Comments on: Bristol South

By: Pete Whitehead

Pete Whitehead — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 09:49:31 +0000

There are no boundary changes proposed for Bristol South

By: Harry Porter

Harry Porter — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 09:39:41 +0000

BBC Bristol reporting Dawn Primarolo to retire at next election. So there will be at least one new Deputy Speaker.

What will be the boundary changes in Bristol S, if any? Will it be more safe or more marginal?

By: MBoy

MBoy — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 20:31:02 +0000

This seat would have gone Lib Dem under AV:
http://www.oxfordjournals.org/our_journals/parlij/gsq042.pdf

By: Andy JS

Andy JS — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 23:54:42 +0000

They have fixed-term parliaments in Australia but their next election is scheduled to be before our next election which seems a bit strange. I don’t personally think 3 or 5 years is the right amount of time for a fixed-term parliament. I don’t know why we couldn’t follow Scotland and Wales with 4 year terms.

By: Joe James B

Joe James B — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 23:44:44 +0000

I wonder whether they could build on their improvement in Nottingham South, or whether a lot of the LD vote is likely to go to Labour.
It could also get cut up by the seat review, something which is going to preclude a lot of our forecasts, aswell as it being 5 years.

By: Andy JS

Andy JS — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 23:12:42 +0000

It would have been a bitter pill to swallow for the Tories if they’d got even closer to winning Nottingham South but had failed to win Broxtowe by 100 votes or thereabouts.

By: Joe James B

Joe James B — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 22:34:19 +0000

Nottingham South was quite a good result in my view – although rather in the context of a deteriorating position at every election after 1979. But nevertheless to get that swing in a seat like that is a partial success.

I’m a bit worried that Bristol NW wasn’t a very convincing win.
I’d have felt more comfortable with Labour still in second place, but the LDs may implode anyway, particularly if we can stop them getting AV.

By: Pete Whitehead

Pete Whitehead — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 22:07:37 +0000

Richard. To partly answer your earlier question, the swings in those cities and the comparison with their respective regions was as follows:

London 2.46 5.14 (England)
Southampton 8.57 6.51
Bristol 6.41 5.83
Plymouth 6.50 5.83
Norwich 8.89 7.03
Birmingham 3.44 6.30
Coventry 4.27 6.30
Leicester 3.68 6.85
Nottingham 5.79 6.85
Sheffield 4.66 6.39
Hull 6.11 6.39
Leeds 6.48 6.39
Bradford 4.44 6.39
Manchester 3.80 4.31
Liverpool 0.12 4.31
Newcastle 5.10 6.76
Cardiff 5.44 5.59
Edinburgh -2.12 -0.78
Glasgow -2.46 -0.78
Aberdeen 1.19 -0.78

In the three southern regions outside London the cities swung more than the region is a whole, but this really just reflects how much higher Labour’s share of the vote was to start with in these cities compared to the rest of the region.
In every other city the swing to the Conservatives was lower than in the surrounding region (or in the Scottish case the swing to Labour was higher than in Scotland as a whole) with the exception of Leeds and Aberdeen.
There were some big swings in city seats like Birminham Erdington and Leeds Central but notably not in Birmingham Edgbaston or Leeds North East

By: Richard

Richard — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 20:50:39 +0000

“Trying to pretend places like Reading are cities doesn’t convince in my mind.”

The most annoying one IMO is Croydon.

How can you call a place a city if its only a collections of suburbs of a bigger city?

I think being a ‘regional capital’ also allows a location to call itself a city when it might not necessarily have the population eg places like Plymouth, Norwich and Aberdeen.

My list of cities:

London
Southampton
Bristol
Plymouth
Norwich
Birmingham
Coventry
Leicester
Nottingham
Sheffield
Hull
Leeds
Bradford
Manchester
Liverpool
Newcastle
Cardiff
Edinburgh
Glasgow
Aberdeen
Belfast

By: Andy JS

Andy JS — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 16:08:44 +0000

Goodness, so many comments just from today. Sounds like an interesting discussion though.