I’ve put automated comment control on which means that new posters and old posters using new names, won’t see their contribution published instantly. It might be several hours.

The Far Right in the Midlands

Last night, Labour held a seat which the Conservatives had expected to gain, at Ibstock and Heather, on North West Leicestershire District Council. The Conservatives had won two out of three seats in May 2007, in what had formerly been a very safe Labour ward. What seems to have prevented them winning the third seat was a very strong performance from the BNP, who contested the seat for the first time, and won second place. The full result was Labour 699 , BNP 637 ,Conservative 515 , Lib Dem 411. The Conservatives lost nearly 200 votes, compared to 2007, and plainly suffered more than Labour did at BNP hands.

In by-elections, since May 2007, the BNP has performed consistently well in the Midlands, outside the big urban centres. In two by elections in Nuneaton & Bedworth, in June and September last year, the party won 27.3%, and 21.5%. In a Leicester County Council by-election, in Shepshed in October, they won 20%, their second highest vote share in a County Council division, a result confirmed in a town council election, just before Christmas. Their best result came in the safe Labour ward of Church Gresley, in South Derbyshire, in October, when they won 35%, again taking second place.

While they plainly took more votes from the Conservatives last night, and in June’s by-election in Nuneaton, this pattern isn’t consistent. In Church Gresley, they took far more votes from Labour than from the Conservatives, and took them equally in Shepshed. Quite often, turnout rises very sharply when the BNP contest a by-election, as former abstainers are motivated to vote both for and against the party.

Plainly, there is quite a lot of latent support for the far Right, in a part of the country where they have never really been active until very recently. In the 1970’s, the National Front gathered little support outside of London, Leicester, Sandwell, and some Northern towns. Although the BNP draws its support from a wider range of districts, that too has been concentrated in large urban areas.

In all likelihood, some white voters, at least, who’ve moved out of increasingly multi-racial cities, like Birmingham, Leicester, Derby and Nottingham, are very receptive to the BNP’s message. The BNP has recently suffered from an internal split, and many of Griffin’s critics are based in the East Midlands. However much this may damage the party’s ability to organise effectively, it would appear from last night’s result that this split has not registered with local voters.

Sean Fear is the PBC “Poster of the Year”