The local elections
I remember that a year ago my referral logs in the days running up to the local elections were full of people searching for local election opinion polls. They must have come away disappointed, because there were practically none. It looks as though they’ll be similarly disappointed this year. Local election polls are actually pretty rare because of the difficulty of identifying people in areas that do have elections and the problems of doing a bog standard poll giving people the choice of all the main parties when in thousands upon thousands of seats not all the main parties are standing.
The only real prediction based on evidence that we have is Ralling and Thrasher’s prediction, based upon analysis of recent local authority by-elections. Rallings and Thrasher predict local shares of the vote of CON 39%, LAB 24%, LDEM 29%, compared to 2003 when the seats were last fought this has the Conservatives up 4 points, Labour down 6 points and the Lib Dems up 2 points (these, it should be noted, are notional shares of the vote based on what they think would happen if there were local elections across the whole country, not actual shares of the vote. The notional shares of the vote on the BBC on the night of the election will be calculated on the same basis.) Rallings and Thrasher project that this would result in the Conservatives gaining around 330 seats, Labour losing around 500 and the Lib Dems gaining around 110.
Rallings and Thrasher’s local election predictions got some bad publicity last year after their initial prediction on Newsnight went horribly wrong – they predicted that the Conservatives would lose 95 seats, Labour lose 130 and the Lib Dems gain 190. In the event the Conservatives gained 317, Labour lost 320 and the Lib Dems stayed almost static. Rallings and Thrasher had produced revised predictions closer to the 2006 elections, but even they showed the Tories only gaining around 100 seats.
Despite last year’s mistake this doesn’t mean that the Rallings and Thrasher predictions should be ignored. In 2006, between the local by-elections that Rallings and Thrasher based their projections upon and the elections themselves Labour suffered the foreign prisoner release scandal and the revelation of John Prescott’s affair – a week that did a great deal of damage to their image. Perhaps if they hadn’t suffered those scandals the results would have been closer to Rallings and Thrasher’s prediction, we’ll never know. In both 2003 and 2004 Rallings and Thrasher’s predictions for the likely notional national shares of the vote in the local elections were actually very accurate so, assuming no scandals or other events break in the next couple of days, Rallings and Thrasher’s predictions are the best we have.
UPDATE: There is a useful list on 18 Doughty Street of which councils are counting on Thursday night and which are counting on Friday morning.
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I think I am right in saying the Ralling and Thrasher “actual” figures for 2006 were Con 39% Lab 26% LibDEm 25% (”Other” therefore up from 8% to 10%) If I am correct what would that imply?
Sorry gremlin. “Other” down.
Careful with the terminology – R&T also produce “actual” figures, the sums of all the votes cast, which are different from their notional national figures
It wouldn’t imply much beyond the obvious – that in terms of voters preference for local government Labour have fallen lower since 2006 and the Lib Dems moved higher.
Thanks. Gotit now.
Anthony , this month’s Ipsos Mori poll was apparently published in yesterday’s Observer . Don’t buy the paper but the figures were apparently Con 38 -3 Lab 31 -2 LibDem 20 +3 Others 11 +2
Thanks Mark
The notional figures will, I imagine, be similar to those produced by R & T. But I’d expect a bigger Labour net loss than 500 on such figures. The switch to STV in Scotland costs them 100 seats alone, even if their vote share is unchanged on 2003. In practice, a loss of c.150 in Scotland is much more likely.
A net loss of 350 in England, out of 2,700 seats being defended, would be rather encouraging for Labour IMHO.
Local election results are incredibly difficult to calculate givne that the main parties don’t stand in all wards, presumably their worst and there are more independents because there is no returnable deposit. Also not all seats are contested, some are defered due to deaths during the campaign, some are multi-member wards etc.
T-R should be commended on their work (which is the only credible source of independent local lection analysis) but those that try to draw anything more than general conclusions from the results to national elections or from opinion polls to local elections are on a hiding to very little. Even within local authority boundaries swings can vary hugely from ward to ward.
The results on Thursday will be interesting (and important to the people directly involved and to the councils themselves) but I doubt they will tell us a great deal about the 2009/10 general election result.
I wonder if the T-R projections are based upon a particular turnout/weather condition. i.e. if turnout is high would they predict a different result, if turn out is poor another variation.
Where I stand as a local candidate nearly half the seats are being contested by Independents. Nearly half of them will probably get elected. No doubt in Parliamentary elections they themselves vote for one the major parties.
However locally there seems to a resurgence of Independents. What on earth have the major parties got to do with the number of swings we have in the Play Areas or the number of times the streets are ‘cleaned’. No wonder the pollsters get it wrong.
It isn’t just Scotland where the main Political Parties support is being eroded.
For the projected share of the vote in this week’s local elections, I’m predicting Conservatives 42%, LibDems 28%, Labour 24%.
based on what i ask?
For the projected share of the vote in this week’s local elections, I’m predicting Conservatives 42%, LibDems 28%, Labour 24%.
Why should we care about your or anyone else’s prediction, unless you publish your methodology
I’m sorry Paul and Harry – I’m a new character on this forum, although I saw nothing saying it was mandatory to back up personal predictions. I’ll bear that in mind.
It’s clear that supporters of each of the three main parties will be able to spin the results by comparing them with a carefully chosen yardstick ie one that favours their party. It is a pity we cannot agree between us what each party should aim to achieve on Thursday. For my money the Conservatives have to get a notional 40% of the English vote to maintain momentum, Labour need around 29% to be able to claim that they have bottomed out and the Liberal Democrats need to advance by at least half of one point to offset the feeling that they are in decline.
And the English Greens needs to gain at least 30 councillors and stay well ahead of the British Nazi Party in total councillor numbers.
Nick Keene. Yes insofar as guessing what the GE result might be, and I realise that this blog deals with the future, BUT the parties will not only be concerned with spinning to their own advantage. It DOES matter who controls government at ALL levels. It makes a lot of difference to where I live whether we stay Tory with Lib support or swing left. So there is another measure of success or failure, which to some extent is absolute, and which is the raison d’etre of these elections.
Paul/Harry:
Go easy on Andy D.
He’s perfectly entitled to post his predictions on here, even if they are “gut instinct”. Politicalbetting carry out a similar exercise and even encourage posters to post in their gut predictions of the result. You can also query the predictions, politely, if you wish.
New members should be warmly welcomed.
Welcome Andy.
Out of interest are we all assuming a SNP victory? Because in terms of the future that is the fascinating potential result, with Wales also looking interesting (but not quite as much)…
I would dearly love Andy D to be correct, though I see nothing wrong in asking what he bases his prediction on. Myself, I doubt the Tories will get 40% (and yes that is a gut instinct). If we’re going to start making unfounded predictions then here we go-
Con 39
Lab 25
LD 27
Thanks Rob. Clearly Harry and Paul are clearly expert psephologists and should be respected
The 2006 local elections shares of the vote were C 40%, LD 27% and Lab 26% if I remember correctly. As we are further into mid term, I would be surprised if the Tories should perform worse or Labour better than that.
My prediction is not all that far out from these figures, due to the opinion polls being rather static over the past year.
Andy
That seems reasonable.
Andy, but what you’re not factoring in is the quite disastrous last fortnight of last year’s council elections campaign for Labour: the impact of the Home Office debacle and John Prescott had a massive effect on turning out Labour’s vote: easily worth 3% at least.
You’re right of course that further into midterm the government should be doing worse, but perhaps the two (ie Labour not having quite as dire a lead-in this year) balance each other out overall.
The other point is that last year’s elections were among a somewhat different set of voters, so direct comparisons aren’t totally reliable; last year’s would normally boost Labour because London was included, but Labour polled dismally in London.
Last point: BBC election night forecasts almost always overstate Lib Dem share and understate Labour share, by about 1-2% apiece.
If pushed – and I’m not a great fan of predictions cos the odds are you’re not going to be right – Con 38, Lab 27, LD 27; Greens will do well.
Despite Labour’s pre-election Home Office and Prescott troubles last year, they were between 2% ahead and 4% behind in April 2006. April 2007 by contrast showed Tory leads of 7-9%, so I would dispute the assertion Labour is going into these elections in a better state than they were a year ago.
Perhaps someone has the shares of the vote for the 2002/2003 local elections, the last time the 2006/2007 elections were fought largely under the same batches? Perhaps we could draw some conclusions from those.
Andy, I posted these under one of the April YouGov poll thread – these are the entire UK figures (I’ve provided some England-only stats in that thread):
Con 31.5
Lab 27.9
LD 24.2
Ind 7.4
Green 1.6
SNP 3.8
Other 3.6
As I said earlier, I’m not disputing that the poll figures are worse for Labour, but we had no polling that measured the impact of the fortnight of debacles prior to last year’s local elections.
What we do know is that the polls immediately following the council elections showed a sea-change widening of the Tory lead which lasted through to conference, so it’s highly probable that the 2%-4% Tory lead you refer to prior to the elections was actually more like 5-8%. Which is more or less where we are now. Hence my comment.
And just to add some subjective observations – I was talking to voters in a formerly solid Labour ward on polling day last year: the impact of those catastrophes on white, working class voters was massive: I’ve never seen anything like the disgust I encountered that day in 20 years of involvement in politics – so I think, if anything, the Tory bounce was even greater on polling day, and had diminished a little by the time the May opinion polls were conducted.
Finally, again, just note that on election night 2003, the BBC was forecasting that the Lib Dems had knocked Labour into third place. As the figures from the Local Elections Handbook above show, they were wrong.
National Projected Vote Shares (taken from the House of Commons Library)
2007 cycle:
2007:
2003: Con 35% Lab 30% Lib Dem 27% Others 8%
1999: Con 34% Lab 36% Lib Dem 25% Others 5%
2006 cycle
2006: Con 39% Lab 26% Lib Dem 25% Others 10%
2002: Con 34% Lab 33% Lib Dem 25% Others 8%
1998: Con 33% Lab 37% Lib Dem 25% Others 5%
2005 cycle
2005: Con 40% Lab 25% Lib Dem 28% Others 7%
2001: Con 39% Lab 31% Lib Dem 25% Others 5%
1997: Con 34% Lab 36% Lib Dem 25% Others 5%
“Andy, but what you’re not factoring in is the quite disastrous last fortnight of last year’s council elections campaign for Labour: the impact of the Home Office debacle and John Prescott had a massive effect on turning out Labour’s vote: easily worth 3% at least.”
As a Labour activist and canvasser I can certainly vouch for that.Interestingly, the Prescott issue seemed much more damaging on the doorstep for Labour during last year’s campaign.The press was so bad during April 2006 we actually advised party activists to steer clear of newspapers and all forms of news media to try and shore up morale.
2005 cycle
2005: Con 40% Lab 25% Lib Dem 28% Others 7%
2001: Con 39% Lab 31% Lib Dem 25% Others 5%
1997: Con 34% Lab 36% Lib Dem 25% Others 5%
Interesting that the Tories polled more or less 40% in the 2001/2005 locals but went on to lose general elections the same year. I’m amazed Labour only managed 36% in 1997, given that they polled around 8% higher in the general election in 1997.
The “English Greens” do not need 30 seats to out vote the Brirish Nazi Party. Because the English Green Party IS the British Nazi Party.
If however you mean the BNP, they are a bunch of loonies that have as much chance of being taken seriously by the media and the establishment as my mothers dog does.
The Greens however have their own media propagander channel, the BBC, the state education system, and every despotic socialist government in the world batting for them or their Hitlerite” idears”.
Brian, bear in mind that the Council elections that have coincided with the General Election have been for shire counties (plus a very small number of unitaries) – and since 1997 they have generally been shorn of large towns (having become Unitary Authorities) which tend to be the best Labour parts of the counties (Beds doesn’t have Luton, Bucks doesn’t have Milton Keynes, Cheshire doesn’t have Warrington or Halton, Leics doesn’t have Leicester, etc).
In other words, the remnants that have county councils are by and large the best Tory areas, hence the reason Labour tends to poll substantially worse. Although again, I think Labour does systemically worse in Council than General Elections anyway, so that’s also a factor.
Harry, thanks for those figures – extremely interesting. So from 2002 to 2003, in terms of shares of the vote, the Tories went up by 1%, Labour down 3%, LibDems up 2%.
If that were replicated from 2006’s figures, we would see C 40%, LD 29%, Lab 23%.
My bit of Mystic Megary is Con 39% Lab 25% Lib Dem 27% and that’s based on the polls and the cycle we’re in.
I am grateful for these posts above – very interesting.
The County Council elections of 1997/2001/2005 look very strange though, if they really are attempts to do national projections.
But I did hear the Lib Dems got around 26% in the 1997 locals soon afterwards, which did strike me as odd given the huge Labour landslide.
I supppose these County Council results in General Election years prove pretty conclusively that the Lib Dems just do better in local elections almost whenever they are.
I think most of us – myself included – accept that analysts, and the BBC, do make a professional attempt to project national shares of the vote from local elections each year.
But I still think it must be a very difficult job because whole areas don’t vote each time, and you have to make a guess how it might behave, or perhaps they just pick the same key wards.
The Tories could find their national projection is affected by having some real data from Scotland, and that could depress their share somewhat, although there will be a huge amount of English data this time – in councils facing all outs.
I am a politically homeless Conservative and English nationalist of the ethnic not civic variety. I have blogged on these and past elections in these isles, and forecast on a basis slightly better informed than “gut feeling” … but slightly is the operative word.
For tomorrow’s English local authority elections national percentages are meaningless to me. I am interested in seats. I would be interested to know if any of you gentleman would care to predict the outcome accordingly, including the principal small parties.
Any takers?
I think its a good idea for people to post their predictions, implies a bit of humble pie to be eaten then if they’re wrong.
Mine:
Tories: 40%+ – I’d be disappointed if we fell back
Lib Dems: Flat. They’re being squeezed on all sides at the moment, but they’ll still beat . . .
Labour: Third place again.
Scotland: Will be closer than anyone predicted a week ago. I think the SNP peaked too early and Labour have done very well to turn the election around from being a referendum on them (which they’d lose badly) and into a poll more on the SNP and independence.
I’ll just say watch the BNP. Too much pleasure to get watching others enjoy a feast of humble pie to say any more.
‘I’ll just say watch the BNP’
From a distance through protective goggles.
Ralph. Maybe so. But still watch them, there will be a number of upsets.
Anthony,
It’s nearly half way through voting….
Get of the fence and give us your predictions!
Peter.
I’m a bit annoyed because there’s no election where I live. Only a Conservative candidate is standing, which means he wins automatically, although I might well have voted for him anyway.
I wonder whether turnout today is going to be ‘brisk’ or ’slow’?
OK, here’s a prediction I will make: turnout will be significantly down on last year – possibly below 30%. I think there’s less impetus for people to turn out this year:
* The “big” national/international issues, especially Iraqof the last two years are diminishing as incentives to vote against Labour
* I don’t actually think people want to “give Blair a kicking” – they want him gone, but the electorate generally aren’t vindictive
* The coverage of the elections has been subdued
* There haven’t been any big political scandals dominating the immediate run up to the elections – so while Labour voters won’t feel passionate about turning out they won’t feel totally disgusted with their own party as they did last year.
* The greater than usual proportion of uncontested or barely contested seats will also damp down turnout
* The requirement for all postal voters to re-register for them this year has significantly reduced numbers of postal votes applied for; and this will have turnout consequences.
Should say that I’m talking about the English elections here only; the close election in Scotland (and possibly Wales) may maintain or increase turnout there.
if these predictions are right,i cant wait to see steven pound and the boys saying it was not that bad to be third!
Why, John? Even if Labour is projected to come third (something that is far from given), it will neither be confirmation that they will actually finish third when the final figures are published or be of any consequence to anything anywhere at all, other than to council electors who will have a few less Labour councillors representing them.
But I guess if that’s what presses your buttons, who am I to be critical?
With less than an hour to go to close of the polls, its likely Labour will be the largest party in Scotland. The extreme policy decisions in relation to Council Tax and referendum on Independence undoubtedly have worked aginst the SNP. The Council Tax is unfair on the lowest earners in Scotland however a local income tax pledge is and was not the best alternative. Hopefully Labour will improve the lot of the majority if re-elected and take into accounts the views and concerns of the rural areas of Scotland.
I agree with Andy and Ralph that the BNP Vote needs to be viewed in certain areas as this will cause a slight defection of some people in areas where they have recently made gains.
I do not know how closely we should watch the 100 or so seats being contested by UKIP and if they have hijacked a few of the independants who in the past have been successful.
Mid Term blues is obviously a major negative factor dominating Labours campaign, there is obviously an additional factor the leadership debate and when Tony will retire and who will stand.
So Labour may meet the predictions made by Andy. How much will the revived Green Conservatives of David Cameron actually gain at thier expense will be what I am waiting to see.
Paul’s predictions and methodology questions are valid but gut instinct is always a winner before the count as we have seen even with the polls done by responsible organisations there have been massive failiures in thier figures. I have been one of Paul’s students and we’ve looked at the gauffes of the past.
Geoff
Geoff
Surprised at the absence of post-election posts so far (unless Anthony’s turned on filtering).
Anyway, my analysis, with reference to earlier predictions:
England:
Conservatives got 41% – I said 40%+ and that’s been achieved. I live in the North West, it seems that the Conservatives now control more councils than any other party in the North West.
Labour – Bad result, but not as bad as it could have been. I think people aren’t vindictive and why when Blair is leaving give him a kicking? But still, their lowest council representation in “modern history” I believe – how far back does that mean? Predicted they’d be third party and I was wrong.
Lib-Dems – Main losers of the night it seems. I did predict they’d be squeezed, didn’t expect it to be by so much though. The LD’s have some serious questions to answer and not just should they keep Ming, but are they going to continue to try and be “all things to all people” and try and keep their previous gains against the Tories while trying to make advances against Labour. At the moment its no longer working and they face a danger they’ll instead be “nothing to anybody”.
Minor Parties/The Polls: Seems like the polls have not been getting this right. The polls have been seeing a swing to either the Lib Dems or the Minors depending upon which pollster, but instead both have collapsed. Looks like the BNP have been largely wiped out, good. Looks too like UKIP have also collapsed – I predicted this in an earlier discussion in a previous thread with Mark Senior I believe, I’m glad its happened. Looks like the polls have been underestimating both Tories and Labour, and over-estimating everbody else.
Scotland: Predicted it might be close and the SNP could have peaked too early, looks like that might be right, still too close to call now at 1pm the next day. But the big, disgusting, news is 100,000 spoilt ballots. Salmond looked very angry about it in his acceptance speech last night, rightly so.
Well for all the arguments and confusion, I think the new PR voting system for scottish councils works brillantly………..
Peter.
Philip, you actually did even better – Tory share’s been rounded down to 40%. Can’t help but note that my Con 38, Lab 27 LD 27 was pretty damn good either!
On your point about spoilt ballots, I can’t help but question where the media outrage was in 2004 when London had similar vast numbers of spoilt ballots using exactly the same design of paper (and we had five different votes to cast in three different elections), and the same electronic counting devices. Of course it’s unacceptable, but what makes it worse is that it was quite evidently unacceptable in 2004.
These elections were quite interesting; because aside from the Tories doing well but not devastatingly well, and Labour doing badly, but not devastatingly badly they potentially set up a very bad set of results for the Conservatives in 2008.
The reason for that is that in Metropolitan Borough after Met, the Lib Dems (and to a lesser extent the Tories) lost seats to Labour – not huge numbers, but sufficient to set up serious opportunities for Labour to recapture power next year; something they could now do whilst not improving very much in terms of share of the vote.
If the Tories haven’t convinced this year, then they’re not going to be able to win the media war if Labour’s recapturing not piddly little districts but huge Mets.
As for the Lib Dems they’re in serious trouble – look at a council like York as an example of why. They’ve got little chance of winning York Outer now.
The LibDems should be worried about their seats in the south and east, on this performance they’ll be losing several at the next election if it goes like this. It could be enough to take Cameron from minority to working majority.
If scotland is anything to go by, the if it’s close the Libdems can expect to be squeezed, as can the SNP as labour voters may well see it as Labour v Tory.
The SNP might want to counter that effect by declaring that they won’t support the Tories. It is already SNP policy not to enter any council coalitions with Tories.
Peter.
Peter, what do you make (aside from being disappointed at the failure to win it) of the Galloway & Upper Nithsdale result – because this goes to your “SNP squeezed where Labour vs Tory is seen as the battle” argument. It’s just the most interesting hypothesis of them all, because whilst G&UN has traditionally been Tory/SNP, Labour now hold the (broadly similar) UK parliamentary Dumfries & Galloway seat – and their vote on Thursday was, I thought, pretty decent in this constituency (and indeed Dumfries).
Yet another reason for voter bafflement in this particular part of Scotland, perhaps!
Congratulations on your election, by the way!
“Well for all the arguments and confusion, I think the new PR voting system for scottish councils works brillantly………..
Peter. ”
I trust and hope that was sarcasm?
Congratulations on your election.
I don’t understand why the SNP and Scotland generally is so hostile to the Tories in particular, and centre-right politics in general.
Congratulations Peter on your personal success and I mean that sincerely despite my antipathy towards your party. I just hope that when your lot send me back across the border to England that they have the decency to put fresh straw in the cattle truck.
My predictions (Con 39% Lab 25% Lib Dem 27%) were only a point out bar Labour for whom I’ll admit I fell for the Labour/media ‘Labour meltdown’ spin hence.
Ralph, come off it – those who predicted ridiculously low Labour shares weren’t doing so because of Labour spin: as was argued in the posts above, the reasons most people got their Labour forecasts wrong were either because, through partisan motivation they were willing Labour to do really badly; or because they took last year’s 26% share, assumed that further into government Labour would do even worse and thus took a couple of extra points off their share. Nothing to do with spin – either understandable personal bias or objective (if flawed) rationale.
It’s simply not credible to claim that Labour’s increased share had anything to do with “expectation management”:
* It wasn’t Labour spin that created the polls consistently showing big SNP leads;
* It wasn’t Labour spin that saw Labour polling better on Thursday than in 2006;
* It wasn’t Labour spin that historically the further into mid term a party goes the worse it does in council elections;
* And it wasn’t Labour spin that prompted the Lib Dem meltdown that in several parts of the country helped Labour every bit as much as the Tories (Leicester, Luton, Nottingham, York and several of the Mets, for example).
I think Labour did get helped massively by the polls showing them to be so weak. By showing them to be so weak, it removed the incentive to “give them a kicking” and instead focussed attention on the opposition (Tories/SNP). Those who did not like the opposition were then far less likely to go for the third party (Lib Dems) as a protest in these circumstances.
I’m convinced we’re seeing a return to two-party politics (though with the two parties in Scotland now being Labour and SNP) and the Lib-Dems are falling away.
But this is hardly a glossy result for Labour, or “better than 2006″. The danger for them is that even with the third party squeezed, they’re 13-14 points behind the Tories. Where are they going to recover the votes from now?
Philip raises an interesting point. I’m not convince the LibDems are a spent force, though I do think they’ll continue their recent backward trend at the next General Election. However they can be expected to fill the vacuum, as they have done in the past, the next time we have an unpopular government and an even less popular opposition
As regards Scotland, the SNP will now be in government and will get judged accordingly (it would be long-term suicide for Labour to try and keep them out for another parliamentary term) so it will be interesting to see how their support is affected by their performance in government, and whether the Scottish Tories can ever dig themselves out of tail-spin
The LibDems and their Liberal predeceasors have traditionally seen a fall in their share of the vote at general elections in which Labour have been ousted – this happened in 1979, 1970 and 1951. It seems more likely that the next election will be no exception.
“But this is hardly a glossy result for Labour, or “better than 2006?. The danger for them is that even with the third party squeezed, they’re 13-14 points behind the Tories. Where are they going to recover the votes from now? ”
The same place they came from between the locals in 2004 and the general election of 2005 one would imagine.The third party at present is being squeezed soley by the Tories in terms of opinion polls, when a general election is in the offing I suspect the LDs will be squeezed by both Labour and the Tories depending on the locality. The LDs/SDP/SLD don’t do well when there is seen to be a genuine contest between Labour and the Tories,at least not in terms of actual seats won.
But Labour isn’t 13-14 points behind the Tories in national elections. Opinion polls that put Labour on 29-33% support aren’t disproved by these elections – they reasonably reflect the gap between Labour’s national and local support.
Have to say it again: Labour systemically under-performs in council elections – because more of its supporters only bother to turn out at general elections and because Labour is possibly perceived as less effective at local level.
I’m not going to attempt to argue that 27% of the vote is a good result for Labour, but anyone who believes that this is anything like the share they’re going to get at the next election needs to give themselves a good hard slap! And that being the case, is it good enough that the Tories can’t break through 40%?
The answer to that is ‘yes’ if you’re a subscriber to the argument that there is no law that says governments automatically regain some support from their mid term low; but ‘no’ if you still believe long-term precedent to be a better indicator of what is likely.
In May 2003 (same point in the election cycle) the polls averaged an 8 point Labour lead, the actual result in 2005 was a 3 point Labour lead.
So what makes you say that governments “automatically regain support”? Labour has done worse than its mid-term opinion polls in both parliament’s so far.
I forecast a score draw in Scotland and I was just one seat out….but Scotland apart it is clear that the Conservatives have maintained momentum. There is little point in the critics sniping at their performance-nobody thought they would win 900 council seats in England and 40/41% of the vote could easily become 43/44% by this time next year. And it does not follow that governments MUST automatically recover towards the end of a parliamentary term especially if the economic cycle is not favourably positioned when the election take place. Labour did much as I expected in all these elections but I did not predict the sometimes quite vicious swings in parts of the South against the Lb Dems. That’s the real story in England and Mark (Senior) believe it or not I actually feel sorry for those ex Lib Dem councillors who did a decent job finding themselves cast out into the wilderness en masse. Their eviction had nothing to do with them. If the Lib Dems fail to ask themselves some searching questions and pull back from being seen to favour Labour over the Tories in the event of a hung UK parliament then they are heading for a nightmare result at the next GE.
Philip, re-read what I wrote. I didn’t claim that governments automatically regain support. I said that the disagreement was between those who DON’T believe that and those (of which I am, for the moment one) who believe that the longer term precedent (i.e. excluding the last parliament) of governments regaining support from their lowest point in between is more likely.
The reason I think it more likely that the traditional trends are likely to reassert themselves are as follows:
The last two parliaments haven’t been politics as usual: the sustained length of Labour opinion poll leads and the time it has taken the Tories to rebalance from the unpopularity of the 1990s is unprecedented. We are now back to a more normal situation with a real choice.
Given that there is a choice, disaffected left-wing Labour supporters will find it harder not to return to the party – the question is whether Labour will lose more “Blairite” voters to the Tories than it regains from the Lib Dems and Greens and the indicators are at the moment that they will.
Iraq is a diminishing factor: I personally doubt it will be one at the next election. Whether or not Brown can address the “sleaze” issue: Labour’s other core disillusionment problem is moot; I’m inclined to believe he’ll address the “money” issue but not the crony issue, but cronyism’s less of a vote loser than cash for peerages.
Ultimately, I think it’s far more likely that both the Tories and Labour will poll better than they managed in 2005 with the Lib Dems squeezed. Hence, I remain a subscriber to the long term bell-curve precedent than to the “spiral of decline” argument.
On the whole I agree with Adam’s analysis of the elections and the likely prospects for the main parties.However, I am not entirely persuaded that Labour always underperforms in local elections relative to General Elections – in the 1980s Labour frequently did well at local level only to be heavily defeated in 83 and 87. I am inclined to believe that it’s more a matter of the party in power nationally, at a given time, tending to underperform at council elections!
Hello all,
Now that (most of) the dust has setled it may be worth commenting on the following:
- Although Labour managed to hold onto their share of the vote, they actually did worse than LDs in net seats/councils lost.
- Labour have been wiped out in most of southern England, and now only have four councils outside London south of the Severn-Wash line – not dissimilar to the electoral map in 1987.
- Con share of vote at 40% is a slight puzzle given they won more than 50% of seats and councils at stake – the projections may be revised once T&R have collated full results – but it may be due to regional differential.
- Regional analysis may show that Con still have more work to do in North and Metropolitan areas, but actually the results from both Scotland and Wales showed that Tories can not be written off in the Celtic fringe after all.
- LDs will find themselves caught between a rock and a hard place very soon. Should they eventually end up in coalition with SNP at Holyrood they really will come across as unprincipled chasers of power – with a potential backlash in 2009/2010.
With regard to whether Labour can recover – of course it is possible. But a couple of things to bear in mind:-
- They now have a very low council base – and have effectively been pegged back to their core urban areas.
- It is a myth that polls show a swing back to the Government in last few months as a GE approaches. Whilst this did happen throughout the 1980s, experience over the past 30 years indicates that there is a swing back to the Tories as a GE approaches. This happened in both 2001 and 2005, and also in 1970.
Finally, whatever your plitical allegiance, my commiseration to those who lost their seats, and congratulations to those who won them.
Cllr P. Hodgson-Jones
Graham, the reason Labour did well in the 1980s in local elections owed far more to the fact that the Tories were sliding from their local government high water mark of the 1970s, rather than any spectacular share of the vote.
Of the ten local elections of the 1980s, Labour led the Tories in only five; by 2% in 1980, 3% in 1981, 7% in 1985, 3% in 1986 (which are often regarded as Labour’s “best” council elections of the 1980s – especially in London) and 6% in 1989. Labour failed to break through the 40% barrier in any elections between 1982 and 1988: only succeeding after the implosion of the Alliance in 1988/9.
Your argument could be borne out if you compare the Tory local election leads of 1983 (3%) and 1987 (6%) with their General Election leads a month later (15% and 11%) but bear in mind that the major factor throughout the 1980s was the emergence of the Alliance as a force, especially in council elections – it was this, far more than any evidence of mass support for Labour at local elections that enabled the Tories to beaten in the five years they were.
[...] Last week I traveled diagonally opposite David Cameron the day after the UK local council elections were held. I had to toss one of his four PR flunkies out from my reserved seat but that’s another story. [...]
Adam,
I do not really dissent from your comments at all – but do feel it reasonable to point out that the Tories significantly underperformed at local elections in terms of share of the vote throughout the period they were in government nationally! This was true even in 83 and 87 when a General Election followed just a few weeks later.
Labour’s performance was far from spectacular throughout the 80s – but still significantly higher than at national elections.
The Alliance was indeed a significant factor at the time ,but this had a major effect on the voting shares of both larger parties – not just the Tories – as also reflected in opinion polls and parliamentary byelections such as Warrington – Croydon North West – Crosby and Hillhead.
Graham, fair enough – I can’t disprove what you say because I don’t have opinion poll ratings for May of each of the years the Tories were in power with which to compare their actual vote in council elections.
HOWEVER, between 1979 and 1993 the Tories never polled below 30% of the vote in council elections with an average of 37.6% (Labour’s average, in contrast, is 37.5% across those 15 sets of elections). From recollection of Tory opinion poll levels at the time would in all likelihood suggest they exceeded, not lagged, their national opinion poll rating in council elections.
For the first time in 40 years I refused to vote at a local election due to the fact that every time I saw a political rpogramme on TV persons were saying they would vote against Labour due to Iraq. Come on, there are other issues to be considered. People probably could not tell you where Iraq was a decade ago.