Not that that was a helpful comment, but Ken will be Ken. Can’t really see it mattering, as the vast majority of former Labour voters considering the Greens this time voted for Howarth last time anyway.

I can’t believe that James, as a prominent Green activist, can seriously suggest that Labour does best in middle-class areas. We get hammered in Castle, Newnham and West Chesterton every time and there are certain streets in Romsey and Petersfield where the 2005 canvassing reports are not a pretty sight. I think somebody might be electioneering somewhat here…

Ed, we’re actually hoping to win based on a LD->Green swing. Cambridge Tories are an irrelevance, as anybody whose canvassed on the doorstep will know. Even in Trumpington, as the ward is misleadingly named – half of it is actually Newtown, which in my experience is as instinctively anti-Tory as the rest of the city. And the Foster Road estate in Trumpington is better than anything we have in Queen Edith’s.

The local Tories will cling to the hope that:
1. The LD student vote swings to the Tories (this has been observed in polling). Many students may also see this as a one-horse race and decide to vote “at home” this time
2. The addition of the Trumpington area adds votes (even though it was LD in the last County Council elections)
3. LDs are painted as likely to join a Labour-led coalition so as to reduce the tactical LD vote which surely can not rise from 2005 (remembering it used to be a Conservative constituency)

Labour will be hoping that their absence from local politics (e.g. the disastrous guided busway) stops their vote falling away too much, and that they squeeze through any gap created by an LD->Conservative swing. I think that’s a forlorn hope because, let’s face it, they’re losing votes everywhere

I find it perfectly plausible that the Conservatives will finish second because Trumpington certainly won’t vote Labour. I can imagine something like 40/26/25/9

Edward:
I wasn’t really paying attention, but on the BBC regional news after news at 10, there was an example of a former down the line Labour supporter who now looks likely to vote Green: Ken Livingstone, saying essentially it was only because of Labour Party rules that he wasn’t giving a formal endorsement to Tony Juniper.

Wolf: you are right that the most recent ‘poll’ in Brighton wasn’t up to par: it didn’t exclude those that said they defiinitely wouldn’t vote! What meaning can you get from a poll of voting intention that includes those who won’t vote? By contrast, the previous poll was, apart from a slightly smaller sample (and so a slightly, but not particularly significantly, larger margin for error) conducted to the most rigourous standards by the utterly mainstream, established, reputable pollsters ICM . I am worried, Wolf, that you may be libelling ICM by claiming that poll was ‘unscientific’. Our host here has said “With contrasting figures, I would put my faith in ICM rather than Kindle.” He is willing to put his faith in the the poll of 600 people, which has not been “superseded” in his mind, it seems (read /blog/archives/2461).

You mean as unscientific as the poll of 600 people done straight after a whole constituency Green leaflet drop, which showed them ‘winning’ Brighton Pavilion, but was superseded by a poll a month or so later, showing Lab and Con, neck and neck? And was also not very scientific, I understand.

The Labour vote in the east is quite hard to get out, but the area is being worked hard and given that it’s a general election, expect that to rebound slightly.

James is of course right that the Greens can appeal to disillusioned Labour voters – I’ve met plenty of former down the line Labour supporters who now vote Green. Not many of them are working class, however, where if there is any movement it’s usually towards the Tories.

Unfortunately all Varsity and TCS polls on all subjects (remember the Varsity Sex Survey?) are very unscientific, though I take exception to the idea that the Lib Dems were trying to “rig” it!

My problem with the UNITE poll is that it gives no information about methodology or sampling distribution (did they get an even distribution across the country, or just a few universities?). In fact, the UNITE press release is even less informative about methodology than Varsity’s article!

The only polls you can really trust are those that put their tables online and (ideally) come from members of the British Polling Council.

A specific problem with political polling of students is that it is very difficult to weight the sample correctly as almost no students have had the chance to vote before in a general election, so past vote weighting is impossible.

So what we learn is that on that particular occasion, the LDs were more efficient at rigging the poll than any other party. I hope that is not relevant to the election result!

It sounds like the UNITE poll I reported up thread, and in the Oxford East strand, in particular, gives a better clue, even if it includes other constituencies.