Comments on: Reading East

By: Will

Will — Mon, 23 May 2011 16:26:36 +0000

I have heard that Labour are to take control with Green support by abstention from voting – no coalition though.

By: akmd

akmd — Sat, 07 May 2011 21:14:18 +0000

Labour gained 3 seats on Reading council to bring their total seats to 22. The Greens now have 2 councillors after gaining one to add to their existing councillor. They now hold the balance of power as Labour did well enough to deny the Tories and Lib Dems another chance to form a coalition so we could see Labour take minority control thanks to the Greens.

By: Pete Whitehead

Pete Whitehead — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 10:39:29 +0000

The boundaries are quite likley to be completely unchanged in reading as both seats are within the thresholds as in fact are all seats in berkshire with the exception of Slough and Windsor (which can be resolved with the simple expedient of moving back Foxborough from Slough to Windsor). Labour would need to make 5 gains to take Reading outright this May which is a lot but this is posisble – they would need to take all the marginals: Church, Kentwood and Park from the Conservatives and Katesgrove and Redlands from the LDs. None require a swing much greater than 5% compared with 2007 so it is quite likely. Labour are lucky in Reading , as in so many places, in the way the boundaries are drawn. They can win a majority of the wards by a small margin while in the minority of wards where they can’t win they are extremely weak. This means they are often capable of winning a majority of wards without winning a plurality of the popular vote (as in 2006 for example when they won half the wards on a third of the vote)

By: Barnaby Marder

Barnaby Marder — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 10:14:52 +0000

Reading unitary authority is one of the relatively few genuine Southern English Labour targets in this year’s local elections. It looks on the face of it to be one of the more achievable ones, having had long periods of past overall Labour control. A Labour recapture does not of course give many pointers to a future general election in either East or West constituencies however, since the seats both contain so much territory outside the borough boundary. Neither seat is completely beyond Labour – there are likely to be many switchers from LD to Lab in East – but everything depends on boundaries & the state of the parties at that time, neither of which can be accurately forecast at the moment.

By: Red Gnu

Red Gnu — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 19:36:43 +0000

Anneliese Dodds confirmed standing down as candidate

By: Adrian Windisch

Adrian Windisch — Mon, 10 May 2010 17:45:51 +0000

The LD did well to come second. But is wasn’t a 2 horse race. No Clegmania on the night.

By: Barnaby JL Marder

Barnaby JL Marder — Wed, 05 May 2010 19:49:03 +0000

CON HOLD

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 05 May 2010 11:44:44 +0000

Lib Dems will finish 2nd, i’d like them to win, but that will only happen if Labour slump even more massively than i’m predicting.

By: TotalThames

TotalThames — Mon, 03 May 2010 19:41:43 +0000

Have seen nothing from the LibDems through my door and I live in Reading East.

Rob Wilson has been a very proactive local MP since getting elected 5 years ago, and communicates with his electorate throughout thebyear, not just at elections. A big improvement on the awful Ms Griffiths. He’ll be getting my vote on the strength of his record, not because I feel the Tories have all the answers…

By: Lancs Observer

Lancs Observer — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 20:54:31 +0000

The Greens may hold their deposit here. PPC’s name similar to the MP’s too.