Norwich South
2010 Results:
Conservative: 10902 (22.93%)
Labour: 13650 (28.71%)
Liberal Democrat: 13960 (29.36%)
BNP: 697 (1.47%)
UKIP: 1145 (2.41%)
Green: 7095 (14.92%)
Others: 102 (0.21%)
Majority: 310 (0.65%)
Notional 2005 Results:
Labour: 15374 (37.8%)
Liberal Democrat: 12246 (30.1%)
Conservative: 8757 (21.5%)
Other: 4284 (10.5%)
Majority: 3129 (7.7%)
Actual 2005 result
Conservative: 9567 (22.7%)
Labour: 15904 (37.7%)
Liberal Democrat: 12251 (29%)
Green: 3101 (7.4%)
UKIP: 597 (1.4%)
Other: 770 (1.8%)
Majority: 3653 (8.7%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 10551 (24.8%)
Labour: 19367 (45.5%)
Liberal Democrat: 9640 (22.6%)
UKIP: 473 (1.1%)
Green: 1434 (3.4%)
Other: 1127 (2.6%)
Majority: 8816 (20.7%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 12028 (23.7%)
Labour: 26267 (51.7%)
Liberal Democrat: 9457 (18.6%)
Referendum: 1464 (2.9%)
Other: 1585 (3.1%)
Majority: 14239 (28%)
Boundary changes: loses Cringleford to Norfolk South and gains a small area around the fringes of New Costessey. To the north it gains part of Thorpe Hamlet and loses part of Crome to Norwich North.
Profile: Norwich South covers the majority of the wards in Norwich City Council, including the town centre, along with the Norwich suburb of New Costessey which falls under South Norfolk District Council. The seat inclues the “Golden Triangle”, the south-western part of Norwich near the University of East Anglia consisting of victorian properties, with a large proportion of students and young professionals. Norwich Union is the largest local employer.
The seat has normally been Labour`s strongest seat in Norfolk due to the relatively high proportion of council tenants on estates like Lakenham, Bowthorpe and West Earlham. More recently the seat has swung towards the Liberal Democrats and the Greens, who currently (Nov 2006) hold nine seats on Norwich City Council.
Current MP: Simon Wright (Liberal Democrat) Educated at Imperial College London. Former teacher, currently campaigns and communications officer for Norman Lamb MP, the MP for Norfolk North. North Norfolk District Councillor.
Antony Little (Conservative) History teacher. Norwich councillor. Contested Norwich South 2005.
Charles Clarke(Labour) born 1950, London, the son of a Civil Service Permanent Secretary. Educated at Highgate School and Cambridge. President of the NUS from 1975-1977. Former Hackney Councillor. A senior advisor and eventually chief of staff to Neil Kinnock as Leader of the Labour party, after 1992 Clarke worked in public affairs consultancy before being elected as an MP in 1997. He was rapidly promoted, becoming a junior minister after less than a year as an MP and entering the cabinet as Party Chairman in 2001. He became education Secretary in 2002 and suceeded David Blunkett as Home Secretary in 2004. In April 2006 he offered his resignation over the release of over 1,000 foriegn prisoners who should have been considered for deportation. His resignation was refused, but he was sacked following Labour`s local government election losses in May 2006. He has subsequently been critical of Gordon Brown`s suitability to be Prime Minister (more information at They work for you)Simon Wright (Liberal Democrat) Educated at Imperial College London. Former teacher, currently campaigns and communications officer for Norman Lamb MP, the MP for Norfolk North. North Norfolk District Councillor.
Adrian Ramsay (Green) Educated at City of Norwich School and UEA. Norwich councillor since 2003. Deputy leader of the Green Party.
Stephen Emmens (UKIP) Len Heather (BNP) Gabriel Polley (Workers Revolutionary)2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 88174
Male: 48%
Female: 52%
Under 18: 18.5%
Over 60: 22.1%
Born outside UK: 7%
White: 96.4%
Black: 0.4%
Asian: 0.9%
Mixed: 1.1%
Other: 1.1%
Christian: 60.7%
Muslim: 0.8%
Full time students: 11.6%
Graduates 16-74: 23.5%
No Qualifications 16-74: 27.4%
Owner-Occupied: 50.6%
Social Housing: 34.1% (Council: 27.9%, Housing Ass.: 6.2%)
Privately Rented: 12.3%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 8%
I see we replied at more or less the same time James, so my post rather replicated much of what you said. Can you clarify is Lakenham a LD or Labour held seat? You list it as LD if I understand correctly but Labour won it in 2006 and I can’t see evidence of a by-election having changed that
I believe Lakenham is a split ward which the Lib Dems won most recently (in 2008) but which Labour are defending (having won it in 2006 and it being that councillor whose term was originally extended to 2011 before that was overturned).
My gut feel with not much back up evidence is that the Greens will perform below expectations as they did at the GE .
A tentative forecast
Conservatives 1 seat only
LibDems 2 seats
Labour 5 seats
Greens 5 seats
The Lakenham seat that is being contested is indeed Labour not Lib-Dem.
Mark from your prediction you expect the Lib-Dems to presumably hold both Eaton and Thorpe Hamlet.
Can you explain to me how you expect them to do so even though they lost a County seat in the same ward only last year by 751 votes?
I think you are missing the difference between a local and general election and also overestimating the Lib-Dem organisation while underestimating the Greens and also possibly the Tories.
James , it is purely a gut feel that the Greens will flatter to deceive this year and will fall back . Freely confess I could be wrong and would not wager anything on it .
Is 29.36% the lowest share of the vote for a winning candidate ever in England? I can find no other example in England.
The only smaller share I could find was in Scotland, Inverness in 1992 with 26.05% for Russell Johnston.
The small share of the vote in Norwich South exceeds Alan Reids 29.86% share of the vote in Argyll & Bute in 2001, Labour’s retention of Carmarthen in 1983 with 31.48% and the SDLP’s gain in Belfast South was over 32% in 2005.
Even when the three major parties effectively dead-heated in Caithness and Sutherland – they were all within a 100 votes – in 1945 they got approximately 33.3% each as there were no other candidates.
Which makes me wonder, partly in relation to the Greens, what is the nearest, in terms of percentage difference in the vote, that a fourth placed candidate has got to the winner? I imagine it would probably be in a Scottish seat when the SNP were doing well.
if we go on having environmental disasters like the flooding in Pakistan, forest fires on Russia and glacier melting in Greenland, why should the Green vote go away? Although models of climate change suggest that by world standards the UK will be very unusually unaffected, unless or until the Gulf Stream turns off.
I think it would be Inverness in 1992 when the Conservatives in fourth plaec were 3.4% away from the winning candidate