211 Responses to “Stoke on Trent South”

1. H.Hemmelig

   “The Lib Dems may find that their big threat to scupper them might actually be met with widespread disinterest on the Tory side.”

   You’re right. And do not forget the 20 or 30 Tory MPs whose seats would be abolished, which includes numerous backbench awkward squad members like Nadine Dorries, Philip Davies and Andrew Percy.

   And even amongst the rest of the parliamentary party, on a selfish basis many will not be sorry not to have to face re-selection in a redrawn seat.

   Certainly a shabby deal on state funding of political parties would have no more chance of getting past the Tory backbenches than the one on Lords reform.

   October 18th, 2012 at 4:10 pm
2. Tim Jones

   ‘The South West in particular is littered with marginal seats that the Lib Dems could probably pick up fairly easily.’

   I find it highly unlikely that the Lib Dems will be making many, if any, gains in the South West in 2010 – and their focus will be on holding what they have

   I’m not sure their tactical vote will disappear to the extent predicted, but there’s far more likely to be a Lib Dem to Tory swing

   Of course your talking about in the future but even if the radical boundary changes don’t come in place for the 2015 – and they almost certainly won’t – neither Labour, Lib Dems nor the Tory rebels who are understandably putting themselves before their party, can make a strong case for maintaining the current arrangement, which simply isn’t fair

   October 18th, 2012 at 6:52 pm
3. H.Hemmelig

   Maybe there could be a compromise. The boundary commission could be given back its old relaxed guidelines so that it doesn’t have to draw so many stupid seats, whilst being mandated to change the boundaries more often – if not every election then every 10 years like in the US.

   I’m probably not the only Conservative sympathiser who isn’t sorry to see the back of the many hideous proposals from the last review. Yet it is perfectly reasonable to expect the boundaries to change more often to reflect population shifts.

   October 18th, 2012 at 7:01 pm
4. THE RESULTS

   The irony is that the Lib Dems may actually end up losing more seats than the Tories will come 2015….

   October 18th, 2012 at 7:09 pm
5. THE RESULTS

   Does anyone know the sub-region of the UK that produced the Liberal Democrats’ lowest shares of the vote in 2010? I imagine it would be between the Sandwell seats, a series of South Essex ones and West Cumbria.

   October 18th, 2012 at 7:12 pm
6. Andy JS

   It depends how you define “sub-region”. What would be the minimum number of seats in such a category for example?

   October 18th, 2012 at 8:21 pm
7. THE RESULTS

   The seats I was thinking of in particular were-
   In Sandwell- West Bromwich East (13.2%), West Bromwich West (12.0%) as well as Walsall North (13.1%)

   In South Essex- Romford (12.0%), Barking (8.2%), Castle Point (9.4%), Hornchurch and Upminster (13.9%), Thurrock (10.7%), South Basildon and East Thurrock (13.4%)

   In West Cumbria- Copeland (10.2%), Workington (13.5%) as well as Barrow and Furness (10.0%) in the South

   By that logic, it was probably South Essex where they polled the worst. And obviously by sub-region I mean sections of various counties that are electorally similar so to speak.

   October 18th, 2012 at 8:33 pm
8. THE RESULTS

   Well, I’ve calculated the average percentages for all three, and it’s a tie on 11.2% between South Essex and West/South West Cumbria. Perhaps not all that surprising, although I believe there were also a fair number of seats in Wales where the Lib Dems polled rather low- I.e. by my definition below 14%. Although if I were to be a purist I should probably refer to the old deposit threshold of 12.5% and use that as the maximum figure.

   So if one was to look at the seats in South Essex where before 1985 the Lib Dems would have lost their deposit- Romford, Barking, Castle Point and Thurrock- The average is even worse- Something in the order of 10.8%, rounded up.

   But if this logic were to be applied for the Cumbria sub-region I mentioned- This time the average would be slightly lower in comparison- 10.1%.

   October 18th, 2012 at 8:57 pm
9. Andy JS

   I always find it interesting that in 1974 the Liberals did very well in most of the seats in south Essex.

   October 19th, 2012 at 12:14 am
10. Joe James B

    That’s right – many of their best votes were in February 1974, not 1983, and that area was one of them,
    including as we’ve discussed the NE London suburbs.

    Miriam Purdom was predicting the Lib Dems to do well in Upminster at the last General Election, and this was perhaps based on a misplaced view that the 1974 results offered some kind of precedence.

    October 19th, 2012 at 12:44 am
11. Tim Jones

    ‘I’m probably not the only Conservative sympathiser who isn’t sorry to see the back of the many hideous proposals from the last review. Yet it is perfectly reasonable to expect the boundaries to change more often to reflect population shifts.’

    The revised recommendations made far more sense than the original proposals but overall it was a bit of a mess

    Constituency inequality usedto be even worst in the days oif old – if you look at some of the individual resaukts in the 50s, 60s and 70s, you see some seats with electorates barely more than 30,000 wehereas others exceeded 90,000

    October 19th, 2012 at 9:26 am