Kantar/TNS/BMRB

[Deleted]

well yes and before some smart arse says it I know Witney had a labour MP for a short while

[erlend]

They never lost it although terminologically they could be said to have had it stolen from them.

[East Anglian Lefty]

Oct 16, 2013 11:57:35 GMT carlton43 said:

Oct 16, 2013 11:45:55 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

Without Scotland, Labour would have had 314 out 587 seats in 2005, a majority of 41. Granted, there are a fair few seats we won that year that don't look likely to fall in 2015 (the north Kent marginals being the best examples), but there are also a smaller number of seats which we lost that year (mostly over Iraq and fees) where we're more likely than not to win in 2015.

So even without Scotland, the evidence suggests a 3% lead (on the UK's current boundaries) would allow us to get a narrow majority or to be so close to it as to be a necessary part of any viable coalition. That's more difficult than what we need now, but not very difficult.

Indeed, there's even an argument that our vote distribution has got even more efficient since 2005, since in that year we were still getting 27% of the vote in places like Bury St Edmunds, whereas in 2015 I'd not be surprised to see us perform risibly in 90% of the seats where we don't expect to win.

Tell me. Why is it 'Labour Vote Efficiency' in the South and West but 'Utter Collapse of Tory Support in the Urban North'?

Because we can still win enough southern seats in an even year to cobble together a working majority in an average year, whereas the Tories fell twenty seats short even with a 7% popular vote lead. It will be utter collapse if we stop being in contention in places like Norwich, and if support is similarly distributed in forty years then the changing distribution of constituencies will put us in all manner of trouble. But for now the distribution works in our favour, whereas it very definitely does not for the Tories.

[Deleted]

You probably aren't going to distribute quite as well as you did in 1997-2010 as you will stack too high in the north and possibly Scotland.

[East Anglian Lefty]

That makes very little sense from my standpoint. From 1997 to 2005 we stacked up votes in the north and Scotland. Even if we do it again, lower turnout in safe Labour areas is still going to make our distribution more efficient than the Tories have in their safe seats. Meanwhile we'll almost certainly do worse in safe Tory seats than we did in 1997 and 2001, even in the unlikely event of us romping home by a double digit margin.

It's quite likely that our distribution will be less efficient than in 2010, but that's because the higher your vote gets the less efficient the distribution normally is. That's not a bad thing in of itself - an efficient vote distribution makes it easier to win, but it won't win you votes on its own.

[erlend]

I would guess that safe Labour seats probably had particularly bad turnouts in 2010. I guess that will recover a bit better than average while remaining below average.

[The Bishop]

This month's poll - Lab 38(up 2) Con 30(down 4) UKIP 12(down 1) LibDem 8(down 1)

[Deleted]

been a while

#BritainElects @britainelects
National Opinion Poll (TNS-BRMB):
LAB- 35% (-2)
CON - 29% (+5)
UKIP - 23% (+4)
LDEM - 6% (-4)
OTH - 7% (-3)

[Sibboleth]

lol

[The Bishop]

Looks like this lot have reverted to monthly surveys - latest poll shows Lab 36 Con 29 UKIP 19 LibDem 7.

[The Bishop]

One of these slipped out yesterday - Lab 31 Con 30 UKIP 19 LibDem 6 Green 6.

[Pimpernal]

Dec 3, 2014 14:24:36 GMT The Bishop said:

One of these slipped out yesterday - Lab 31 Con 30 UKIP 19 LibDem 6 Green 6.

Amazed Mike Smithson didn't make a big issue of this one - maybe it didn't conform to any of his themes - ie Lab in trouble / UKIP fading / ignore the Greens snapping at Lib Dem heels...

[The Bishop]

Think you are slightly unfair on Smithson there, tbh.

Though I wonder how he will report today's poll from this organisation - Lab 35 Con 28 UKIP 19 Green 7 LibDem 5

[Deleted]

More Anthony Wells.. less Smithson.

[Pimpernal]

Dec 19, 2014 11:34:54 GMT The Bishop said:

Think you are slightly unfair on Smithson there, tbh.

Though I wonder how he will report today's poll from this organisation - Lab 35 Con 28 UKIP 19 Green 7 LibDem 5

Apart from blandly tweeting the figures, his tweets have been about how Labour isn't organised enough to prepare for UKIP in its heartlands, and the latest PB blog is about how much the public love coalitions...

[Devonian]

Lab 35% (nc)
Con 28% (nc)
UKIP 18% (-1)
L Dem 6% (+1)
Green 5% (-2)

[The Bishop]

Latest figures out yesterday - Con 31 Lab 31 UKIP 16 LibDem 8 Green 7.

Two things worth noting here - the significant changes since the last poll are partly explainable by a change of methodology; weighting is now by European election voting last year as well as the 2010 GE (there seems general agreement that this will usually be less Labour-friendly) And the speed of this survey after the last one suggests they are resuming regular polling in the run-up to May - meaning the thread title is no longer redundant

[Sibboleth]

But most people did not vote in the European Elections.

[The Bishop]

Jan 23, 2015 16:01:03 GMT Sibboleth said:

But most people did not vote in the European Elections.

Well yes, that thought did occur to me also

[tonygreaves]

Perhaps "most people" will not vote in the GE.

Tony