London Borough Elections 2006

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Every single seat in every single London Borough is up this year. These are the first local elections in London since Iraq and all that, so Labour are expecting to see some losses (probably very severe ones in liberal middle class wards) but local elections in London can be strange things, so don't expect to see any one pattern dominate over everything else.

2002 results (map shows the average vote % of the leading party in each ward)...



More stuff will be up tomorrow.

Do not post stuff to do with the English local elections or local by-elections in this thread.

[True Democrat]

What party is gray?

[Hatman 🍁]

What party is gray?

Indepdents I would assume.

It is unfortunate to see the lack of democracy in the City of London borough.

[afleitch]

You might like this:

http://www.londoncommunications.co.uk/media/intelligence/downloads/May06electionPredict.pdf

Has some stats and history.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

You might like this:

http://www.londoncommunications.co.uk/media/intelligence/downloads/May06electionPredict.pdf

Has some stats and history.

Yeah, that's very good (although there were a couple of little mistakes in the various background stuff; which seem to have been corrected). The record of Travers's predictions is also very good, and this time round his predictions are roughly in line with those of most other people who know what they're talking about.

[Peter]

It is unfortunate to see the lack of democracy in the City of London borough.

If anybody actually lives in the square mile, its only because they are sleeping in their office.

London should see a solid performance for the Tories - it saw the highest Westminster swings for them in 2005 and Cameron's cosmpolitan appeal should go down well with generic middle class London voters.

Its interesting to look at the predicted changes on that PDF - Labour will nearly lose all their councils south of the river with the Tories making good ground, whilst north of the river, Labour by-and-large hold on, no doubt thanks to their large majorities at present.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It is unfortunate to see the lack of democracy in the City of London borough.

If I was to tell you how elections work in the City (it's not a borough, btw) then I think you might use a word somewhat stronger than "unfortunate"...

If anybody actually lives in the square mile, its only because they are sleeping in their office.

True of most wards in it, but not all; Portsoken has a lot of social housing (the Peabody flats) and a couple of other wards have people in them as well. NHS workers in one of them, and rich professionals in some others. Odd place.

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It certainly should do

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Agree. Only thing is, in some places those voters were Tory in local elections anyway (prime example is Wandsworth o/c). Still, with him as leader and all his Votebluegetgreen oddity, they should do very well in West London in general. If the Tories can't gain Hammersmith & Fulham, they should ask themselves why they bothered to pick Cameron as leader at all (hyperbole, but not all that much).
It'll be interesting to see if there's an anti-Cameron backlash in the Outer East though.

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Yep; and because most of the boroughs north of the river are much more naturally Red (as are Lambeth and Southwark, but the lack of Labour majorities there are more down to poor local organisation and etc. than anything else). He's made quite a gamble on Tower Hamlets o/c, but it might pay off.

[Storebought]

I must ask: what is the demographic nature of those three Tory wards near what I believe is north Islington?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I must ask: what is the demographic nature of those three Tory wards near what I believe is north Islington?

It's actually north Hackney (Islington is to it's west) and the answer is Ultra-Orthodox Jewish (the same applies for the single Liberal ward in northern Hackney, it's just that the party chosen to block-vote for at borough level is different for some reason). Those wards all voted for Ken Livingston in the Mayoral elections a few years ago, btw. Most of them by large margins.

[Hatman 🍁]

There are Wards in the City of London? What are their uses?

[Ben.]

I'll offer some predictions

Barnet: CON Hold.
Barking and Dagenham: LAB Hold.*
Bexley: CON Gain.
Brent: NOC ‘Gain’.
Bromley: CON Hold.
Camden: NOC ‘Gain’.**
Croydon: CON Gain.
Ealing: LAB Hold.
Enfield: CON Hold.
Greenwich: LAB Hold.
Hammersmith & Fulham: CON Gain.
Hackney: LAB Hold.
Harrow: CON Gain***
Havering: NOC ‘Hold’.
Hounslow: LAB Hold.
Hillingdon: CON Gain.
Haringey: LAB Hold.****
Islington: LibDem Hold.
Kensington: CON Hold.
Kingston: LibDem Hold.*****
Lewisham: LAB Hold.
Lambeth: NOC ‘Hold’.
Merton: CON Gain.
Newham: LAB Hold.
Redbridge: CON Hold.
Richmond: CON Hold.
Sutton: LibDem Hold.
Southwark: NOC ‘Hold’.
Tower Hamlets: NOC ‘Gain’.
Westminster; CON Hold.
Wandsworth: CON Hold.
Waltham Forest: NOC ‘Hold’.

Totals:
Conservatives: 14 (+6)
Labour: 8 (-7)
LibDem: 3 (N/A)
NOC: 7 (+1)

*- Significant, but not massive, gains for the BNP.
**- Could be close, well organised and entrenched Labour group, but likely to go NOC.
***- A full slate of LibDem candidates might have a significant impact.
****- Number of wards trending strongly towards the LibDems, could go to NOC.
*****- Conservatives should make sizable gains but the LibDem majority is simply too large IMHO.

[Harry Hayfield]

As Lt. Governor Ben has entered the same contest as me on Political Betting.com, I presume he won't mind me posting my ideas (and reasons)

Barking and Dagenham (Lab)
Barnet (Con)
Bexley (Con)
Brent (NOC) (Liberal Democrats take advantage of Brent East)
Bromley (Con)
Camden (NOC) (Liberal Democrats gain seats from Labour)
Croydon (Con)
Ealing (NOC) (Conservatives attack Labour)
Enfield (Con)
Greenwich (Lab)
Hammersmith & Fulham (Con)
Hackney (Lab)
Harrow (Con)
Havering (NOC) (Residents grouping prevent Con from gaining)
Hounslow (NOC)
Hillingdon (Con)
Haringey (Lab)
Islington (Lib Dem)
Kensington (Con)
Kingston (NOC)
Lewisham (Lab)
Lambeth (Lib Dem) (Lambeth's past catches up with Labour)
Merton (Con)
Newham (Lab) (No suprises. but watch for the CPA)
Redbridge (Con)
Richmond (Con)
Sutton (Lib Dem)
Southwark (Lib Dem)
Tower Hamlets (Respect) (George might just do it or be a few seats short)
Westminster (Con)
Wandsworth (Con)
Waltham Forest (NOC)

[Ben.]

Camden (NOC) (Liberal Democrats gain seats from Labour)

Dont underestimate the Tories in the South and West of the borough, they could easily swing wards like Bloomsbury, Gospel Oak etc... while I'm not sure about how bright the LibDem's prospects really are.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There are Wards in the City of London? What are their uses?

They are used for elections and ceremonial purposes.

Local elections in the City of London are the last in the country where there's still a "business vote", although it's even more complicated than it was before now.
Not a very democratic setup really...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And some early predictions by me... these are subject to change as always...

Barking & Dagenham: Labour will keep their majority. BNP will make gains in Barking, but it's still uncertain how many.
 
Barnet: Tories should hang onto their majority, but it's far from certain.

Bexley: One of the few decent administrations in London is going to lose. No question about it, sadly.

Brent: exactly what'll happen here is uncertain, but I can't see Labour keeping their majority.

Bromley: Guess

Camden: Uncertain. Labour will be largest party though.

Croydon: If the Tories can't gain this, they should give up and die.

Ealing: Labour should keep their majority here, although it could be tight-ish.

Enfield: Tories should keep their majority, but don't be suprised if Labour makes gains in the wards that make up Enfield North.

Hackney: Jules Pipe will be re-elected as Mayor. Labour will keep majority on council, but voting patterns in some areas will be as bizzare as ever. Hopefully no fraud this time.

Hammersmith & Fulham: See my comments above. God I hate gentrification...

Haringey: Close, but Labour should keep their majority. Will be interesting to see if the Tories can steal Highgate back off the Liberals.

Harrow: Uncertain. Could go Labour, could go Tory, could stay with no majority party. Liberals didn't make an almightly f*** up with their nominations this time round.

Havering: Uncertain, very uncertain. The Residents Association is in deep trouble, Labour think they can make gains, various far right parties are sniffing around, and this is *exactly* the sort of place that hasn't warmed to Cameron. At all.

Hillingdon: also uncertain. Quite a few seats could flip on all sides.

Hounslow: Labour should keep their majority, but if any borough has wacky politics, it's this one...

Islington: LibDems* to keep majority, but the exact composition of the council is far from certain. Islington does have a nasty habit of a lot of se

Kensington & Chelsea: Guess...

Lambeth: Uncertain, quite a few wards to flip allover the place.

Lewisham: Labour hold Mayoral election, will keep majority on council.

Merton: Tories should gain a majority, although it's not certain yet.

Newham: Sir Robin Wales will be re-elected as Mayor, Labour will easily hold a majority on the council (and it will be the biggest in London).

Redbridge: Tories should keep majority... but see Havering for Cameron. BNP will probably win one of the Hainault seats.

Richmond: ...and if there's one place where Cameron should help the Tories...

Southwark: See Lambeth. Labour is likely to make some gains in the north of the borough, but fall back in the south.

Sutton: Liberal majority is surely too big to fall?

Tower Hamlets: Is uncertain. Very uncertain. Labour should remain the largest party and as such will still end up running the council, majority or not. But which parties win how many seats and where they win them is completely up in the air...

Waltham Forest: It's unlikely that Labour can regain their majority, although they should try to...

Wandsworth: Tories to win by usual landslide. Unlike Westminster, their social engineering was legal, if morally dubious. Worked though.

City of Westminster: Chances are that not a single seat will change hands. Unlike in Wandsworth, the social engineering here ("Building Stable Communities"/Portermandering) was illegal and it wasn't so much morally dubious as worthy of burning in Hell over. Worked though.

*Unlike most places it is innacurate to refer to the Islington LibDems as Liberals.

[Voice from the South West]

Well as I was the first person to enter the competition I wasn't sure whether or not they wanted the reasons why. Anyhow here goes;

Barnet (Con) - Despite their best efforts, Conservatives will probably retain control on the back of the national tide.

Barking and Dagenham (Lab) - Probable BNP gains, Labour to hold on though

Bexley (Con) - Easy Conservative gain. Al's "give up and die" comment applies here if the Tories fail

Brent (NOC) - Labour seem certain to lose their overall majority from what everyone's been saying, I don't know how well the Lib Dems will do outside Brent East however (or in the Tory wards in Brent East for that matter)

Bromley (Con) - Tories to romp home. Lib Dems look set to further decline

Camden (NOC) - Labour looks set to be hit by a pincer movement of Greens, Tories and Lib Dems, however looks extremely unlikely that any of those three will be the largest party.

Croydon (Con) - Unhelpful demographic changes have undermined the Tories and if Labour do hold on it will be because of them. Not this time however.

Ealing (Lab) - Labour majority too large for them to lose outright control. If they do lose then Labour are heading for a rout.

Enfield (Con) - Easy Tory hold

Greenwich (Lab) - Labour too strong to lose here.

Hammersmith & Fulham (Con) - Easy Conservative gain; "give up and die" comment applies here too. I wonder whether this will be the last time Labour will ever control this council due to the gentrification?

Hackney (Lab) - Can't see Labour losing control of either the council or the mayoralty.

Harrow (Con) - Probable Conservative gain. Despite fielding a full slate of candidates I'd be surprised after the body-blow of 2002 that the Lib Dems would be strong enough to become a major force on the council.

Havering (Con) - I don't know why I put this down as a Tory gain on PB.com. I suppose I wouldn't be shocked if the Tories did gain control, but on the other hand NOC remains the likeliest outcome. I will remain optimistic and retain the Conservative gain prediction.

Hounslow (Lab) - Like Ealing, if Labour did lose control then it would probably be a disastrous evening for the party.

Hillingdon (Con) - Tories should have done enough to win outright control, but not certain.

Haringey (Lab) - Narrow Labour hold, Libs to sweep Hornsey but Labour strength in Tottenham will probably be enough for them to retain outright control. If the Tories win a couple of their target seats (unlikely IMO) then NOC would be a distinct possibility.

Islington (Lib Dem) - Easy Lib Dem hold/landslide.

Kensington (Con) - Easy Tory hold/landslide, might pick up one of the Labour seats in the north (St. Charles I think) other than that will probably be the most boring result of the night.

Kingston (Lib Dem) - Too much for the Tories to win outright control in one go I think, though IIRC Kingston has had one of the largest council tax rises in London which I can't imagine has gone down well at all.

Lewisham (Lab) - Labour to retain control of the Mayoralty and the council. I don't really see the Liberals having the big breakthrough in Lewisham that some of their more excitable posters on PB.com seem to think.

Lambeth (NOC) - Tories to win a full slate in Clapham Town? Lots of seat churning, NOC in the end most likely result.

Merton (Con) - Probable Tory gain.

Newham (Lab) - If Labour lost this... Respect might make a gain or two, but Labour would romp home even if they lost every single borough.

Redbridge (Con) - Tory hold.

Richmond (Con) - Maybe I'm being far too optimistic, but Cameron must surely go down well here, and so must his greenie message as well. If we do hold, it will be narrowly.

Sutton (Lib Dem) - Tories likely to make sizeable gains, however the Lib's majority is probably too big to overhaul in one go. If the Lib Dems did lose Sutton then Kingston will probably have gone with it.

Southwark (NOC) - Similar to Lambeth I would guess with plenty of seat churning but not enough either for Labour or the Lib Dems to gain outright control. Though after 'Tessa-gate' the Libs are probably more likely than Labour to win a majority.

Tower Hamlets (NOC) - Like Camden Labour will probably be hit by a pincer movement, though this time from Respect and the Tories due to gentrification around the dock-lands area. Don't know about Lib Dems and the Greens, in any case NOC a very strong possibility.

Westminster (Con) - Actually probably more boring than K&C, the greatest chance of no seats changing hands at all.

Wandsworth (Con) - Labour could probably lose even more seats. I suspect the Tory landslides at local level will in coming general elections start to have an even greater effect on the Parliamentary seats, for example I wouldn't be too shocked if Labour lost Tooting at the next GE.

Waltham Forest (NOC) - Tories sweep Chingford, Lib Dems and Labour churn seats in the south, net result: NOC.

Totals:

Lab – 8
Con – 15
Lib Dem – 3
NOC - 6

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I wonder whether this will be the last time Labour will ever control this council due to the gentrification?

That depends what the Tories do when they gain control; if they pull a Wandsworth, then it's possible (I don't think anyone would get away with pulling a "Building Stable Communities" con trick though, mind you the circumstances were very different), if not, then it'll presumably flip back in good local election years for Labour, although not by large margins.

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Now, the old ward bounaries would be a different story. Not one would be at all likely to switch. Elections did get rather ritualistic after a while...

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The LibDems have been predicting major breakthroughs in Lewisham borough elections since the year dot. Their mayoral candidate this time is a carpet-bagger (LibDem candidate for the Orpington constituency in '97, '01 and '05) who nearly fell foul of the "residency etc" requirements...

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Ah, but what about the outing (and so on) of Hughes as a nasty hypocrite? The two things will balance out IMO (also note that Labour did well in the two northern seats in Southwark in 2005).

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For a pincer movement to work, the people doing it need to be on the same side... and they aren't in Tower Hamlets. The current pattern in Tower Hamlets works like this...
"LibDems" win the votes of the white racists (and have done since the late '70's), Respect wins the votes of the Bangladeshi racists (many of which voted Tory from '97 until 2004 or so), Tories win the Yuppy vote... and most people who aren't any of the above vote Labour. To confuse things further, the LibDems also started to milk the Bangladeshi vote in Bethnal Green a few years ago. The surreal thing is that while Labour can expect losses in many largely Bangladeshi wards, they've a very good chance of making some gains in other places.
It's all a bit of a mess really.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Map showing where far-right candidates are running... note that in no ward are the three parties actually running against each other...



The darkest shade means three candidates, the lightest one. Inbetween means two.

[Jake]

What is the makeup of the Barking and Dagenham Council currently?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

What is the makeup of the Barking and Dagenham Council currently?

Lab 43, Con 3, Lib 3, Res. 2

Labour have been the largest party in the area since about 1066 or so, and that's not going to change.
BNP had a counciller for a few months following a local by-election (Goresbrook ward) in which they polled 51% of the vote, but lost it quite heavily a few months later when the counciller in question resigned. One of the BNP's target wards is home to the council's three LibDems.

2005 general election results:

Barking: Lab 47.8%, Con 17.1%, BNP 17%, Lib 11.1%, UKIP 2.8%, Grn 2.1%, Ind 1.8%, WRP 0.2%
Dagenham: Lab 50.1%, Con 25.4%, Lib 10.1%, BNP 9.3%, UKIP 5.1%

The BNP were expected (by just about everyone) to take at least 25% in Barking.

[Hatman 🍁]

There are Wards in the City of London? What are their uses?

They are used for elections and ceremonial purposes.

Local elections in the City of London are the last in the country where there's still a "business vote", although it's even more complicated than it was before now.
Not a very democratic setup really...

Sounds interesting. I take it there are no parties? Are the citizens upset about their lack of being able to vote? I would like to know more about this.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

A poll for the Sunday Mirror shows that... aha... wait... they've changed their article... wait a sec...

The Sunday Mirror has published what looks to be the usual dodgy newspaper straw poll (no pollster has been credited which is usually a strong indication of that) that shows the BNP polling 45% in what are described as "three key wards" in Barking & Dagenham (sensationalist reporting in the article has led to reports that they are polling 45% across the borough, which would actually be impossible). It does not mention what the MoE is or who the pollster is (the latter indicates that it's a case of the paper doing a strawpoll; in which case you might as well ignore it)... and doesn't even name the wards.
One will be Goresbrook o/c.

Weirder still... they did the same for "three target wards" in Bradford (yeah, breaking my own rules here, I know...) and came up with a figure of 7%. Which they claim shows that the BNP are making progress there, as they only polled 4% across the city in the General Election, failing to mention the fact that the BNP polled 7% across the city in the 2004 local elections (which were all outs as well; in most wards they just ran one candidate out of a possible three). If this poll is accurate and they are only polling 7% in "target wards", then they have collapsed, rather than made progress, in Bradford.
They also add that they are polling 13% in Keighley West. If only...

SENSATIONALIST JOURNALISM = ****
In other words, this is probably a straw poll, the findings look strange, they've not released enough information on the poll... so it's probably a load of complete ****.

[Harry Hayfield]

This is why when I report polls, I use this method:

Polling Organisation: Unknown
Size of sample: 496
Date of sample: April 20th and 21st

Polling Figures (from three key wards not mentioned)
BNP 45.5%
Lab 36.3%
Con 12.7%
LDm 4.5%
BNP lead of 9.2%

Now, from what I can guess about Barking and Dagenham, I would assume that those three "key wards" are wards where in 2002 the BNP polled second, but there were no BNP candidates in any of the wards in 2002, so let's look at by-elections since 2002.

Valence Ward (July 15th 2004) BNP second place
Goresbrook Ward (September 16th 2004) BNP elected and (June 23rd 2005) BNP second place
Village Ward (October 7th 2004) BNP second place
Becontree Ward (July 14th 2005) BNP second place

Therefore I think we can assume that the three wards were Goresbrook, Valance and Village wards. And looking at the turnout in the by-elections we can calculate an electorate of (7143 + 6940 + 6579 = 20,662) so this sample is 2.4% of the total electorate.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I take it there are no parties?

No there aren't, although I think some Common Councilmen (I think that's the official title; it's all very mediaeval, literally) have been members of political parties in the past, but all races there are non-partisan.

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They can vote, it's just that there votes don't matter much.

And no idea; there's only about 10,000 (I forget the exact number) of them anyway (an odd mix of lawyers, NHS workers, people living in the Barbican, and people living in the Peabody flats et al in Portsoken).

In the early 19th century close to (or over?) 100,000 people lived in the square mile, btw. Down to about 5,000 in the middle of the twentieth century.

The system was changed a little bit a few years ago; I think the largest companies in the City hand out votes to their shareholders or something weird like that.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Slightly off topic; There's a rumour flying round that Ken Livingstone might run in Bethnal Green & Bow next General Election (or in a by-election...).