UK General Election - May 7th 2015

[afleitch]

Same as usual. Toss up as to who comes out on top. Lib Dems on 17% or something similar and UKIP on about 5% winning no seats.

[afleitch]

Worth noting that if Scotland votes Yes, independence is planned for 2016. Scottish MP's would be lame ducks for a year. So they couldn't be relied upon in any coalition. I have a feeling that if Scotland voted yes there would be a constitutional crisis in the UK anyway.

[afleitch]

PR, or rather limited PR systems in the UK don't really help the hard left because the hard left don't work well with each other. The success story of the first Holyrood election should have been Socialist Labour (at least that was the perceived wisdom prior to the election) who polled over 55,000 votes, more than the SSP. However Tommy Sheridan ran a personal campaign in Glasgow and squeezed out a seat there. That basically catapulted him into national prominence. While in office by himself he actually voted against the Labour-Lib Dem coalition more than he voted with it (and as a result voted with the Tories more than he voted with Labour). The SSP breakthrough (and the Greens) was in part due to an abysmal campaign by the SNP combined with post-Iraq anger at Labour (Labour lost more seats in 2003 than it did in 2007)

The SSP polled nearly 7% of the list vote in Scotland in 2003 (and 15% in Glasgow more than the Tories and the Lib Dems combined)

In late 2004 Tommy Sheridan resigned and the party imploded around sexual shenanigans who knew what etc. Sheridan went off to found the Judean Popular Front Solidarity Party. The 2007 campaign for the hard left basically became a Solidarity v SSP mud fest (which led to a few funny personal encounters while out canvassing that year) Both parties collapsed.

One thing to note is that such escapades on the left traditionally tend to make the news than those on the right because they are more fun. Scottish People's Alliance anyone?

[afleitch]

At the moment? Conservatives just shy of a majority or able to gain a majority due to the depression in the Lib Dem votes. The potential for further Labour losses to the Conservatives is possible.

[afleitch]

At the moment? Conservatives just shy of a majority or able to gain a majority due to the depression in the Lib Dem votes. The potential for further Labour losses to the Conservatives is possible.

How do you see that happening, in terms of votes moving around compared with 2010?  For that to happen, I'd think that either
(a) the LD to Lab swing suggested by all polls since autumn 2010 doesn't really materialise
(b) there's a noticeable movement from Lab to Con
(c) UKIP end up hurting Lab more than Con

Any of these could happen, but I don't really see any as very likely.  I'm most concerned about (c), actually.

The reason I'm struggling to see much prospect of a Lab majority now is similar: essentially one of those would have to happen in reverse, and I don't see that as likely either.

Probably best to give my take on it.

1. The big LD to LAB swing made sense when Labour were polling 40+. It makes less sense if Labour are only polling a few points higher than they did. It would also mean that they are not getting anyone back who voted Labour from 1997-2005 and gave Cameron his win in 2010. Labour can't win power on the back of dissaffected Lib Dems.

2. The Lib Dems will probably bounce back a little. Certainly once the actual campaign kicks in. One can't assume and even split in all seats. Some may stay loyal to keep the Tories out in some seats. But it could be that if there's a more favourable split to the Tories in some suburban seats in marginals like Bolton West (where Cameron didn't pick up what Major lost) which could actually mean they start picking up seats from Labour.

3. UKIP topped the poll in 2009 in both post 1997 Lib Dem pick up areas in Devon but also places like Dudley, Stoke, Hartlepool etc. Many of the areas in the East of England where they might do well at the GE are currently held by the Conservatives but were pickups from Labour in 2010 (Great Yarmouth etc). It might work to Labour's advantage, but it also could work against them too.

[afleitch]

Charlie Kennedy is safe. The only place where people don't make fun of Danny Alexander is in his own seat. He remains a fairly popular MP. The main challengers in his seat are Labour who, in a good year for them in 2010, fell back. The SNP will only rise in that seat if they can tap the Lib Dem vote. They won't here. Might end up a 3 way marginal but I see it as a Lib Dem hold. Viscount Thurso is still lord of all he surveys in Caithness. I wouldn't be surprised if the Lib Dems hold all 3.

The SNP will gain Gordon because Malcolm Bruce is standing down. Menzies is standing down in North East Fife so that seat is up for play. In all honesty there will be a lot of 'churn' in the seat; voters aren't aware who is best placed to win here if they don't like the Lib Dems. The SNP sit 4th, yet won here in 2011 at Holyrood. Glenrothes next door (an SNP stronghold at Holyrood) is out of their grasp (despite Lindsay Roy and his magic Mary Poppins postal vote bag chucking it) so they need to pick what seat to invest in.

The other MP's standing down include Frank Doran in Aberdeen North which Labour will retain.

Stirling will be interesting because Ann Macguire, MP since 1997 is standing down. She, like Michael Forsyth before her has a very solid personal vote. The Tories are perpetually second here but the areas has been SNP at Holyrood since 2007. This might help Labour retain it but the seat is probably more vulnerable than it looks.

Eric Joyce is out. He's been by his lonesome since 2012 so Labour shouldn't be damaged too much. Again it's an SNP target seat.

The most likely seats to switch remain the seats where the incumbent is standing down.

[afleitch]

A bit of perspective here because right now the polls are susceptible to 'churn'

This is how the parties were polling, on average, in the week before the European elections in 2009

CON 37.1
LAB 21.1
LIB 17.8
OTH 23.4

I'm not exactly sure what % UKIP were polling nationally out of the 'others'. I wouldn't be surprised if it's not far from what they are getting now. Coincidently at the actual European Election, both Labour and the Tories polled 74-75% of what they were getting in the Westminster opinion polls and the Lib Dems 77%.

[afleitch]

Bootle MP Joe Benton has given up trying to fight his constituency party, and has opted to retire. He is 81 years old and has held the seat since the second Bootle by-election of 1990. Given that Bootle is one of the safest seats in the country for any party no matter how safety is defined, expect a truly absurd number of applications.

Bootle CLP tends to favour locals and tends to favour social conservatives, but that's not quite a sure thing: in 1979 it selected Allan Roberts who was extremely left-wing and from a suburb of distant Manchester.

It's that safe, you know it'll end up being a person who owns more than two ties.

[afleitch]

Their urban Scottish seats will swing to Labour and the SNP will do really well in the LD rural seats, I'd guess.

Which seats might those be

[afleitch]

Making certain assumptions about the results in Norn Iron (five Sinn Féin MPs who don't vote at Westminster and three SDLP MPs and one Sylvia Hermon who will probably support Labour) Labour need 319 seats to control the Commons.  With 315 they could try to do confidence and supply deals with Plaid and the SNP and form a minority government.  It would be a surprise for it to last a full parliament, though.

I also don't expect the Lib Dems to go as low as 11 seats, but if they did I think it would be very hard to keep them in office.

Depending on the referendum and its aftermath, a deal with the Nats could be playing with fire. Who knows what they'll demand?

If No wins, you do realise there will be a large camp of recent Yes voters of all stripes that will want their votes to go somewhere? Party loyalty has essentially disintigrated anyway. I wouldn't be suprised if the SNP soak that up somewhat.

[afleitch]

The best evidence that David Miliband would have been a poor leader is the fact that he failed to win the leadership.

Well he sort of did. In any other system he would have

[afleitch]

A few thoughts on Scotland.

If 2015 was a business as usual election (no referendum campaign) I'd expect every Lib Dem loss to be to the SNP with the exception of East Dunbartonshire with no Labour losses except possibly, Stirling due to the sitting MP stepping down. That's what forecasts will be showing.

However given the referendum if it's a Yes vote then Scottish seats might not even be competitive. If it's a No vote, then it should not be assumed that the rump forty-something percent who voted no will move back to their respective parties particularly as 'what now?' will be an election issue in Scotland. The SNP could potentially do rather well.

[afleitch]

The big problem for Labour in Scotland is that the aftermath of the referendum might be a gift that keeps on giving

Such as this charming photo of Dame Anne Begg, MP for Aberdeen South and Dave MacDonald leader of the Scottish wing of the National Front.

[afleitch]

Some form of regional government makes sense, but it's fairly clear that the regions should not be the current official ones (which are essentially statistical entities). Possibly it would make sense to dust off the Redcliffe-Maud report and then adjust accordingly.

If there's anything the North East referendum told us, with the results in places like 'Cleveland' (and the NE Region is probably the most well defined of the lot, Yorkshire excluded) is that even if they are well defined, they will still piss some people off. The 70's re-organisation was good, but we've lost defined mets and counties into a maze of piecemeal suburban centred 'Localism'™ which is difficult to patch up.

Perhaps I have my 'bathwithashortA' hat on but when I do a little federal exercise in my head once I get the past the midlands I have no idea how you create acceptable units. Where on earth does Northants go? It's like the Powys of the Midlands.

While Scotland is comfortable with it's central belt dominance and Wales seems to get by despite being culturally split east-west and north-south, it's difficult to 'impose' regions. I read a paper once that suggested that post-war, one of the best measures of local attachment was through the power of the tellybox; the old ITV regions were surprisingly powerful. Might be a strange place to start.

[afleitch]

Nonetheless, not a bad starting point.

It's an interesting idea. Many of the regions themselves were in many ways defined by geography; signal strength being dictated by hills etc.

In terms of 'federalising' England, The North East is fine as it is, though it might make sense to re-establish the border with Yorkshire at the Tees. Yorkshire is a defined entity; the current region but excluding North Lincs. The North West is broadly fine. Cumbria is a bit of a problem I suppose but it's links are certainly south rather than east. The West Midlands makes sense too as does the East Midlands. It's once we get south that things get problematic.

The South West actually makes sense but perhaps it would be better served by having 'the peninsula' as one area and then unite the rest with Oxford, Bucks etc into a central southern region. The Sussex's, Kent, Surrey can be the rest. Perhaps I don't care enough about the South anyway

[afleitch]

Panelbase poll for Scotland (changes on 2010)

SNP 34% (+14)
LAB 32% (-10)
CON 18% (+2)
UKIP 6%
LIB 5% (-14)
OTH 5%

And for fun, Holyrood - Constituency and Regional with changes on 2011

SNP 42 (-3) 37 (-7)
LAB 27 (-5) 27  (+1)
CON 15 (+1) 16 (+4)
LIB 5 (-3) 5 (0)
UKIP 5 / 4
OTH 5 / 1
GRN - / 9 (+5)

[afleitch]

The Yougov weekly average is even worse at LAB 29, SNP 40, CON 16 and LIB DEM 6

Two points of note.

Labour had a great year in Scotland in 2010 considering. They have no where else to go really but down. The Lib Dems will go down. The Tories will probably go up a little. There will be shades of 1992 here I think. I still expect Labour to top the poll here but I have a feeling voters will not be too enthused about them.

[afleitch]

Why would UKIP being in favour of changing the electoral system make such a change more likely to happen? The LibDems (and their Alliance and Liberal predecessors) have been in favour - and a relevant political force - for even longer, and yet...

There are elements in all parties that seem to rate any system of proportionality as worse than Hitler. Staying on that analogy, I think UKIP might contain a lot of people like that so it's a non starter. Though it might be in their manifesto for a couple of months for the hell of it.

Unlike the Lib Dems (and it's debatable even under STV whether the Lib Dems gain that disproportionately) UKIP would probably suffer somewhat. They will be quite happy with one or two boarding house seaside towns and a bit more media coverage come 2015 (seats which come 2017 will probably defect anyway)

[afleitch]

One of the great difficulties is predicting what seats might swing towards UKIP and at what point UKIP might ‘take off;’ in terms of seats. What I have decided to do is look at the 2014 European Election results and ‘swing’ them back towards what the current polls suggest nationally. Adjustments are made for regional party strengths based on the 2010 results. While this gives an idea of results by council, it’s easy to use these to look at what would happen in the constituencies. It also gives an idea of where the Lib Dem vote is going and what effect UKIP are having on Labour/Tory vote shares

The ‘estimates’ are based on the current UKPR average of 32-34-8-16. I’ve picked two promising regions; Easter and East Midlands. I’ll try and work out a crude model later.

Eastern

It’s easier here to identify what areas aren’t Conservative. The Liberal Democrats do not win a single council, nor seat on these calculations. The Tories come top in North Norfolk and Colchester. That would be 2 seat gains. As for Labour areas, they win Cambridge from the Lib Dems, Harlow, Ipswich, Luton, Norwich (perhaps enough to win both seats there), Stevenage, Thurrock and Watford. That would be five or six gains from the Conservatives and two gains from the Liberal Democrats. So Labour would be up 7 or 8 seats and the Conservatives down 3 or 4 seats. UKIP don’t win anywhere, however there are areas of strong UKIP support that remain linked to a 16% national vote share. They sit second in Basildon, ahead of Labour and are about 7% behind the Tories in Castle Point. Great Yarmouth is a three way tussle and UKIP are 2nd in Thurrock, just 4% behind Labour.

What would happen in Eastern on the basis of the 30-30-9-19 poll? Well here UKIP would leapfrog Labour into second place on vote share. It would nudge them into first place in Basildon, making a gain there possible. They would also lead in Castle Point and in Thurrock, knocking the Conservatives into third. They would also win Great Yarmouth. UKIP would bite into Labour’s 1997 high watermark coastal seats. Labour’s ‘gains’ would remain as they were (except perhaps Norwich North) UKIP’s vote would have to break into the low to mid 20’s to start picking up other seats.

East Midlands

Labour top in Ashfield, Bassetlaw, Bolsover, Broxtowe (the seat of which would be a Labour gain), Chesterfield, Corby (Labour would gain the seat) Derby City, Gedling, High Peak (a Labour gain), Leicester City, Lincoln City (by enough to gain them the seat of Lincoln), Mansfield, North East Derbyshire, and Nottingham City. Erewash is evens between Labour and the Tories (which seat wise would translate into a Tory hold) That would translate into 4 modest seat gains by Labour from Conservative. The Lib Dems top nowhere (and hold no seats at present anywhere)

UKIP also do not factor. This is worth a look. They are a few % points behind the Tories in Boston but outside of that council area (the Boston and Skegness seat is larger) they are further behind in other parts of Lincolnshire. So while it is definitely a target seat, there’s not much to suggest they will challenge elsewhere.

[afleitch]

Scottish polling won't be any use until certain things are clearer, but... eep.

If Jim Murphy gets the leadership role Labour will become a grand right of centre experiment. That might not make things clearer!

[afleitch]

The SNP as the kingmakers in a hung parliament.

Imagine.

Given that the SNP would not support a Tory led government in almost any circumstances (for fear of being as unpopular as the Lib Dems currently are as well as for general ideological issues) what concessions would they want in return for supporting and sustaining a Labour government?

Well, the SNP were propped up by the Tories at Holywood, soooo...

But if they were kingmakers, I imagine they'd basically get whatever they want.

Control of everything but defence and foreign affairs. And a general commitment to something similar for other parts of the UK (but that's for other parties to worry about)

If the SNP are kingmakers and want a constitutional settlement for Scotland and for other parts of the UK, if either main party said 'no', couldn't get a Queen's Speech or budget passed and called a GE then Scotland would probably vote SNP even more the second time.

[afleitch]

It's worth noting this is one poll.

The reason why it's being taken seriously, is that this sort of movement was suggested in the aggregate results of the Scottish samples in the rolling YouGov and Populus polls.

At the beginning of this week, the YouGov aggregate had the SNP on 41, Labour on 26, Conservatives 17, Lib Dems 5. Populus was more modest at 37-28-19-9.

Even with Populus that still reduces Labour to 19 seats, in the same parts of the country where they won those seats in 2011, and the SNP on 35 seats.

Expect to see some more Scottish only polling.

[afleitch]

YouGov out with their own poll

SNP 43
LAB 27
CON 15
LIB 4

How much do you trust?
 
Nicola Sturgeon: 48%
Gordon Brown: 37%
Jim Murphy: 24%
David Cameron: 19%
Ed Miliband: 15%

[afleitch]

All these numbers are also assuming that Sturgeon isn't a flop as FM.

They are also assuming she won't get hit by a bus tomorrow.

[afleitch]

The DUP is like a UKIP sampler. It gives you an idea of the lunacy.