U.K General Election 2005

[Peter]

These are my projections (made shortly before Hartlepool) for the election:

UK Totals

Seats to change hands

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Any ideas for the top 10 seats to watch?

Shrewsbury & Atcham has to be on the list methinks.

[Peter]

Here's a few:

Rochdale (Cyril Smith's {LD} old seat - they've got be dying to get it back from Labour)
Falmouth & Cambourne (Labour hold it but this is a true 3-way)
Colne Valley (God only knows what will happen here - another 3-way - LDs have a good chance)
West Dorset (Because Letwin will lose)
Thanet South (Strong UKIP presence - could go anywhere)
Boston & Skegness (UKIP/Lab/Con 3-way marginal - probably where Kilroy will stand)
Shrewsbury & Atcham (Seat of the defector - the LDs might just get the swing - could be fun)
Guildford (LD/Con marginal - I know the Tory candidate, so I'll be watching anyway)
Sunderland South - Will they beat their record for declaration of 43 minutes

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Here's a few:

Rochdale (Cyril Smith's {LD} old seat - they've got be dying to get it back from Labour)
Falmouth & Cambourne (Labour hold it but this is a true 3-way)
Colne Valley (God only knows what will happen here - another 3-way - LDs have a good chance)
West Dorset (Because Letwin will lose)
Thanet South (Strong UKIP presence - could go anywhere)
Boston & Skegness (UKIP/Lab/Con 3-way marginal - probably where Kilroy will stand)
Shrewsbury & Atcham (Seat of the defector - the LDs might just get the swing - could be fun)
Guildford (LD/Con marginal - I know the Tory candidate, so I'll be watching anyway)
Sunderland South - Will they beat their record for declaration of 43 minutes

Brent East will be interesting as well... "The Hamster" won because of the Muslim vote going en bloc to her.
The Labour candidate this time round is Muslim...

[minionofmidas]

Here's a few:

Rochdale (Cyril Smith's {LD} old seat - they've got be dying to get it back from Labour)

Rochdale LD's look finished to me...it's not like Rochdale were natural LD territory, either.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Rochdale is a bit of an enigma... I'll have to have a look at old and/or local election results.

[Democratic Hawk]

These are my projections (made shortly before Hartlepool) for the election:

UK Totals

Seats to change hands

I guessed at a Labour majority of between 70 and 100, but I think your analysis will be closer to the mark.

Dave

[cwelsch]

"it needs regulating"

Possibly the three most demeaning words in the entire lexicon of political vocabulary.  That mentality, to be perfectly blunt, is why I can never move to Britain or Europe.  So they put out bad polls, who cares?  Don't read them.

[Silent Hunter]

Good analysis.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Good analysis.

Just curious, but what seat are you in?

[Silent Hunter]

I won't ID my specific seat, but it's currently Labour controlled and it's likely to go back to the Conservatives.

Seats to watch in London: Bow and Bethnal Green or Poplar and Canning Town. Galloway may well attempt a run in either of these seats. Large minority population with both MPs voting for the Iraq war.

[minionofmidas]

it's currently Labour controlled and i likely to go back to the Conservatives.

Contradiction in terms.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

New NOP/Independent poll:

Lab 36, Con 34, LD 21, UKIP 4

NOP guestimates a solid Labour majority: 84 seats

LibDems are on 27% with women, but only 17% with men.
Tories lead the "Grey Vote".

[TheCommentator]

The Cons and LDs should form a coalition.

[Keystone Phil]

New NOP/Independent poll:

Lab 36, Con 34, LD 21, UKIP 4

NOP guestimates a solid Labour majority: 84 seats

See this is what I don't get. I have been told by many Brits that the Conservatives have no chance in taking back Parliament yet this poll shows them only 2% down. Is it for a specific seat? What am I missing?

[Tory]

New NOP/Independent poll:

Lab 36, Con 34, LD 21, UKIP 4

NOP guestimates a solid Labour majority: 84 seats

See this is what I don't get. I have been told by many Brits that the Conservatives have no chance in taking back Parliament yet this poll shows them only 2% down. Is it for a specific seat? What am I missing?

As I mentioned previously, if the election were to turn out like this:
Con %38
Lab %34
LD %21
UKIP %4

Then the conservatives would still not win. Imagine that the House of Commons was the U.S. Senate. Now combine (ND, SD, NE, KS, OK) and then (UT, CO, and ID), and then combine the Southeast into one state. Now divide New England into about 85 states. That is the U.K. House of Commons.

Gerrymandering to the extreme.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

New NOP/Independent poll:

Lab 36, Con 34, LD 21, UKIP 4

NOP guestimates a solid Labour majority: 84 seats

See this is what I don't get. I have been told by many Brits that the Conservatives have no chance in taking back Parliament yet this poll shows them only 2% down. Is it for a specific seat? What am I missing?

Okaaaay...
This is how the U.K electoral system works:
The House of Commons is in effect a 650 odd (I always forget the exact number) strong House of Representatives.
People in each constituency vote for an M.P (ie: a Congressman). If a party wins a majority of seats in the Commons, the leader of that party becomes Prime Minister.
Popular vote numbers are about as useless as they are in U.S Presidential elections; in 1929, 1951 and 1974-feburary the party which came second in total votes cast won the most seats (Labour in '29, the Tories in '51 and Labour in '74f).

Labour's apparent in-built advantage stems from the fact that Labour voters (who tend to be low income/blue collar types) are much less likely to vote than supporters of other parties.
As a result Labour needs less votes to win a seat than the other main parties (I call this "latent voting") and appears to have an unfair advantage (on the other hand, I think it's equally unfair to give rich areas more political clout than poor areas).

Electoral boundaries are decided by a non-partisan committee, gerrymandering happens when representatives from various interest groups try to influence the Commisions findings (there are several public consulatations). This isn't a major problem at national level (but is a serious problem for local council wards; as an example the Tories won control over Trafford MBC because the Local commision adopted a blatently gerrymandered ward map).
Malapportionment (ie: giving an area waaaaay more seats than it's population should allow under a quota system) is a major problem in Scotland, but this won't be the case next election as the number of Scottish seats is to be drastically reduced.

[minionofmidas]

It's also true in Wales. It's also true, to a much lesser extent, in many urban areas. New growth areas are often quite heavily underrepresented. Basically, the Election Commission's position seems to be "In case of doubt, don't create a new seat/abolish an old one", and the unbalance goes uncorrected till the next round of redistricting. By which time, it's become a whole lot worse.
Otherwise, Al's right.

The distribution of the parties' votership is currently very favourable to Labour. As a result, taking a result like the one from that poll (and all UK polls are junk polls, that's the  bit Phil's missing) and assuming a uniform national swing gets you a grotesquely Labourite result. But, there's really no reason to believe that such a swing would occur uniformly.

Edit - Wales, like Scotland, has undersize constituencies. It does not have low turnout to boot, though.

[Peter]

I have analysed the UK by region, here are the results from 2001:

Region	Ave. Electorate	Turnout
South East	72,642	61.6%
London	67,574	55.2%
South West	74,231	64.9%
Eastern	72,922	61.7%
East Midlands	73,005	60.8%
Yorkshire	67,117	56.8%
North East	64,797	56.4%
North West	68,271	55.9%
Scotland	55,326	58.1%
Wales	55,904	61.4%

Note: Under 2005 electoral arrangements, Scotland's average electorate will be 67,517.

To see the breakdown of seats for the regions go here

The four regions in which the Conservatives do well (SE, SW, Eastern, East Mids) all have the highest average electorate and also have amongst the highest turnouts. Whereas, Labour heartlands like the NE and Scotland have lower turnoiuts and smaller constituencies, thus allowing more MPs to be elected.

The Boundary Commission only ever changes the constituency map once every ten years (last change was before 97, so we should get one by the 2009 election). The only reason it did so this time for Scotland was because an Act of Parliament ordered it to.

[Peter]

ICM/Sunday Telegraph Poll:

Labour 39
Conservative 30
Lib Dem 23

Guestimated majority of 154 (it will never be that large - tactical voting in certain constituencies will make sure of it)

Who do you trust the most?

Blair - 29
Kennedy - 25
Howard - 24

Did Blair deliberately deceive over Iraq intel?

Yes - 46
No - 45

Who do you trust the most to do what they say?

Labour - 31
Lib Dem -22
Conervative - 22 (considering they promised to do nothing, things can't get much worse)

[Silent Hunter]

The Boundary Commission are altering the England and Wales boundaries for the election after next, Scotland for this one.

Scotland's losing 13 seats because of devolution- it's no longer guaranteed 72 seats. Result, the better named Glasgow constituencies like Springburn and Govan are becoming new seats like Glasgow Central and Glasgow East. Reid and Brown have to find new seats as does George 'I salute your courage' Galloway, the only Respect MP. Glasgow isn't renowned for it's ethnic diversity hence the guy's going to try and grab an East End seat. Labour haven't lost a seat there since '45.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Edit - Wales, like Scotland, has undersize constituencies. It does not have low turnout to boot, though.

The most underpopulated seat in Wales is Merionnydd Nant Conwy (c.33,000 voters).
The Electoral Commision is (finally) going to get rid of it from what I hear...

[WMS]

Your Electoral Commission still kicks the cr*p out of the legislative redistricting we have here...

[Peter]

Your Electoral Commission still kicks the cr*p out of the legislative redistricting we have here...

Its not a difficult hurdle to clear.

On a related note:
The boundary changes in Scotland have not rid us of the Western Isles as a single constituency with its tiny electorate of 20,000

[WMS]

Your Electoral Commission still kicks the cr*p out of the legislative redistricting we have here...

Its not a difficult hurdle to clear.

On a related note:
The boundary changes in Scotland have not rid us of the Western Isles as a single constituency with its tiny electorate of 20,000

Indeed, it's like jumping over a 1-foot garden fence...

Hmm, I wonder why that tiny constituency is there...