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Nobody can win in West Yorkshire

West Yorkshire is unusual in having evolved a multi-party system in local elections. This is unusual under first past the post elections, as there is pressure on the voters to choose between two alternatives, in order to provide one party with an overall majority.

Four out of five Metropolitan borough councils, Leeds, Bradford, Kirklees and Calderdale, are now under No Overall Control. What’s more, there is little prospect of that changing in future elections. In addition to the three main parties, both the Greens, and the British National Party, with ten and eight councillors respectively, have substantial support in this part of the Country, and can expect to win additional seats in future elections. Making an overall majority even harder to obtain is the fact that Independent candidates also poll well here, holding sixteen council seats in these five boroughs. Local politicians, who are used to winning power outright, or losing it, must now get used to working in coalitions with parties with whom they may have little in common.

It is likely that West Yorkshire, with its support for parties outside of the mainstream, and its coalitions, represents a growing trend in this country. It was striking that last night, Independent candidates were able to defeat the Labour machine in the Blaenau Gwent by-elections. At the same time, in Bromley and Chislehurst, minor party candidates won sixteen per cent of the vote, and one of them, Nigel Farage of UKIP, even beat the Labour candidate into fourth place.

Last night’s local by-elections produced nothing like the degree of excitement generated by the Parliamentary by-elections. However, there was a strong swing to the Liberal Democrats in Canterbury, and quite strong performances by the British National Party in four seats they were contesting for the first time.

Canterbury CC - Sturry South: C 474, Lib Dem 318, Lab 89, Ind 24. Con Hold.

East Staffordshire BC - Shobnall: Lab 581, C 441, BNP 291, Lib Dem 102. Labour hold.

Epsom and Ewell BC - Ruxley: Residents 313, C 292, Lab 152, Lib Dem 66, UKIP 42. Residents’ Hold.

Lincoln CC - Moorland: C 640, Lab 569, BNP 254, Lib Dem 96, Ukip 46. Con Hold.

Tameside MBC - Denton South: Lab 900, C 346, BNP 316, Lib Dem 115, Green 47. Lab Hold.

Tameside MBC - Stalybridge North: Lab 773, C 427, BNP 283, Green 137, Lib Dem 75. Lab hold.

Wealden District - Uckfield DC: Lib Dem 381, C 211, Green 60. Lib Dem hold.

Sean Fear, a Tory activist, writes a regular column on local elections.

History shows the challenge facing the Tories

RodCrosby has done an analysis of by-elections swings, and the Swing-Back to governments’since the War.

Using the Butler swing between Labour and Conservative, the Swing-Back is defined as the difference between the average swing to the Opposition in by-elections and the swing to the Opposition at the subsequent General Election.

So, for example the average Butler swing from Labour to the Tories in by-elections 2001-2005 was 7.9%. The swing the Tories obtained in the General Election was 3.1%. Thus the Swing-Back to Labour in 2005 was 4.8%. For John Major’s last term the equivalent figures were 13.6% and 10.2% - a Swing-Back of 3.4% to the Tories.

The remarkable feature of this graph is that the Swing-Back to government has been highly consistent since at least 1974, irrespective of party in power, government term, parliament length, number of by-elections, turnout, and the relative strength of the Liberals in either by-elections or General Elections.

It has ranged between 3% and 5% with a very stable average of almost exactly 4%. It thus has all the appearance of an “Iron Law.”

So, if we subtract 4% from the average by-election swing to the Tories by the end of this parliament, we might have an excellent prediction of the General Election swing to within plus or minus 1%.

In other words, it would seem that for the Tories to be on course for an overall majority - requiring a swing of about 7% at the next General Election - their by-election average swing would need to be of the order of 10%-12%, to allow for the historical expected 4% Swing-Back to Labour.

After Bromley (to be fair to the Tories we should ignore Blaenau), the average by-election swing currently stands at 3.9% - low by any standards.

The Swing-back rule implies that if Tony Blair went to the country tomorrow, we would expect - so far as the Labour and Tories are concerned - a near-exact re-run of 2005, within the range of a 1% swing either way. Depending on the boundaries and the operation of the electoral system, Labour would seem quite confident of a 4th term with the Tories not even competitive.

We are now into the second year of this parliament, and of course things may yet improve for the Tories.

But, assuming this parliament runs to a full term, the Tories really need to be recording swings sometime, someplace in the range of 15-20%+ to bring their average up to a level where they seriously threaten Labour for power.

Failing which, despite all the understandable hype and interest in the current Tory leader, historical precedent unswervingly suggests that he will barely dent the Labour majority in 2009…..

RodCrosby is a regular contributor to PB.C discussions

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I have no idea how this is calculated but apparently nine people in every million web users world-wide have been here today….and I thought it was just Andrea!

Thanks to everybody for their support.

Mike Smithson

New poll shows Ming’s party continuing to recover

The second YouGov poll in the Daily Telegraph in a week has the following shares with comparisons on the poll published on Monday - CON 39 (nc): LAB 33 (+1): LD 18 (+1).

It really is rather odd that the paper feels it necessary to commission two polls from the same pollster in less than a week and then to publish it on the morning of the by-election news. What’s the Telegraph up to?

Comparing this survey with the YouGov poll in May the Lib Dems are two points ahead reflecting a positive response, perhaps, to the more positive policy announcements that we have seen in recent weeks.

What’s been surprising is how much coverage the party has been getting for it’s annoucements on issues such tax links with green issues and the opposition to nuclear power. Normally the Lib Dems find it very hard getting noticed on policy matters. My understanding is that the Ming Campbell leadership has instituted big changes in this area of the party and the results are beginning to show.

After his Bromley bruising overnight there’s some encouragement for David Cameron in the poll. To the “Who would make the best Prime Minister” question he polled 30% to Blair’s 28%. According to the Telegraph Cameron is the first of five successive Tory leaders to achieve a higher rating than Labour on this point. Ming Campbell’s figure of 6% compares with the 18% that Charles Kennedy was recording at the General Election.

So the Lib Dems seem to prosper in spite of what people are telling pollsters about their leader.

YouGov provides little comfort this morning for the Chancellor reinforcing what we have seen in other surveys from a range of pollsters that Labour will fare worse at the General Election under Brown.

A total of 16% in the sample said that Labour led by Brown would make them more likely to vote Labour against 22% who said it would them less likely. The respondents divided by 24-23 over whether Brown would do better than Blair.

As I have repeatedly said here Brown needs some better polling numbers on him personally before he can be absolutely certain of taking the leadership. In my judgement Labour will not elect some who is seen to be a loser.

Mike Smithson