400 Responses to “London Assembly Seats”

1. Andrea

   I guess everyone from position 5 doesn’t stand realistic chances of being elected (unless there’s a Scottish style Labour collapse in the constituencies).
   Twycross and Copley have chances depending on the combination of Labour list share and number of constituencies won

   July 13th, 2011 at 3:02 pm
2. H.Hemmelig

   Hi Barnaby

   How do you read Andrew Dismore? Do you think he is giving up on Hendon? And why would he do so, given how rooted he is in the constituency, the narrow majority and the demographics moving to Labour?

   I thought maybe you would have some interesting insight, given that I think you said you knew him.

   July 13th, 2011 at 4:45 pm
3. Barnaby Marder

   Well I don’t really know him these days. He was a member of my CLP when he was a long-haired, bearded young man, but I’ve only seen him occasionally since those days, one occasion being at the London Labour Party conference. I guess we’ll have to wait & see what his intentions are. I personally wouldn’t be surprised to see him stand again in Hendon, but wouldn’t put any money on it.

   July 13th, 2011 at 9:36 pm
4. Pete Whitehead

   I pretty much agree with HH and Barnaby here. While on paper Barnet & Camden is the most vulnerable seat, in Ealing & Hillingdon Labour were actually ahead in the votes cast in the 2010 general election (though not in the local elections that year). They were within 3% in Barnet & Camden and within 6% in Merton & Wandsworth. Therefore a fairly modest swing compared with then (which is the least to be expected) would put these very much in play. Of course against that you have to consider that general election turnout helped Labour and the lower turnout is likely to disproportionately hurt them. There was also some element of personal votes – in Ealing & Hillingdon this is particularly so with both John MacDonnell and Stephen Pound apparently enjoying a large personal vote. Local election patterns are probably more relevant – Ealing and Wandsworth are both boroughs where the Conservatives tend to perform better in local than national elections, and that appears to be the pattern at GLA elections too. In addition, while there is inevitably a lot of spli-ticket voting there will also be an element of coat-tails and therefore if Boris Johnson is outperforming the party nationally (and opinion polls certainly currently show him with much more support than the Conservatives have in Westminster voting intentions), then that is bound to have some effect in favour of his party’s candidates in other parts of the GLA election. I don’t know what kind of incumbency boost sitting GLA members enjoy. Its hard to believe that they are that well known in such large areas. But Richard Barnes appears to have done well (IIRC he did considerably better int he constituency vote than his party did in the list). For those reasons I think that both Barnet & Camden and Ealing & Hillingdon are too close to call but both have a good chance of going Labour. Merton & Wandsworth I would expect to be quite narrowly Conservative and I think Croydon & Sutton is rather beyond Labour, barring a landslide

   July 13th, 2011 at 10:08 pm
5. Joe James B

   If Miliband is still in place next May, and is going on about matters completely trivial, not just compared to those elsewhere in the world, but to those in this country,
   then perhaps it’ll be the Conservatives gaining seats rather than the other way round.

   July 13th, 2011 at 10:14 pm
6. H.Hemmelig

   A nice fantasy, but it realistically isn’t going to happen.

   The Tories are running up a down escalator in London, and every year gets that little bit harder due to the changing demographics.

   For the Tories to gain constituency seats, that means Brent-Harrow or Enfield-Haringey. I would argue that both are demographically out of reach for the Tories now even in a pretty good year.

   We can expect Labour to gain one constituency seat, maybe 3 if they do extremely well.

   Barnet-Camden will be interesting, as it’s hard to know whether the bombastic Brian Coleman is a positive or a negative for the Tory vote.

   July 13th, 2011 at 10:28 pm
7. Joe James B

   Ken will be probably be defeated by about 56% to 44%
   but the Tories will lose GLA seats.

   July 14th, 2011 at 12:19 am
8. H.Hemmelig

   I agree. Labour made a serious error in putting up Ken Livingstone again. He looks like yesterday’s man and a sore loser, to say nothing of his divisive campaigning. I would hope that enough of London’s more economically succesful ethnic minority residents have moved on from Ken’s tired old identity politics to be able to support Boris.

   A business-minded well-known Labour heavyweight such as Alan Sugar could have given Boris a run for his money.

   Whilst inevitably constituency GLA seats will be lost, the Tories might pick up a couple on the list as it seems their vote share is holding up quite well, in contrast to the Lib Dems.

   July 14th, 2011 at 9:03 am
9. akmd

   “I would hope that enough of London’s more economically succesful ethnic minority residents have moved on from Ken’s tired old identity politics to be able to support Boris.”

   Or they just might vote Lib Dem or Green next time!

   Joking aside, I agree with you about Alan Sugar. He would certainly have made Boris feel much less secure and it would have been interesting to see how he would have responded to that challenge.

   Instead, it seems that the scenario JJB proposed could well come to pass. Most likely GLA pickup for Labour would probably be Barnet & Camden but Ealing & Hillingdon is also a decent prospect.

   July 14th, 2011 at 11:58 am
10. H.Hemmelig

    Only 4 weeks to go till the Mayoral election now, and yet very little comment on here. Still less about the assembly seats.

    What do people think is going to happen in the assembly? Labour’s poll lead of about 10% could well translate into big gains – Brian Coleman is surely a goner, and maybe several other Tory held constituencies too.

    April 5th, 2012 at 3:05 pm
11. Pete Whitehead

    It depends how much the Boris coattails help in some of the constituencies. On general election voting patters you would expect Merton & Wandsworth and Ealing & Hillingdon to be vulnerable too, but the Conservatives have generally performed well there in Assembly elections. I’d certainly expect the latter to be fairly close though. I agree that Barnet & Camden is very likely to go Labour. I think the other five seats are safe

    April 5th, 2012 at 3:38 pm
12. Andy JS

    Labour might pull off a shock in Merton & Wandsworth. Also it’ll be interesting to see whether the LDs can hold second place in any of the Assembly constituencies.

    April 5th, 2012 at 3:48 pm
13. H.Hemmelig

    Hi Pete

    If half the Lib Dem vote goes to Labour, and there is a 5% swing direct to Labour from the Tories, Croydon & Sutton would also be in play for Labour.

    However those assumptions might be a bit of a stretch given that Boris happily looks set to win the Mayoral election.

    Ken’s limp performance in the Newsnight debate last night will not help him at all.

    Incidentally, you ukippers must be seething that the BBC chose to ignore your candidate despite inviting Jenny Jones on there. Especially as Livingstone is basically a semi-detached Green himself, that decision seemed to me quite disgraceful.

    April 5th, 2012 at 3:56 pm
14. John D

    “…it’ll be interesting to see whether the LDs can hold second place in any of the Assembly constituencies.”

    Surely they’ll stay ahead of Labour in South West!

    In fact I was going to ask… if Tony Arbour holds on, what sort of lead do people think he’d have over the LDs?
    The yellows obviously remain a very potent force in that part of London, we can’t pretend otherwise.

    April 5th, 2012 at 4:03 pm
15. Kieran W

    “Incidentally, you ukippers must be seething that the BBC chose to ignore your candidate despite inviting Jenny Jones on there”.

    That’s the first I’ve heard of that. I am no Ukipper, yet I find that appalling. But then I suppose its no less absurd than holding a series of Prime Ministerial debates giving equal coverage to a man who was never going to become Prime Minister.

    April 5th, 2012 at 4:22 pm
16. Pete Whitehead

    “If half the Lib Dem vote goes to Labour, and there is a 5% swing direct to Labour from the Tories, Croydon & Sutton would also be in play for Labour.”

    I don’t think half the LD vote in Sutton will go to Labour and I really doubt Labour can win that seat because at the very best they can establish a small lead in Croydon which would be overwhelmed by their deficit in Sutton.

    Re: South West – the LDs have never managed to replicate their local government strength across such a large constituency. There were a lot of predictions last time of the LDs winning that seat and they were nowhere close. I don’t think they will be this time either

    April 5th, 2012 at 4:26 pm
17. Andy JS

    I may be making a fool of myself but I think it could be close between LD and Lab for second place in South West – by which I mean less than 5% between them.

    April 5th, 2012 at 5:19 pm
18. Pete Whitehead

    I don’t think thats foolish at all – it was only 1% between them on the list last time

    April 5th, 2012 at 5:24 pm
19. Andy JS

    It’ll be interesting to once again add up the votes for the Westminster constituencies using the London Assembly ward results.

    It would be nice if they could give the postal votes by ward this time.

    April 5th, 2012 at 5:29 pm
20. Joe James B

    I’m not yet sure about the position in SW.

    Of course our majority over the LDs could go down if our vote goes down – they’re likely to go down too.
    I’m a little sceptical of Labour overtaking them
    as the LDs will still target our area to make sure they don’t get wiped off the list
    but Labour should on paper go ahead of them.

    We will certainly fight for every vote.

    April 5th, 2012 at 5:30 pm
21. Pete Whitehead

    I had meant to address the UKIP point in my previous post. I haven’t seen it yet as I fell asleep on the sofa just before it came on last night but will probably watch on iplayer tonight. Of course I condemn the BBC for this but it is no worse than I have come to expect from them. There was quite a lot of comment about this on the likes of Twitter and I believe the BBC will have heard of the displeasure of quite a lot of peopple over this

    April 5th, 2012 at 6:10 pm
22. richard

    “For the Tories to gain constituency seats, that means Brent-Harrow or Enfield-Haringey. I would argue that both are demographically out of reach for the Tories now even in a pretty good year.”

    Well they were out of reach even in the extremely good year of 2008.

    With Barnet-Camden to join them this year north London will be extremely red.

    Still that wont stop the Cameroons believing they can make gains there.

    And they’ll have their Notting Hill dinner party focus groups to back them up.

    

    April 5th, 2012 at 8:16 pm
23. Andy JS

    The Tories won by 7% last time – (that’s the list vote I think, taken from Wikipedia).

    Some of the current polls are putting Labour 20% ahead in London which would mean a huge swing of 13.5%. On a uniform swing with those figures Labour would gain Croydon&Sutton and Havering&Redbridge.

    April 5th, 2012 at 8:18 pm
24. swanarcadian

    If Boris can keep hold of the mayoralty, the GLA results (which are going to be bad for the Tories) will be somewhat trivalised.
    If Ken wins the mayoralty back, the GLA results will compound a very bad night.

    April 5th, 2012 at 8:47 pm
25. Pete Whitehead

    The polls showing Labour 20% ahead or whatever are Westminster voting intention – there’s no way they will be that far ahead on GLA list or constituency votes. The left leaning vote is far more fragmented in these kind of contests with in particular the Greens taking a large chunk of the Labour vote (or perhaps more accurately, Green voters being far more inclined to vote Labour in parliamentary elections). Obviously the Assembly results are not comlpetely divorced from the contest for Mayor either and if a large number of Labour voters feel unable for various reasons to support Ken Livingstone, some of these will just stay at home. There’ll be a bigger differential turnout between boroughs like Bromley and say Hackney than occurred at the general election. In Barnet & Camden I think there is a case where the incumbent may be unpopular in some quarters and Labour have selected a good candidate who has also done well to disatnce himself from Livingstone over some issues. I can see Boris carrying Barnet & Camden easily while Labour win the constituency and the two parties about neck and neck on the list. I really don’t think other seats are likely to change hands, although Ealing & Hillingdon is a worry

    April 5th, 2012 at 9:55 pm
26. Joe James B

    I think the Tories are worried about Coleman.
    Our majority could be reduced in SW
    but probably not because the LDs do well –
    there is also some market for UKIP at the moment – the national polls show Miliband and LD ratings remain dire – but the Tory mid-term that may have arrived seems to be going somewhere else.

    April 5th, 2012 at 10:08 pm
27. Joe James B

    I have to agree with some of Richard’s analysis.
    Before the 2008 elections, Peter Crerar (we love him in the Tories because of his optimism) predicted the Tories could win all the GLA seats,
    and Pete said he was in Gloy Plopwell mode.

    April 6th, 2012 at 12:12 am
28. Kieran W

    “I think the Tories are worried about Coleman”.

    Worried he might win or worried he might lose?

    April 6th, 2012 at 7:14 am
29. Pete Whitehead

    The nature of the electoral system for the GLA is such that Conservative supporters who dislike Coleman can happily vote against home in the knowledge that as long as they vote for their party on the list, they will be helping to elect one of their own to the GLA as a loss in the constituency will be compensated for by a gain on the list

    April 6th, 2012 at 8:24 am
30. Andy JS

    Today’s poll shows a swing from Con to Lab of 9% compared to 2008 in both the constituency and list sections.

    Applied uniformally that would mean Labour gains in Barnet&Camden, Ealing&Hillingdon and Merton&Wandsworth. Also the Tory majority in Croydon&Sutton would be reduced to 6% and in Haveing&Redbridge to 8%.

    April 16th, 2012 at 1:22 pm
31. Shaun Bennett

    Well the PR element to the London Assembly should of course be abolished entirely and a redistribution of FPTP seats should take place to accomodate the extra seats.

    Good news for Boris and Conservatives generally in this poll. But the very best of news is that the Greens look like they may come out with nothing, and the Lib Dems down one.

    Even better news is that UKIP may get representation, creating an overall more balanced Assembly chamber and reducing the left of centre hegenomy that has existed for so long.

    April 16th, 2012 at 1:29 pm
32. Andy JS

    What’s gone wrong for the Greens in London? To be beaten by UKIP in one of their best areas would be embarrassing for them.

    April 16th, 2012 at 1:32 pm
33. H.Hemmelig

    UKIP do not have much potential in London. Unless they do really really well in Bromley, Bexley and Havering they are unlikely to get enough votes to win an assembly seat.

    I think there will be a lot of split voting between Labour and Green – people voting Labour for the constituency member and mayor (especially in close seats like Barnet/Camden) and Green on the PR list. I predict the Greens will keep one list member and finish ahead of UKIP on the list.

    April 16th, 2012 at 2:02 pm
34. Joe James B

    I’m quite sceptical Labour will poll 44% on the GLA seats (up 16% on last time).

    If they’re struggling againt Boris
    it seems to be too much of a gap.
    Although it’s possible.

    I remember 1990 clearly – 20% behind in all the polls
    and predictions to the end that we would lose Wandsworth and Westminster aswell,
    aswell as Croydon, Redbridge, and Enfield.

    April 16th, 2012 at 2:32 pm
35. Shaun Bennett

    UKIP did of course win 2 assembly seats back in 2004, so I’m not sure why H.Hemmlig is so confident that they cannot win one this time.

    I fear he’s right and that the Greens may hold onto one though.

    April 16th, 2012 at 2:54 pm
36. Kieran W

    UKIP in 2004 were helped by the fact that the London elections that year were on the same day as those for the European Parliament.

    April 16th, 2012 at 3:03 pm
37. H.Hemmelig

    I’m not that confident. UKIP may get one member in on the list but it will be a squeeze. In 2004 the euro elections were held on the same day. Since then the white British population of Greater London will have declined.

    April 16th, 2012 at 3:03 pm
38. Joe James B

    I don’t think the Greens are coming over very well in this election.
    Although I certainly disagree with their methods,
    it is no bad thing to have a party which highlights the importance of the environment,
    yet they are behaving as though those on the centre right are evil
    and just acting as a bolt on to Livingstone’s campaign.
    Not even sure why they are standing with the kind of attitude we saw ganging up on Boris on the Newsnight debate.

    April 16th, 2012 at 3:08 pm
39. Shaun Bennett

    You’re presuming that only the white British population would consider voting UKIP, a presumption I’m not sure I would accept.

    Without linking in any way the two parties, You’d no doubt also think that only white British voters would vote for the BNP. And yet the fact reamins that scores of black and ethnic voters have and DO vote for them in Barking and Dagenham to name but one. Indeed, the BBC and Channel 4 news did a story on it!

    April 16th, 2012 at 3:09 pm
40. Pete Whitehead

    I agree with HH. The Labour share reported in that poll is way too high and the left vote will be much more fragmented on the list. The Greens will at least hold one seat and may still get two. For UKIP the possible range is 0-1 seats and I am not overly confident of getting one (remember there is a 5% threshold to overcome)

    April 16th, 2012 at 3:10 pm
41. Joe James B

    I think Pete, and others must be right on this.

    And if Labour is way too high on the GLA, perhaps it’s over-estimated them a bit on the Mayoral vote
    aswell.

    Unless it’s the nightmare horror,
    the GLA figures are right and the Mayoral vote is under-reported the other way.
    Don’t think so though.

    April 16th, 2012 at 3:16 pm
42. H.Hemmelig

    “You’re presuming that only the white British population would consider voting UKIP, a presumption I’m not sure I would accept.

    Without linking in any way the two parties, You’d no doubt also think that only white British voters would vote for the BNP. And yet the fact reamins that scores of black and ethnic voters have and DO vote for them in Barking and Dagenham to name but one. Indeed, the BBC and Channel 4 news did a story on it!”

    But in the context of an election with an electorate of 5.5 million people, even those “scores” of supposed black BNP voters would be a miniscule irrelevant drop in the ocean. You cannot dispute the figures from all elections showing that the BNP and UKIP performance is derisory in parts of London where there is not a significant WWC population, which these days is a large proportion of it.

    You do touch on an interesting point, which is that the collapse of the BNP vote in outer east London might give UKIP enough votes to get one list member. That must be a possibility. However like Pete I would not bet on it.

    April 16th, 2012 at 3:23 pm
43. Kieran W

    UKIP don’t have much of a track record of decent performances in elections other than those for the European Parliament, or those taking place at the same time as elections to the EP. A couple of OK parliamentary by-elections performances spring to mind (Bromley and Hartlepool), and they got 4.6% in the list vote at the last elections to the Welsh Assembly (not sure how far away that is from winning a seat).

    As such I will be surprised if they win an assembly seat this time.

    April 16th, 2012 at 3:34 pm
44. H.Hemmelig

    To exceed the 5% threshold for a list seat, UKIP will have to be getting 15-20% of the list vote in Bromley, Bexley, Havering and B&D in order to overcome their derisory potential in the rest of London. That’s perfectly achievable in the Euro elections, but quite hard in other elections. Here in Bromley I do not think UKIP will poll quite that high, and it is still my view that on balance they will just miss out on a list seat.

    April 16th, 2012 at 3:43 pm
45. Andrea

    UKIP % in 2004 (with Euro elections on the same day)

    Havering and Redbrige: 13.76%
    Bexley/Bromley: 13.62%
    Croydon and Sutton: 10.25
    Greenwich and Lewisham: 9.80
    Ealing and Hillingdon: 9.09
    City and East: 9.08%
    South West 7.57
    Enfield and Haringey: 7.21
    North East 6.91
    Meron and Wandworth 6.07
    Barnet/Camden: 5.85%
    Brent and harrow: 5.68
    Lambeth and Southwark: 5.35
    West Central 5.17

    April 16th, 2012 at 4:43 pm
46. Shaun Bennett

    I can see from todays poll the Conservatives losing in Barnet/Camden and Ealing/Hillingdon and just saying ‘oh well, thats the way it goes’.

    But West Central??? Doesn’t that cover Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea and Hammersmith and Fulham? If the Tories can’t win there, that would be astonishingly bad. I’m quite worried about that polling being true.

    Is it true that West Central would have remained Tory even in 1995?

    April 27th, 2012 at 1:57 pm
47. Pete Whitehead

    Who knows as there were no elections there then. It probably wouldn’t have done. Labour carried it on 1997 and 2001 general elections. I’m not sure about 1994, but local elections flatterd the Conservatives in Westminster then. I don’t think there’s much risk of Labour winning that seat anyway and those constituency level polls need to be taken with masses of salt

    April 27th, 2012 at 2:48 pm
48. Joe

    Shaun isnt that the old dont trust regional crossbreaks with 20 respondants?

    April 27th, 2012 at 3:06 pm
49. Warofdreams

    I can’t find the actual poll, but the Telegraph’s write-up suggests they are just projecting uniform swing across each constituency, and even then they just say that the loss of West Central would be within the margin of error – without stating what that margin is.

    West Central is one of the safest Tory seats; there would be several others lost before this one, if the election were a Labour landslide.

    April 27th, 2012 at 3:12 pm
50. swanarcadian

    “there were no elections there then.”

    I wonder what the odds would be for the GLA to be abolished at some point in the next 20 years, just as the GLC was?
    It’s not something David Cameron would favour but a Thatcherite leader keen for smaller government just might.

    April 27th, 2012 at 3:18 pm

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