Comments on: London Assembly Seats

By: akmd

akmd — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 11:58:54 +0000

“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.

By: H.Hemmelig

H.Hemmelig — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 09:03:21 +0000

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.

By: Joe James B

Joe James B — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 00:19:44 +0000

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

By: H.Hemmelig

H.Hemmelig — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 22:28:59 +0000

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.

By: Joe James B

Joe James B — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 22:14:41 +0000

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.

By: Pete Whitehead

Pete Whitehead — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 22:08:19 +0000

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

By: Barnaby Marder

Barnaby Marder — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 21:36:34 +0000

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.

By: H.Hemmelig

H.Hemmelig — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 16:45:44 +0000

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.

By: Andrea

Andrea — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 15:02:44 +0000

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

By: Barnaby Marder

Barnaby Marder — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 13:25:43 +0000

I pretty much totally agree with HH. I would be fairly optimistic about my party’s chances of winning Ealing/Hillingdon & Barnet/Camden, but less so about Merton/Wandsworth & certainly would be surprised if we were to win Croydon/Sutton. In my own constituency (South West) we clearly have a stronger candidate than in previous elections.