ICM poll of the (former) cabinet’s seats
The News of the World meanwhile has an ICM poll carried out in the constituencies of the cabinet (or at least, the constituencies of the cabinet prior to the reshuffle). The News of the World says it covered 18 constituencies represented by 18 “main cabinet ministers”, so I’m not quite sure who they’ve decided was not a “main” Cabinet minister (especially since the article implies that Tessa Jowell, who wasn’t then an official member of the cabinet, was included).
The article refers to a 12% swing from Labour to Conservative across these constituencies, but also says the Conservative vote has risen by 20 points and Labour’s has fallen 17 points, which would equate to a 18.5% swing. We’ll have to wait for the actual newspaper, or ICM’s tables, to get a better idea. Either way, it suggests a larger swing in the cabinet’s seats than ICM’s recent national polls have been showing in the country as a whole.
Filed under: ICM
The results from the local elections are poor for each of the main three parties.
One would have expected the Tories to have achieved a better result than that of which they achieved at the last local elections if they were a credible force to form the next Government, however their share of the vote has dropped. Labour’s figures are abismal but nevertheless about the same as the last local elections ( they were 1% higher last time).
There is still all to play for in a GE, for instance if the Tories were on 37, Labour 32 and the Libs 19 then Labour would still have 15 more seat than the Tories. Labour are likely to poll in the low to mid 30’s if there were a GE sometime after an economic recovery was in evidence because that is the general level of Labour support in the country and this means the Tories must take more of the Lib share of the vote than is evident at present. These results are not good enough for the Tories considering the shocking state of the Labour party. Now is the best chance the Tories have of a majority, a small one at that and the longer the election is put off the harder it will become for Cameron.
Whatever the swing reported in this ICM poll is, the swing in the local elections compared to the last GE was 9% (Tories up from 33 to 38, Lab down from 36 to 23) and under present circumstances doesn’t give too much hope to anyone unless there were a GE now, which just isn’t going to happen.
12% swing from Conservative to Labour?
This is 2009, you know…
Rallings and Thrasher have just released their projected national vote share for the local elections and its not good news for the Tories; Con 35% (up just 2% since the 2005 Election!!), Lab 22% and Lib Dems on 25%.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6446783.ece
Now Cameron could still be Prime Minister this time next year but after Thursday its looking more likely to be only in a Hung Parliament. However if Labour gains from the economic recovery later this year then Labour will most likely be the largest party and form the 1st coalition government in the UK since 1940.
Rallings and Thrasher’s calculations for the projected national shares have just been released on the Sunday Times websites. The figures they give are:
C – 35% (38%)
LD – 25% (28%)
Lab – 22% (23%)
Figures in brackets are the BBC’s projected shares, which I think are calculated by John Curtis.
The opening poster is not me.
I am the original Richard!
The opening poster is concentrating too much on UNS. What we have seen instead at this election is a great variety in the strength of the swings.
Where the Conservatives were already dominant the swings were low eg Cambs, Sussex, Bucks and Surrey (where the Conservatives actually lost 3 councillors).
More importantly in areas where the Conservatives need to make gains the swings were high – from Labour in the north, midlands and Kent and from the LibDems in the south-west.
For example the Lab-Con swing in Norwich North (Con target 163) and Sherwood (Con target 159) was19% in both.
As I wrote on a previous thread, Rallings and Thrasher’s projections would give the following Euro election result:
C – 24.7%
Lab – 18.6%
LD – 12.9%
Obviously that leaves a lot of room for the minor parties.
Could Richard explain why Labour should get 9% more in an immediate GE than in the LE while the Tories would only get 1% more than at a LE at the same time as a Euro Election (which will clearly boost the vote of minor parties).
Pure fantasy.
@Simon: Granted, I think the figures are too different but ’second order’ elections such as local and euro elections not only favour smaller parties but disproportionately are biased against the governing party more than they are against the main opposition. The theory behind this is that otherwise governing-party supporting voters use it to vent their anger at the current government whereas many opposition party supporters do not feel the need for this and in any event a vote for the tories is still a vote against the government.
Michael – the Local Election results (as a % of the vote) are not that dissimilar to the current Westminster polls. So they are a reasonable guide (only a guide). The other vote is around 11% in the LE’s which is conceivable in a GE. The Euro elections on the other hand are meaningless as a guide because the other vote (BNP, SNP, Green, UKIP etc) will be 30-40% of the total.
On this site a few months ago most posters thought Labour’s base support was a around 28% (what they got in 1983) but they are now regularly polling 22-23%/ So it is not reasonable to assume they will bounce to 32% with no trouble. It is also not a foregone conclusion that there will be an economic recovery any time soon and unemployment is a lagging indicator (usually by years).
The Tories have increased their vote where they need it. For example Staffordshire, Lancashire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire have not been Tory controlled for 25+ years!! and they contain many marginal or swing seats. For example South Derbyshire (Edwina Curry’s old seat) lost in 1997 and due to return to the Tories next year. There have been several polls in the past 2 years of marginals which have shown the Tories doing better in these seats than a national average figure. Take my own constituency of mid-Beds the Tory MP has around 50% of the vote, I do not expect that to increase by 10% whereas it is reasonable to expect the average Tory vote to go from 33 to 43% from the 2005 GE to the 2010 GE.
The Tories took all four of their prime targets from Labour and took Devon and Somerset from the Lib Dems (denying them Cornwall to NOC as a bonus). If that doesn’t show that they are successful on two fronts, what exactly does? As an earlier poster said, they gained the votes where they needed to the most.
Sky News predicted a Conservative majority at a GE of c. 28 – enough to form a viable government, but low enough to keep them on their toes – a good thing IMHO.
For those still trying to put a good gloss on Labour’s results, the saying about putting lipstick on a pig comes to mind!
I am a Labour supporter but agree with Richard 2 (the original) that UNS will not happen.
6-7% will be enough swing; the Tory effort will have been stronger in marginals and voters who are more savvy these days more likely to show in the marginals to get Labour out as that sea change in sentiment would have occurred.
IMHO so far the sentiment has certainly turned against Labour but it isdebatable if it has become sufficiently pro-conservative yet.
Agree, therefore, that despite council gains the results aren’t fab for Cammo in %age terms.
The destroying of much Labour base may the most siginificant consequence of these Elections.
I await the Euro results which (adjusted for UKIP and Green etc vote borrwowing) will be more indicative in my view of the state of the parties.
Although I suspect Labour to be lower now in the next round of GEpolls due to the open divisions, perhaps lower than 20pts on wma by the end of June.
Honestly, I think Labour lost part of their diehards over the last month or so. I think the diehard share of the vote went from about 23% to about 20% (if not 18%, but I’ll go with that particular poll being off by a bit for now). I’d blame this on there being only so much any party (and their base) can take, after all; I think it also explains the surge in “others”: These people have bailed on their party, but not switched to either of the obvious alternatives. I’d call them reluctant rebels, if you will: People who very much -want- to vote Labour but are sufficiently disgusted that they’re bolting to a minor party for the time being.
” await the Euro results which (adjusted for UKIP and Green etc vote borrwowing) will be more indicative in my view of the state of the parties”
I think that assessment is quite wrong JIM JAM.
All the indications are that in the UK Council elections, people voted according to their view of the Government’s performance-but that theUK Euro Election will be used as a protest vote against the main parties.
The former election has relevance to peoples lives.
The latter has none.
Quick note to let your know your doing a great job on this website. Charles
Surely the fact that the Tories gained a lower (projected) national vote share than 2005 and yet still gained all of Labour’s contested councils and two from the Lib Dems, in the north and south of the country, suggests the GE will be anything but a uniform swing.
In terms of each partys vote share you’re right Colin.
However I do believe the sum of Conservative and UKIP today will give us a good idea of the kind of figures the Tories will achive at any imminent general election.
If it’s comfortably over 40% between them then, in my opinion, the Tories will be unbeatable.
@Colin – I think you’re right again on your last point.
In terms of political perceptions the Tories clearly ‘won’ in the council elections and Labour performed badly. However, I am struck by the low level of Tory support in % terms compared to both polls and last years 44% performance. We know Labour are deep in the mire, but the % breakdown here could suggest many more votes could be up for grabs than previously thought. I said in a previous thread that I’m sure Cameron wants to achieve 40%+ in the GE popular vote to get some clear political mandate – these results suggest that contrary to month of polling that figure might not be in the bag for him. It also leaves open the question of whether Labour can seize back some initiative and if the economic picture does improve perhaps rebuild to a 30%+ score and open up an intriguiging GE. Personally, I doubt they can under Brown – it needs some rapid, radical thinking, clearly presented without the usual smoke and mirrors and back room manouvers the man loves so much. His track record in this is very poor, but someone else might have a chance to pull something out of the bag.
In a GE based on % share of vote, the Tories needing 40+ leaves them not that many points to recover from that polled in the council elections. labour to win needs 12+ to even get anywhere near winning. I know who O would put my money on reaching their desired %.
Also when a council is more or less solidly Tory as in many southern councils its impossible to get great % swings as they already have the majority. Its in the midlands and north that we should be looking at for a clearer indication and on this basis the ~Tories did very well indeed. Its here that the GE will be fought out
Alec,
I made this point on a previous thread, Labour’s vote is a representation of how Labour do at rock bottom (core vote only). Labour could probably change their leader to Adolf Hitler (the cremated corpse of) and wouldn’t do any worse.
Assuming Labour gain some self respect ahead of the GE, the Tories will need at least 40% of the vote in the GE to get any workable majority.
Perhaps in the longer term the expenses scandal could prove to put people of the Tories who were originally on the fence, whilst putting people of Labour who were looking for an excuse not to vote Labour anyway.
Its always the challenge for any party to get the swing voters or the weak supporters out. If your depending on your rock solid bed of supporters who’s grandfather would turn in his grave if they voted any other way then GOTV isn’t so challenging.
Surely the message from the local elections as in the opinion polls is clear.
Whenever the general election is called and no matter who is the leader the government will be kicked out .
As the major opposition party the Tories will gain power most likely in a landslide.
The main uncertainty surrounds the fortunes of the Lib Dems and the SNP but their results are unlikely to upset the overall picture
Some seats will be lost against the national trend because of the expenses scandal but again this won’t affect the overall result
Neither the Greens or UKIP will win a single seat
Finally voters are not going to believe that the economy is in recovery until unemployment stops rising which won’t be until 2011. A miniscule increase in the growth rate next May or whenever won’t cut the mustard
Labour should prepare for opposition and stop day dreaming that somehow or other things will work out in the remaining 11 months . They won’t.
There’s a very interesting document on the Commons Library Website from 2004 containing historical projections by Rallings and Thrasher.
http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp2004/rp04-049.pdf
In the 1996 locals, Labour got 43% of the vote whiles the Tories got 29% and the Lib-Dems 24%. This was translated a year later into a GE result of Labour 44%, Tories 31%, Lib-Dems 17%.
Has anybody got any thoughts on what this tells us about how voters behave a year prior to kicking out the government?
Tonight’s Euro election results are going to be extremely exciting for the simple reason that a bad enough result for Labour is probably going to mean curtains for Brown, which most people seem to define by being beaten by UKIP. Normally Euro election results are not particularly fascinating but tonight will be different.
UNS projections from local elections are surely far less useful than the swing of seats and councils, and the distribution of them.
In both those 2, the Tories have done very well. I’m not too worried that the natives of Surrey, who received little or no central support, dropped 2 Tory councillors. That Staffordshire increased by 22 and sent Labour to 4 place from 1st is extremely telling.
And, as a final thought, if governments lose elections rather than oppositions win them, then how does Major’s projected 26% in 1996 compare to Brown’s projected 23% in 2009?
Another point is that the Tories would probably not need 40% to get a working majority in a GE, though of course they’d like as high a percentage as possible.
My reasoning is as follows: they would need 40% if Labour are around 30%. It looks as though Labour may end up considerably below that. The Liberal share of vote might go up to around the same as Labour, but because their vote is less concentrated this will not result in huge numbers of seats.
Scotland is another issue. It looks likely that the Tories might gain one or two, but the SNP could make a lot of gains, thus increasing the Tory lead over Labour (who are still likely to be the second largest party in terms of seats). Therefore even if the paper majority is quite low it could well be workable because it is unlikely that all the opposition parties will unite against them very often.
Hears the 2008 version of the HOC reserarch paper on local election results that I mentioned:
http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp2008/rp08-048.pdf
@Nick Keene – I think its more complex than you suggest, although I agree that the most likely outcome is a clear Tory GE victory (less certain of a landslide). I say this because the Tory share of the vote in the locals was poor – below expectations, polls and well down on previous performance. This may or may not have implications for the GE – its too early to tell, but I suspect expenses have cooled elements of support for all parties to an extent.
Secondly, while I agree that until unemployment starts to fall there are still worries over the economy, past experience tells us that unemployment is a poor guide to poll support – it affects relatively few people, and issues like interest rates, house prices and taxation are more likely to swing large numbers of votes. A turn in the housing market will happen well before employment bottoms out and could provide a more complex backdrop for the GE. I’ve said many times that the judgement on Labour’s recession measures will come in due course, and if they are judged to have ‘worked’ Brown will get more credit that he is currently recieving. The tentative signs are that this is the case, even the mocked VAT cut – whether this can counterbalance the impression of Labour having run out of steam is another thing altogether, but I feel the next GE will be less clear cut than many imagine.
RICHARD MANNS-I agree.
The Tories took the last bastions of Labour County Councils with aplomb-as well as destroying the LIb Dem hold in SW.
This must indicate a very focussed & efficient Conservative Party election strategy.
Are these so called “share of the vote projections” from the Local Election results building this factor in?
I find it very amusing to hear Peter Hain this morning telling us that the Tories share of the vote is “not good enough”-without once mentioning that Labour were wiped out in actual seats & councils.
ALEC-GB clearly shares your general view-he said in the SKY interview from Normandy that “people are waiting to see the results” of his policies.He meant the economy.
I’m not convinced that either of you are reading the public mood accurately.There has been a consistent polling theme-even when GB/AD lead DC/GO, which they no longer do-that the public have one view about who should manage recessionary policy, and a quite different view about who should manage post recession policy.
Alec – I agree with your analysis regarding the significance of economic recovery to Labour’s prospects , but would like to suggest further that as far as unemployment is concerned the key factor is more likely to be the rate of change rather than its absolute level. If by next year unemployment is rising at say 20,000 a month rather than the 50 – 60,000 we are now seeing , the commentary will include ‘the smallest increase for 18 months’etc – indeed there are already signs from the published figures of the rise slowing down.
I also believe that this one reason that very high unemployment did not prevent a Tory landslide in 1983 – it was still rising at that time but much more slowly than in 1980 and 1981. – though there were obviously other factors too such as ‘the Falklands halo’, and Michael Foot etc
These extrapolations are interesting, but we aren’t about to have a general election. Even in 3 or 4 months time I guess both Labour and the Tories will have moved up. Even if they move up equally (e.g. 2 or 3 % each) in my view that will put the Tories in the position of a much bigger majority. The outrage will not fade but the heat of it will and they will both move up,. I expect the Tories to recover more than Labour because of the political cycle and the fact that GB is difficult to sell. Not being partisan, Mandy agrees with me.
This economic recovery nonsense is truly amazing. Anyone who thinks that the obscene levels of national debt will somehow be forgotten by the time of the next election is living in cloud cuckoo land! As for this rubbish about “policy”, the moment that someone turns around and asks GB in parliament about what happened to all of his previous policies (e.g. ending boom and bust, but there are hundreds); then GB will lose his final (synthetic) dividing line.
He’s sunk. The next election is well and truly lost. GB is hanging on by his finger nails but, as is common knowledge, he does not actually have any finger nails left…………….
People spend way yoo much time looking at share of the vote and trying to extrapolate in to a GE. People should look at the seats instead.
The Tories piled on the votes where they needed them. And they did that despite taking a big hit from the expenss scandal.
This tells me that if there is an election in the autumn then the Tories will cruise to victory. What’s happening with Brown is badly damaging the future of the Labour Party. If this carries on for much longer then Labour are looking at over 10 years of being out of office.
Do not expect any economic recovery to save Labour. Unemployment will still be rising, even in May. An economic boom did nothing for John Major. A
Those who project that the Tories would only have a small majority on the basis of the local election results are by necessity saying that Labour would win over 200 seats in a GE. Is that seriously going to happen on 23% of the vote?
Local elections are a notoriously bad benchmark to predict GE results by. I reiterate my previous point that we are dealing with FPTP here, and the Conservatives only have Labour and the Lib Dems to beat. They did so extremely well in the local elections, and are on course for a landslide. Any analyst who predicts otherwise is wishful thinking and (maybe unintentionally) revealling their true political colours.
Re: Recovery
This talk of electoral recovery on the back of economic is nonsense. It never saved John Major, nor did the IMF-led recovery from the 1976-7 disaster save “Sunny Jim”.
Moreover, job losses lag behind the economic figures, meaning that losses will continue (and continue rising) even if recovery started in the autumn.
1) There is little likelihood of a recovery (ask the IMF and Standard&Poor).
2) There is little time for one to affect the people on the street if there were.
3) There is little record of the people on the street supporting the government even if 1 and 2 happened.
I don’t think they’ll be a electoral recovery on the back of a technical end to the recession, maybe a few points but that is all but irrelevant when you’re polling in the low 20’s.
Even if the recession were over right now, it would take years to sort out the mess, and then there’s the paying for all the measures taken to try to lessen its effects. GB has nowhere near enough time to do all this – and if people are sick of him now, that won’t get any better.
I’m not sure that the Tories best line of attack is the economy anyway. High unemployment and, in time, rising inflation speaks for itself without their help.
I suspect in the run up to any general election it is Labours record in other areas such as law and order and unchecked immigration and errosion of civil liberties that’s best attacked.
Reminding people just how bad they were even before the recession began is easier now that they are somewhat discredited anyway. Indeed even ardent supporters must be becoming embarassed to admit it!
If played correctly in the press (I have seen nothing so far to suggest Cameron is not up to the job) I believe almost EVERY swing vote at the election will go Tory.
Anyone know what time we can expect the euro election results?
I second what Michael says. Do all the results come out at once or in phases. Is it worth saying up to watch?
Richard Manns,
I respectfully suggest that Jim Callaghan might well have won an election in 1978 – and would, at the very least ,have managed a Hung Parliament!
Anthony ( or anyone ) could you explain why the 2 projections of the LE vote shares are so different ? which is more likely to be right ?
Thanks.
I must disagree with Richard on the LE being poor for the 3 main parties, i think the Lib Dems did alright, although they did loose somerset and dorset they gained bristol, a city council, which gives them another city to add to thier list of city councils owned and their vote share went up, and they are second place in the majority of county council, the tories had a good LE for obvious reasons, Labour is the only ones to have suffered big time.
Ecomomic recovery just read a speech from Blanchflower of the Bank of England .He says unemployment will rise 100000 per month for at least the next year. Labour are doomed however they try and spin it.
Last time the results came out one by one, starting with Greater London and the North East. Although they start counting before 9pm that doesn’t mean they’ll all be finished counting at the same time.
Here is what 200 odd students think:
http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=907544
obviously not gonna be very accurate but still interesting for those who want anything to ponder over. Us youths seem to love the Lib Dems
What time can we expect the first results Andy?
Well I think Greater London came in pretty soon after 9pm last time round but that’s not a guarantee of what might happen this time. Results from any region will be delayed if it’s very close between parties for a particular seat. If that happens there has to be a “recount”, which means that the returning officer at the central declaration site has to tell all the local areas to recount their votes. It’s a bit strange because the actual results from each local area may not be very close between the parties but the overall result would be in that scenario.
@ Alex & Andy (or anyone else who knows)
Chaps
Haven’t the Euro papers been counted at the same time as the Locals? I remember seeing mixed counting on the telly during Thursday nights coverage.
Therefore cant all the UK results be released at 10pm BST? Or are we looking at a tired day in work tomorrow ;-(
Kerr Stitt
“Labour’s vote is a representation of how Labour do at rock bottom (core vote only). Labour could probably change their leader to Adolf Hitler (the cremated corpse of) and wouldn’t do any worse.”
That’s because disaffected Labour voters can’t bring themselves to vote for the party of Thatcher, and know that in FPTP that the LibDems are in most places a wasted vote.
If they live in Scotland, there is a more acceptable option.
The antagonism between SNP and Labour is only among party workers because each group regard the other lot as turncoats. Many SNP members have formerly been Labour party supporters or are trade unionists.
The SNP have many policies which (Old) Labour once had and have now rejected. Labour loyalists have been required to change their opinions when the party leadership told them to. Not all of them found it easy to do that.
The SNP are not really positioning themselves to the left of NewLabour, but they appear to be doing so because they are reversing NewLabour’s doctrinaire marketisations.
That’s because they don’t work, not because they are right wing. No doubt they will have in time policies of their own that don’t work, but they have no inhibitions about dumping failed ideas of another party.
In the NHS there is considerable scope to do this and it is hugely popular.
Whether as staff, patients or their relatives and friends, all of us must know someone who has ben impressed with the changes Nicola Sturgeon is making. NHS staff talk about it, and there are plenty of them. The fact that everyone knows that doctrinaire marketisation still rules in the English NHS is much to the SNP’s advantage because otherwise their improvements would be taken for granted.
Joshua – is that ‘200 odd’ students or 200 ‘odd’ students?
We must be told!
Pete B
“Therefore even if the paper majority is quite low it could well be workable because it is unlikely that all the opposition parties will unite against them very often.”
My seat by seat calculations suggested that the SNP gains will not be so many, but from the point of view of your argument above every one is extremely valuable to the Conservative Government.
So long as their policies, relate only to England, the SNP MP’s withdraw themselves from the calculation.
They could easily persuade themselves to support the government in a vote of confidence, and could even take the Scottish Conservatives into coalition, but the price the SNP would demand would be very high.
If DC needs their votes badly enough, which might come with PC colleagues, it’ could mean goodbye to the union.
Lewis – European ballots were verified, but not counted on Friday.
That means they’ve checked there are the correct number of papers in each ballot box, but they haven’t yet sorted them into piles for each political party, or counted the votes for each party.
However, they will start doing so in advance of the 9pm point when they are allowed to actually announce results (they should start counting in London at 5pm, they’re starting in the South East at 6pm) so the results can – touch wood – be announced as soon as polls have closed across Europe.
Plumbus – neither are “right”, since there’s no right answer – there weren’t local elections across the whole country this week, so there’s no real share of the vote. The BBC and Rallings/Thrasher use different key wards to come up with their projection, so get different projections. Exactly how they’ve chosen the particular wards they use I don’t know.
Sky News is reporting a London turnout of 33.5%. It was 37.3 last time, so a drop of 3.8%. I think that drop in turnout will certainly hit Labour more than any other party.
In the council election the Tories gained over 250 councillors and all their council tragets with only 35% of the vote. How can this be? Clearly the Conservatives seat targeting strategy is having a big impact in the areas where they have hitherto been lagging behind, like the north and in perticular the Midlands. This is a warning I think, that those that are relying on UNS to come up with an approximate figure the Tories need achieve a majority at the next election need to think again. The bar won’t need to be quite as high as some imagine – And I suspect that come the election night we’ll have one of those situations where pundits and exit polls are calling a hung parliament early in the night, only the revisions towards the Tories to take place as the key seats begin to come through…
I think that the Euro Election results even more than Council’s will demonstrate that at least half of those who voted Labour in GE have lost confidence in Labour, and more particularly in some of their leading figures.
When the Euro Election results come it should be obvious to Labour MPs that they need to make some radical changes in leadership and policy in order to avoid losing more than half of their members at the GE.
Anthony,
I really do wish they’d give some indication of methodology, else their stuff really is useless as it can’t be judged.
GIN
I thought that 35% was the projected national share of the vote for the Conservatives based on extrapolation from certain key wards and divisions. I have not yet seen what the actual unadjusted shares were in the LEs. Have they been published or calculated?
GRI indeed we only have projected shares at the moment. But the Tories HAVE outperformed both the projected shares we’ve been given, which is quite important I think, and seems to have passed a lot of people by. I think this will be significant for the general election, personally.
If you look on the Staffordshire county council website it gives the total number of votes and percentages for the county, and probably the other councils have done the same. I don’t think anyone has bothered to add up the actual votes because they wouldn’t mean much since only English shire counties were voting. You could always add the figures up by visiting all the websites. I would guess the results were something like: C – 50%, LD – 20%, Lab – 15%, Others – 15%.
Has anybody got any thoughts on what this tells us about how voters behave a year prior to kicking out the government?
It tells us that you’re committing the fallacy of presupposing a result and looking for evidence of it, rather than looking at voter behaviour and then checking the results!
Andy,
I’m a little hesitant about using those numbers. I think I said this before, but one thing is that Labour was just plain missing from huge numbers of wards. My comment before was that it was like something you’d expect from 1909, not 2009: Liberals and Conservatives had mostly full slates up while Labour was MIA in a lot of areas (and sputtering in a lot of them).
Violent clashes outside Manchester Town Hall as Nick Griffin arrives at the count preventing him from entering.
I’ve just remembered that in 2004 there was a Euro exit poll for Sky News which showed the Tories on 22% and UKIP on 20% which caused a lot of consternation.
The BBC is reporting that early indications show Labour down in fifth or even sixth place.
Surely if Labour comes third in Wales Brown cannot survive.
Labour down 9% in early results. My prediction of Labour gaining 15% is looking quite good at present.
Whats with the dodgy Leicester result showing Labour on 37% and the UKIP vote practically becoming non existant!
Dodgy!
I agree the Leicester vote was a bit odd. I did expect Labour to do better there than most places because I thought the large Asian population would come out strongly to try and stave off the BNP challenge in the East Midlands.
The ethnic minorities could be Labours saving grace lol.
I think whatever the UKIP outcome, Nigel Farage will have something to moan about.
@ Joshua – what figures are you looking at? The Leicester result has Labour on 25% and UKIP on 15.4%.
Sorry, my bad – I think I’m looking at something else. Bloody bewildering BBC website, splutter splutter
Labour doing really badly so far, UKIP doing really well. UKIP topping 20% anyone?
Were those figures Jeremy Vine gave for Leicester wrong?
Kilroy Silks seat I think was E Mids – I guess this includes Leicester.
I can only assume that a lot of Asian voters in Leicester who voted for Kilroy-Silk in 2004 have come back to Labour who they probably voted for before.
Labour down on average by 9% despite getting 37% in Leicester! If the Leicester result is an exception then how low will Labour go ???!!!
The East show a sharp drop in Labour vote and good gains for the Greens
A sad day, the BNP have just managed to squeeze in a seat in yorkshire:/
Yorkshire and The Humber – 16000 votes more for the greens and there would be no bnpseat
well thats electoral politics and they won their first seat
lets see how they will do in the rest of england
The results so far confirm my long held belief that nigh-on all of the BNP support comes from otherwise Labour voters.
I’m sure they’ll remain a thorn in Labours side at the next election also.
UKIP and Tory share taken together looks to be well over 40% so looking very good for the Tories prospects at a general election also.
Tories ahead of Labour in Wales, by crikey.
Labour -12 in Wales. No surprise to me about that!
Wow. Couldn’t have gone better than this in my wildest dreams! ‘Conservatives’ all over Europe advancing over their socialist rivals, not just here.
Jury team and Libertas seem to have gone absolutely nowhere I see.
Sky News just made a big mistake. They put figures up saying they were a projection for the final shares of the vote but they were actually the current share of the vote down to a tenth of a percentage point.
A very good night for the Greens it seems. BNP are doing good in terms of MEPs but their share of the vote is not as high as I predicted!
Did I hear this right, green party came top in Norwich North? Could be a very interesting by-election.
Greens on top in Norwich and Tories in East Renfrewshire. Tories beat Labour in Wales for the first time since 1918. Why do I think Labour is likely to have a bit of a hangover in the morning?
Much worse for Labour than expected and we haven’t had their weakest areas in the SE and SW yet. I was dumbfounded to just hear a Sky News correspondent say things weren’t quite as bad for Labour as they might have been.
Did I just see a noticable swing from Labour to Greens in the south east? Could be where their (protest) votes are going at the moment.
Less than 1% between Libs and Labour now so will be interesting! However, the North West is still yet to be announced so is this Labours last chancE?
Rumor on the BBC stream is that the BNP got a second seat in the Northwest. I don’t know how Labour will do in Scotland…if just because of the degree of nuttiness involved. Same with the Midlands, for that matter.
yea bnp got its second seat in the northwest
less than 5000 votes ahead of the greens
Wow. Um…well, they’ve got two seats. I’ll say now what I’ve said before: I think Gordon Brown’s plea not to vote BNP backfired to some extent.
I think that Sky News correspondent I was talking about before was based in City Hall in London and seemed to be besotted by Labour’s slightly less awful showing in the capital compared to elsewhere. How he could say things could have been worse for Labour when they’ve polled 15% and lost Wales to the Tories is difficult to fathom.
I think it is fair to say that all 3 main parties were punished because of the expenses scandal. But that Labour punishment was greater, and significantly, will last longer, I believe.
I suspect we may see a similiar kind of big drop in Labour’s support in Scotland as we did in Wales.
Again I say we will probably have a better assessment of where the 3 main parties stand by the end of July, in terms of forecasting the GE result.
Labour’s current percentage share is 15.3%. The BBC’s projected share once Scotland has been included is 15.7%.
@ saladin
even more shocking is that if UKIP got just 1200 more votes they would hve woon that seat:/ Im no UKIP fan but i would much rather have seen them get that last seat.
You see Joshua, although the BNP sneaked in in two places, their vote was not that spectacular, as I wrote when I tried to reassure you beforehand. Indeed, their gains were largely because a large proportion of the Labour vote starburst to all and sundry rather than went over to them. I actually feel rather comforted by them only getting two by the narrowest of margins – it is no great bridgehead, and when things return to normal they will probably slip below again. Viz the polls showing between 5 to 7 for them beforehand, these were pretty well spot on.
Generally, after all the expectation, I found the results rather dull. In my own SE region we had no change at all in MEPs. Clearly d’Hondt in small multimember regions blunts change and leads to a rather dull outcome, I suspect this is why it was chosen as it tends to minimise the “rocing of the boat” by the voters – just imagine what would have happened to Labour in FPTP or AV+ or even Sainte Lague – it would have been much more dramatic!
As a (former) Labour voter, I am thoroughly ashamed that we have allowed the Tories to overtake us in Wales, and even more ashamed that the BNP have been let in by our recent shambolic behaviour.
Brown has to go now if Labour are to stand any slim chance of avoiding complete anihilation at the next GE.
Labour will not be getting my vote again for the forseeable future
Sorry, for “rocing” read “rocking”
Labour Dreadful, Tories popsitive but still with work to do to be sure to beat 40% in GE. Lib Dems must be disappointed not to do better.UKIP only protest vote but Greens may hold some votes for the next 10 years.As above Norwich North could be their breakthrough.They get on a roll do well in a couple of consituency opinion polls and the Lib Dems get squeezed.
Con/UKIP share at 46% is slightly better that I had imagined it would be. Tories look set for about 41/42 at a general election on that score I’d say.
In addition, though the media play up a low attendance as signs of Labour voters staying at home, I believe a lot of Tory support stayed away over expenses too.
From a purely party-political perspective the prospect of a strong, well funded BNP at the next election stealing Labours votes bodes well for the Tories also.
CON 28.6 +1.2
UKIP 17.4 +0.5
LAB 15.3 -7.0
LD 13.9 -1.1
GRN 8.7 +2.5
BNP 6.5 +1.4
As Nick Robinson pointed out yesterday, the BNP actually got less votes in Yorkshire than in 2004. It is just that the turnout went down. I’m not pleased but not that worried. This sort of thing is normal in most European Countries.
What gets me is that there is no mention of the Greens on the front page at the moment… not even a dot.. I know they didn’t get anymore seats but they put in a good showing, beating labour in the SouthWest, increasing their vote by 50% in most areas and builsing on their areas in London, Norwich and Brighton..
It is clear from the replies to my earlier thread on the economy that some Labour voters are still clinging onto hope in their talk of a economic recovery arriving in the nick of time to save their party from meltdown.
I will try to make ever more simple. ALL voters know that just as night follows day then there will be a recovery at some point be it ‘V’ shaped, ‘U’ shaped or what I fear it will be which is a ‘W’ shaped recovery.
Most intelligent voters will appreciate that this recovery was helped to some extent by the Bank of England’s belated moves on interest rates and its more timely moves on the injection of money into the system. Unfortunately for Labour as they gave the Bank independence in 1997 then the credit will not accrue to them.
Then there is the fact that the statistics lag behind the actuality. In other words even if we do get a recovery by May 2010 it is more than likely that the figures won’t be known until Mr Cameron is sitting in Downing Street.
And as others have pointed out even if the recovery comes sooner and in a more tangible form than anyone has suggested the awfulness of the aftermath remains to be dealt with and the years of Labour profligacy are again familiar themes with the voters. Cameron holds all the cards.
There is no way back Alec and co. Better to dump Gordon now and take the medicine in a early autumn election before its gets worse whilst the Tories are still having their wings partially clipped by the expenses scandal which by next May will have faded as an issue outside a few isolated constituences.
The game is up.
Will Brown survive in the light of these results?
I think he will since a vote of no confidence would lead to a G.E.
Not many Labour back benchers want to risk being voted out themselves;
The MPs with 5-15% majorities would be the only ones to benefit [;assuming a change in leader would improve Labour's chances atall.]
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An interesting point I ran: At least in England/Wales, that breakdown yields a 44.4-46 split between “Tories and protest parties” (Con and UKIP) and “Left-wing and protest parties” (the other four; the BNP primarily siphoned off Labour support, so it falls here). Ironically, in spite of only coming in 1.6% behind the right-wing parties, vote-splitting left the “left block” 12 seats down (as in most regions, Green+BNP would net a seat even if neither did on their own). The best example of this was the SW, where the “left-wing four” got about 34% of the vote but only one seat (Greens, Labour, and the BNP all fell short; the LibDems only got one seat).
Gray…dont start the whole ‘Is the BNP right or left wing’ off again…
Michael,
It is not so much a left/right thing but a fact that BNP votes come from former Labour voters and not from Tories.
The serious question for Labour is how many of the votes lost to BNP and Greens last week will come “back” at the GE ?
While UKIP has taken a large chunk at the Euros, most (not all) of that will revert to Con at a GE – even one in the next few weeks.
Most “swing” calculations work on the basis of votes moving to/from Party A/B. In fact, what is more likely is that in many places Lab will fall further than Cons rise, but it will still deliver the seat.
Michael: Paul hit it on the head. I am not classifying them on one side or the other ideologically so much as I am placing them there based on who they are drawing support from. UKIP draws primarily from the Tories, the Greens draw from Labour, and the BNP draws from Labour. The evidence is quite broad that BNP support is coming from Labour, much the same as there was great concern in the US back in 1968 that George Wallace would tear the Democratic Party apart by pulling off union voters. It’s a similar strain, and I classify it based on that, not on whatever policies they’re carrying with them.
One other footnote: Do remember that whatever side Oswald Mosely fell down on ideologically, he drew from a disaffected bunch of Labourites with his parties as far as I can tell.
What we really need to do on the national projection from the County Council elections is to compare some Parliamentary seats to last year, but they are generally different places which voted.
@Grey
Fair enough;)
Its also worth noting that in Euro elections, the less euro-enthusiastic Lib Dem supporters probably vote Green which is why they dont do as well in european election, thats just my thoughts.
As a footnote to my last comments I would add that the Tories are now one to ten on with the bookies to win the next election and one to three on to gain an outright majority….
I think Brown was the wrong choice for them.
They should have had a wider variety of candidates promoted and with experience to choose from when the time came, and the trick from their point of view I think was to keep firmly in the centre ground, but to do more for the core Labour voters to motivate their members and arrest these appalling turnouts.
I think this rather silly love in spectacle in 2007 where they all just went for him unanimously without a contest, many clearly hoping to believe what they wanted to believe, has weakened him, the government, and their party as things got more difficult.
Michael,
Yes, it is likely that the visible pro-EU approach cost the LDs a large number of votes in the Euro elections, and that a fair number of LD supporters voted Green.
However, there is ample evidence that in the SW, which has historically been one of the strongest regions for LDs, most of the more euro-sceptic support went to UKIP not Greens. (The strong Green showing in the SW having come mainly at the expense of Labour)