Sean Fear’s Friday slot
December 15th, 2006
The State of the Parties
Since the start of September, there have been 74 local by-elections on principal authorities. Of these, 41 involved the three main parties, competing with each other.
Overall, the Conservatives made a net gain of 5 seats, the Liberal Democrats made a net gain of 6, the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland and SNP a gain of 1 each, while Labour made a net loss of 5, Others/Independents made a net loss of 7, and the Democratic Unionist Party lost 1. It should be noted that the totals for the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have been flattered by large gains from Independents in rural wards.
However, analysis of the voting figures confirms that the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are faring quite well, and Labour are faring very badly.
In three way contests, the changes in vote share can be expressed in the following table showing average Change in Vote Share and the year the seats were contested:-
2003 (9) C-4.8%: L -17.0%: LD+3.4%
2004 (4) C+3.0%: L -4.7%: LD +5.5%
2005 (5) C +11.3%: L -3.5%: LD -3.8%
2006 (23) C -1.4%: L 1.8%: LD +5.4%
Some horrendous results from Scotland and rural wards, both last contested in 2003, make the Labour performance look worse than it really is. But even if those nine seats are excluded, the Labour performance is still very poor.
-
Overall, based on comparisons with 2004, 2005, and 2006, I would estimate the current national equivalent vote shares as Conservative 39%, Lib Dem 30%, Labour 24%. Were these sorts of figures to be repeated next year, then Labour could expect to lose heavily to both Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.
However, it’s probable that, in 2007, the vote share for minor parties will be higher than the 7% suggested by by-election results. Labour’s national equivalent vote share could fall to as little as 22%, 3% worse than the previous record low achieved by the Conservatives in 1995.
Although it is not a like for like comparison, it is worth noting that the Greens have contested 13 by-elections over this period, winning an average 8.9%, and the BNP have contested 15 by-elections, winning an average 17.2%.
Yesterday, there were three results:-
Epping Forest DC, Grange Hill: Conservative 609, LibDem 586, BNP 302, Lab 48. Conservative gain from LibDem. This result gives the Conservatives overall control of this council for the first time since the late 1980s. It is also a demonstration of the strength of support for the BNP in the area, who have again polled well in a mainly middle class ward.
Lancaster City Council, Skerton West: Labour 493, Conservative 172, BNP 93, Independent 76. An easy Labour hold in a safe seat.
Coleraine BC, Skerries. Alliance 694, DUP 678 , UUP 625, Sinn Fein 253, SDLP 219. Alliance gain from DUP. The former DUP councillor was the Mayor of the Borough, and resigned after being found guilty of electoral fraud. This presumably explains why 212 UUP voters transferred their vote to Alliance, in preference to the DUP.
Sean Fear is a London Tory activist
MessageSpace Advertising
The Epping Forest result is a little surprising. The BNP stood and made their gains almost exclusively, it appears, from the Lib Dem vote.
Lib Dems a load of closet fascists??
Encouraging analysis Sean. Are you prepared to make any predictions as to May’s locals yet?
Some extremely unpleasant comments made by a Lib Dem regular on this site about the Lib Dem councillor who resigned were downloaded and used on wavering LD voters.
Sean, do you think the type of the context (and the location) can have an impact on the Labour performance? For ex is Labour doing particularly worse, for ex, in wards where they’re already third (or worse) and maybe placed in not held constituencies?
The 2004 comparison figures look particularly bad for them. The drop compared to 2005 makes sense as, I suppose, those wards were contested on GE day.
3. Ah, the resiging councillor was Gavin Stollar…..the one who complained about Jenny Tonge’s remarks
Thanks for the analysis Sean. Interesting in the run up to Mays locals but as they were last fought in 2003, can Labour get any worse?
Re 3, pot and kettle, which lib dem regular and which posts?
3. Nothing more bitter than the taste of ones own medicine
It was indeed Gavin Stollar, described here by Zebidee (Tony Dawson) as a “moron” and in far more graphic terms by another Lib Dem, ColinW.
A Lib Dem, being Lib Demmed by a Lib Dem
In three way contests, the changes in vote share can be expressed in the following table showing average Change in Vote Share and the year the seats were contested:-
2003 (9) C-4.8%: L -17.0%: LD+3.4%
2004 (4) C+3.0%: L -4.7%: LD +5.5%
2005 (5) C +11.3%: L -3.5%: LD -3.8%
2006 (23) C -1.4%: L 1.8%: LD +5.4%
That looks like the best set of Labour results for 4 years then, with a slight vote increase.
How’s that so terrible?
9- I think the figures reported are comparisons…for ex in the 9 byelections held since September and last faught in 2003, Labour is 17% down, in the 4 byelections last faught in 2004, Lab is 4.7% down and so on….
As I said, I’m not surprised by the change % compared to last faught in 2005 and 2006 byelections. The 2004 looks bad though…Sean, can you remind us those 4 contests?
So Labour is not doing worse than May 2006, but it already was a pretty low point for them, I think.
8. Family arguments are always so unpleasant.
Sean
for the sake of completeness, could you post the overall changes in vote share?
Good analysis as always Sean.
It is true what you say, that Grange Hill is a relatively middle class ward. (it’s the part of Chigwell on the border with London). This result shows how strong the BNP are in Epping Forest. The seats that they currently hold (in Loughton) are only by small majorities, however if they can poll this well in places like Grange Hill it does make you wonder how well they will do elsewhere in the district.
I think the 1 remaining Labour seat on the council (Shelley) is up in May, and the BNP must be quite hopeful of taking it. There are also another couple of Loughton seats that they would have there eye on.
Lib Dems closet facists? Maybe not, but some LD voters are more right-wing than might be expected. Many people believe that the surge in Liberal support in the February 74 GE came, at least partly, from Powellite Conservatives, disgusted at Heath’s acceptance of Ugandan Asians, and what they regarded as his insufficiently robust stance towards the unions. There’ve also been many posts on this site noting how much support UKIP gets from normally LD voters.
Similarly, many Conservatives such as Steve Norris encountered (or claimed to) people who voted for the LDs in by-elections to punish the Major government for its signing the Maastricht Treaty.
14. The Lib Dem vote often has a large element of fairly unfocused ‘protest’ within it…which can migrate in odd directions at times.
Perhaps worth noting that both yesterday’s mainland results showed a swing against the Conservatives since the last time the ward was fought.
OT - Lib Dems calling time on Scottish Labour in an apparent fit of pique:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/6184259.stm
Another nail in the coffin of PR and coalition government, in my books…
17 “However, the Conservatives accused the Lib Dems of going in a huff “at the first sign that they might be no longer relevant”.
First sign?
Naughty, Robin. You are just quoting the latest Tory spin………
19 Quite right Tressage, however in my defence I’d posted at 17 before I read the spin at the bottom of the article and then posted at 18.
Mind you, I must admit I thought they’d stopped being relevant someway through the First World War…
17 & 18 Robin Wiggs
BBC report: “Mr Stephen said Labour may have to look to the Tories to vote them into office.”
Scottish Labour have needed the Tories for several key votes, eg the Iraq War and nuclear issues, in the last mandate period. The Libs have generally refused to back Labour on anything not explicitly in the Partnership Agreement.
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2003/05/17150/21952
That Lab-Con cooperation will have to deepen and broaden in the future. Non-core LD voters (and their solid core of voters is likely well below 10%) are likely to largely ignore 7-8 years of Lib-Labbery, but 12 years? or 16 years? Nope: no way.
With a majority of only 5, and the spate of recent poor polls, it looks like they will not even be given the option of continuing by the electorate.
Lab-Con cooperation may sound bizarre to observers from south of the border, but what is not often realised outwith Scotland is that these two parties regularly find themselves on the same side of debates in Scotland. Eg just have a look at the spectrum of policies of the SNP and the Lib Dems - apart from the obvious difference over the constitution, their policy platforms are very similar indeed. Lab-Con alliances are used in Scottish councils to keep the SNP out (eg P&K, Dundee), so why not in parliament?
Looks like we have a little rebellion brewing among backbench Scottish Labour MPs:
MPs in Scotland ‘against trident’, BBC Scotland
The SNP are licking their lips over this one.
Minister for Communities Malcolm Chisholm MSP has already committed political suicide by publicly opposing the Trident policy last week. He was one of the few Labour ministers untainted by the west-coast mafia mentality - now the closed, authoritarian Lanarkshire Labour culture is going to utterly dominate the party.
22. - link just gone dead
For some reason best known to themselves the BBC have just changed the web address of that story to:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/glasgow_and_west/6183735.stm
23. The old link works for me.
Whilst they were there, they could have named the MPs who replied and what they chose
24. Andrea
Oh? That’s a bit of a mystery, cos only the new BBC link works from my browser. They seem to have inserted the “/uk_news” bit.
17&19. “Lib Dems calling time on Scottish Labour in an apparent fit of pique” this is not news, it is the usual pre election season of rows to allow a bit of clear water between Labour and the Libdems. Was just joking to someone a couple weeks ago about whether they would have a big falling out or just a lot of little spats that got trailed in the news.
1 seems to be trolling. The previous result (as far as I can see) was
Independent 97
Conservative 908 (609) - 299
Liberal Democrat 753 (586) - 167
The Conservative vote is down by 299. The Lib Dem vote is down by 167. Thus virtually the entire BNP vote could be explained by switchers from the Tories, but only half could possibly be explained by lib dem switchers. In practice I imagine that some of the people who voted Labour this time might have voted Lib Dem last time (when Labour did not stand).
Despite the intervention of the Labour candidate, the swing from the Conservatives to the Liberal Democrats was 3.7%.
21 Stuart - We have had the Iraq war, the education bill, Trident, and now Tory agreement to abandoning the BAE corruption investigation: Lab-Con cooperation is nothing new.
8. Perhaps I should apologise for being so unduly mild? Having recently revisited some of the witch-hunting rubbish which Mr Stollar spouted, I am convinced that he is no more a ‘Liberal’ of any description than Peter Kay is a member of Girls Aloud. Even being referred to the Standards Board by the BNP (a tautological step I would have thought) does not redeem him. The thought of him having had even a minor role in the office of Charles Kennedy MP might explain a thing or two also.
Given that many of next years locals will be the all out elections last fought in 2003, Sean’s analysis suggests that far from the assumed wisdom that Tories will make gains from the Lib Dems, it may well be the other way round. The large increase in the vote for other parties may however be giving a false picture?
14
ISTM that what we are observing is a gradual move away from the LDs by the ‘Sod-em-all’ vote, being replaced by people, mainly from the centre/left, as they gradually learn what the party is all about.
This is occurring, (if I’m right), because in many parts of the country LDs are now an established force and, as a result, seen as an establishment party.
The relative stability of the LD vote share continues to disguise a lot of churn, but I suspect it is a different sort of churn from that that occurred 20/30 years ago.
So the examples cited are likely to come from people who, although they may have voted Liberal/LD, were not Liberals. Their statements being counter-intuitive to political types like us, they stand out to us and get repeated in fora like this thus achieving a prominence disproportionate to their number.
Anyway, that’s my conjecture.
From my canvassing experience, I think Fred makes a good point that the Lib Dems and the BNP are both seen as the anti-establishment protest vote, although the BNP more radically so. As a result, I’m not surprised to see them competing for votes, although the parties are ideologicaly polar to each other.
And thank you for your post on the last thread Andrea-much appreciated. I’d hate to distract you from having a go at posters from other parties
Re 28, Zebidee, refferred to the SBE by the BNP? Surely you jest? What ever for?
32. Benedict, it’s true. He won his case.
http://www.standardsboard.co.uk/Casesummaries/Casesummaries/E/EppingForestDistrictCouncil/Name,2942,en.html
31. tpfkar. I’m glad we managed to solve the issue. Yesterday I felt as I was a terrible person! Now I feel a bit less “evil”.
(but it’s not true that I spend the whole time having a go at posters from other parties….I’m probably the only international supporter of the VH actions!)
32 Benedict
It was actually on Liberal Review, but I know you disapproving of linking so here is the relevant extract
“The complainant alleged that Councillor Gavin Stollar, a member of Epping Forest District Council, made an “extremely offensive and confrontational” public statement about a British National Party (BNP) conference in Brentwood. Councillor Stollar allegedly said, “We don’t want Nazis in our town”. The complainant said that this was particularly offensive because the Group Leader of the BNP on the council is Jewish.”
Sorry “disapprove” rather tahn “disapproving”.
(We also have the latest on Adam Rickitt though).
Re 34, Peter Pigeon :lol:, What the BNP infiltrated by Jews? What must Jenny Tongue be thinking?
You do jest don’t you, in the article I linked to on my blog it was clear that they still looked for Jews under their beds!
It is a weird story - but the extract above is a direct quote from the Standards Board report on the case. (I should point out that Stollar was not disciplined over this - or anything else that I know of.)
27. Just for a bit of fun I note the swing from Lib Dem to Con since Councillor Stollar won the seat in 2003 was about 11%…enough to lose the Lib Dems the other four seats they won that year.
34. You really couldn’t make that up.
Re 38, Fred, Apparently not. Anyway off to pub.
Thanks for the kind words. There is one error in the way the article has been transcribed, though. The Labour vote share is *down* by an average 1.8% on May 2006.
I think the reason why the results from 2003 are so bad for Labour (apart from Scotland) is that the Labour vote is disappearing in areas that are already weak for Labour. So if you’ve had a Conservative or Lib Dem rural area, with a Labour-voting council estate ward in it, that’s where the Labour vote is likely to disappear.
In response to Commentator, I think it would be premature to make a prediction at this stage.
Benedict, the leader of the BNP on Epping Forest Council is indeed Jewish, although I don’t think she practices here religion.
For a horrible moment Sean I thought your vote share predictions were for the next general election. As you’re in fact predicting next May’s elections that looks pretty plausible to me, just from the national mood, polls, the fact Labour people don’t want to campaign.
I was predicting last year’s elections would be ‘worst ever’ for Labour. Obviously I was wrong about that. But I think my mistake was to make the prediction too early. We can expect some truly terrible by-election results for Labour over the next couple of years.
The real damage to Labour will come if they manage to win the next general election and so have another five years of their local base being hollowed out like this, plus of course people getting even more cynical. If that happens the 2009/10 election will be really painful.
re21 “Lab-Con alliances are used in Scottish councils to keep the SNP out (eg P&K, Dundee), so why not in parliament?”
Perth & Kinross Council is controled by a SNP-Lib Dem-Independent adimistration that keeps Labour and the Tories out, and Dundee is Labour-Lib Dem(minority) council with Tory support which keeps the SNP out.
It strikes me as odd that there are so many seats fought in 2006 up again already in by-elections.
I wonder why this is - is it people getting elected by accident? or resigning in pique when they don’t get what roles they expected from their groups post-election?
Sean. Were the 4 byelection last faught in 2004 the following ones?
Blythe DC (Hartley Ward)
Monmouthshire CC (St Marys)
Ellesmere Port & Neston (Little Neston)
Wrexham CC (Rossett)
43. Alan J. Some of them can have resigned for the reasons you mentioned. Some of them can have actually died. And some of them have probably elected before 2006, but they’re in 3 members wards that were up in 2006 too.
For completeness I think it is only fair that the Coleraine result is publiched in full - it was by AV and the transfers were as follows:
BARR, Stephen Trevor UUP 625 10 635 -635 0
FIELDING, Jonathan Mark DUP 678 8 686 316 1002
FITZPATRICK, Bernard Alliance 694 362 1056 212 1268
LEONARD, Valerie Sinn Féin 253 -253 0 0 0
RAE, Cliodhna SDLP 219 -219 0 0 0
By-Election Results: Thursday 14th December 2006.
Epping Forest DC, Grangehill
Con 609 (39.4; -12.2), LD Alan Lion 586 (37.9; -4.9), BNP 302 (19.5; +19.5), Lab 48 (3.1; +3.1), [Ind (0.0; -5.5)].
Majority 23. Turnout 32.8%. Con gain from LD. Last fought 2006.
Lancaster City DC, Skerton West
Lab 493 (59.1; +16.1), Con 172 (20.6; +1.2), BNP 93 (11.2; +11.2), Ind 76 (9.1; -8.2), [Green (0.0; -8.3)], [SA (0.0; -12.0)].
Majority 321. Turnout 17.4%. Lab hold. Last fought 2003.
Please note:
The figures for percentage change are based on the details of the results from the last time that there was an election in the ward by statute in the May (or sometimes June) elections, rather than by any by-election. We use the figures in The Local Elections Handbook by Colin Rallings & Michael Thrasher.
The Party-defending seat is the party that the former Councillor (who has died, resigned or been disqualified) belonged to when she or he was elected not the one that she or he may have subsequently belonged to as a result of any defection.
The Poles and Czechs are moving here for the jobs, but bad timing, all the jobs are off to India now. The English are off to Spain for a bit of retirement sun, but global warming will make Clacton-on-Sea the new Marbella. The Irish are off to new speculative holiday homes in Croatia, Bulgaria, and Mexico, Mexicans continue to dodge across the US border, and the Americans go wherever they want, although most of them don’t have passports and go in combat. As ever, the Germans are everywhere, but nobody knows who’s in Norway.
I hope that’s clearer.
Off topic, but it seems that some of this weeks reports have upset Gordon Brown.
It is noted in the article that “The statement is all the more remarkable because Whitehall sources confirmed that it was released after the wording had been agreed between Number 10 and Number 11 Downing Street.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=Y2HM0VDLFZBLFQFIQMFSFF4AVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2006/12/15/ubrown115.xml
If you worked in the No10 press office and had to manage a big announcement that might be embarrassing for your boss, you might be relieved that it accidentally managed to coincide with Lord Steven’s report and a blizzard of bad news stories which might deflect attention. So why 24 hours later do you then want to reignite the story?
49 - This is the next news story not the last one, he’s trying to pre-empt what the Sundays are apparently going to be saying.
Worth reading if you are a candidate:-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6178975.stm
50. ukpaul, I was just wondering about No10’s connection with the statement. It seems to be a bit like scoring an own goal just after you have scored?
Tony Blair seems more interested in taking responsibility for this decision.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2506744,00.html
Good article from Sean as usual. Labour facing a 17% swing away in Wales and Scotland compared to 2003 would be melt down. I cant see it happening.Except in the Vale of Clwyd where I need a 17% swing to win!!!
54. Can I take you up on a previous exchange. See below.
Marius
Conwy was Clwyd west and there is a tory councillor in the ward. The Tories will be pleased to have won as it steadies the ship after their disaster in Rhos on sea in July.
The report of possible Tory gains was a tory press release based on a uk wide icm poll (the one with Labour down to 29% which was clearly a rogue). The Tories have some poor candidates in the north for the assembly although they start as favourites in Clwyd west. My tory opponent in the vale is one of their better ones but they are vulnerable on some local issues.
Any tory gains in constituencies will result in lost seats on the list…..
by cymrumark December 9th, 2006 at 4:27 pm
163. Which would be good news for Dafydd Wigley. Why you gamble with a major asset as him is a mystery. Is it as straight forward an equation as that though. If true ut applies as much to any Plaid gains as anything in the consituencies. BTW 3 things some Labour guy was predicting at GE they’ll take back Presseli Pembs. That is fantasy right, surely they’ll be lucky not to slip to third as it becomes a rare straight Tory-Plaid fight right. How big a tit do you feel your leader made himself look this week. What are Plaid’s realistic targets list at Assembly and GE level.
Great to see the Alliance party having a good week.