Exeter

[Admin Twaddleford]

Lab majority
Elects by thirds
Current composition: Lab 29, Con 6, LD 2, Grn 1, Oth 1

[mrpastelito]

Early prediction:

Lab 27 (-2)
Con 6 (-)
LD 3 (+1, gain Duryard & St James)
Grn 2 (+1, gain St Davids)
Oth 1

Lab hold

[casualobserver]

Amused to see that someone has voted in the thread poll for a LAB loss to NOC here. Since Labour are defending “only” ten of the thirteen seats up for grabs next May, there’d need to be a complete wipeout of all Labour candidates next May for the Labour Party to be one vote short of overall control of the Council!

Much though I may hope that our lone predictor is correct, I must admit that the chances are astonishingly against it.

[andrewp]

The vote distribution in Exeter is very nice for Labour. In May they won 8/13 wards but only got over 50% in one ward. There are several wards that are Labour 40-45%, Everybody else 15-20% each.

Pinhoe was a Labour gain from the Conservatives by 15 last year, so there must be at least a chance of a Conservative gain there in addition to the early prediction up thread.

[mrpastelito]

Jan 19, 2020 19:49:04 GMT andrewp said:

The vote distribution in Exeter is very nice for Labour. In May they won 8/13 wards but only got over 50% in one ward. There are several wards that are Labour 40-45%, Everybody else 15-20% each.

Pinhoe was a Labour gain from the Conservatives by 15 last year, so there must be at least a chance of a Conservative gain there in addition to the early prediction up thread.

Might depend on whether Cynthia Thompson tries to regain her seat or not.

[David Boothroyd]

Greens and Lib Dems agree a stand-down electoral pact: www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/greens-liberal-democrats-agree-exeter-3856360

[European Lefty]

Feb 17, 2020 14:51:42 GMT David Boothroyd said:

Greens and Lib Dems agree a stand-down electoral pact: www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/greens-liberal-democrats-agree-exeter-3856360

Can the two parties please just formally merge already?

[lackeroftalent]

Feb 17, 2020 16:39:15 GMT European Lefty said:

Feb 17, 2020 14:51:42 GMT David Boothroyd said:

Greens and Lib Dems agree a stand-down electoral pact: www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/greens-liberal-democrats-agree-exeter-3856360

Can the two parties please just formally merge already?

And why would we do that?

The whole reason for electoral pacts like this is to try and overcome the FPTP system and is precisely because we don't think that a big broad party is the way to go.

Given the experience of the last couple of years in the Conservative and Labour Parties trying to hold together groups with widely divergent views I will remain a Green thank you.

[pl]

Feb 17, 2020 16:39:15 GMT European Lefty said:

Feb 17, 2020 14:51:42 GMT David Boothroyd said:

Greens and Lib Dems agree a stand-down electoral pact: www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/greens-liberal-democrats-agree-exeter-3856360

Can the two parties please just formally merge already?

(Un)fortunately, the LDs don't seem to have got it through their heads that a) you lose voters long term by not giving them the opportunity to vote for you and b) strengthening an opposition party weakens your own. They should know - the original Lib-Lab Pact sowed the seeds of Labour replacing them as the major party of the left. Will history repeat itself?

[tonyhill]

While you could be right, I don't think that something that happened nearly 120 years ago is necessarily a particularly good pointer to what might happen in today's political environment.

[European Lefty]

Feb 17, 2020 17:07:41 GMT lackeroftalent said:

Feb 17, 2020 16:39:15 GMT European Lefty said:

Can the two parties please just formally merge already?

And why would we do that?

The whole reason for electoral pacts like this is to try and overcome the FPTP system and is precisely because we don't think that a big broad party is the way to go.

Given the experience of the last couple of years in the Conservative and Labour Parties trying to hold together groups with widely divergent views I will remain a Green thank you.

Because every time there's an election at the minute, the Greens fall over themselves to allow the LibDems to completely cannibalise their support by telling Green voters to vote LibDem in exchange for the LibDems standing down in a few token seats that neither party will win anyway. They would achieve far more affiliating to the LibDems and maybe at least having some impact on LibDem policy.

[Adam in Stroud]

Feb 17, 2020 17:10:39 GMT pl said:

Feb 17, 2020 16:39:15 GMT European Lefty said:

Can the two parties please just formally merge already?

(Un)fortunately, the LDs don't seem to have got it through their heads that a) you lose voters long term by not giving them the opportunity to vote for you and b) strengthening an opposition party weakens your own. They should know - the original Lib-Lab Pact sowed the seeds of Labour replacing them as the major party of the left. Will history repeat itself?

I think most of us are aware of that, as are the Greens. But it is possible that both parties are unable to find viable candidates across the authority.

Personally I would prefer a merger to these pacts but I think the result would be a slightly more left-wing LD party with a stronger environmental image (not sure there's that much between us on actual environmental policy tbh) and I am not sure that is an attractive option for a lot of Greens.

[greenchristian]

Feb 17, 2020 17:41:09 GMT European Lefty said:

Feb 17, 2020 17:07:41 GMT lackeroftalent said:

And why would we do that?

The whole reason for electoral pacts like this is to try and overcome the FPTP system and is precisely because we don't think that a big broad party is the way to go.

Given the experience of the last couple of years in the Conservative and Labour Parties trying to hold together groups with widely divergent views I will remain a Green thank you.

Because every time there's an election at the minute, the Greens fall over themselves to allow the LibDems to completely cannibalise their support by telling Green voters to vote LibDem in exchange for the LibDems standing down in a few token seats that neither party will win anyway. They would achieve far more affiliating to the LibDems and maybe at least having some impact on LibDem policy.

No we really don't. We had one formal pact on a national level at the last GE that only affected a handful of seats. There are a handful of places where the local parties choose to make this sort of pact. But they are very much the exception, rather than the rule. As for affecting other parties' policies, we seem to be having quite an impact on Labour policy in recent years by being our own separate party (an awful lot of the policies in recent Labour manifestos have clearly been based on previous Green ones). Affiliating to the Lib Dems would arguably decrease our national influence.

Feb 17, 2020 17:48:10 GMT Adam in Stroud said:

Feb 17, 2020 17:10:39 GMT pl said:

(Un)fortunately, the LDs don't seem to have got it through their heads that a) you lose voters long term by not giving them the opportunity to vote for you and b) strengthening an opposition party weakens your own. They should know - the original Lib-Lab Pact sowed the seeds of Labour replacing them as the major party of the left. Will history repeat itself?

I think most of us are aware of that, as are the Greens. But it is possible that both parties are unable to find viable candidates across the authority.

Personally I would prefer a merger to these pacts but I think the result would be a slightly more left-wing LD party with a stronger environmental image (not sure there's that much between us on actual environmental policy tbh) and I am not sure that is an attractive option for a lot of Greens.

Yeah, standing down in favour of another party is more likely to happen in areas where you're not confident of fielding a full slate anyway. If both parties are in that position (even though they were both only one short last year) and think that voters aren't going to view it as a stitch-up, then it would make quite a bit of sense.

And whilst there is a lot of overlap between the right wing of the Greens and the left wing of the Lib Dems, the resulting party would arguably be wider in economic ideology than the big two. There's probably more distance between, say,  me and mboy on economics than there is between David Boothroyd and Merseymike. Yes, the two parties have similar cultures and similar election strategies, and we are arguably quite close on the majority of social issues. But we are a long way from being interchangeable enough to easily form a single party.

[peterski]

Surely there is mileage in a lib dem/green merger. They could call themselves the 'Woke Party'
Think of all the great electioneering slogan opportunities it could offer.
Wake up Britain : vote Woke !
Don't sleepwalk to climate catastrophe: vote Woke !
I almost wouldn't be surprised if someone hasn't already registered the name.

[iang]

Feb 17, 2020 17:10:39 GMT pl said:

Feb 17, 2020 16:39:15 GMT European Lefty said:

Can the two parties please just formally merge already?

(Un)fortunately, the LDs don't seem to have got it through their heads that a) you lose voters long term by not giving them the opportunity to vote for you and b) strengthening an opposition party weakens your own. They should know - the original Lib-Lab Pact sowed the seeds of Labour replacing them as the major party of the left. Will history repeat itself?

I don't think that's true at all. Labour were more affected by the pact - the number of Labour candidates declined in the 1910 elections, and in the few places where three party contests took place regularly (eg Huddersfield, 1906 and both 1910 elections), it's the Labour vote that declined. Same is true of a number of mining seats which elected "Lib-Labs" in 1906. |If you want to look at why the Liberal Party declined and was overtaken by Labour, look more at the impact of WW1 and the division between the Asquith and Lloyd George wings of the party which lasted well into the 1920s 

[Devil Wincarnate]

The danger surely is that, if this kind of thing becomes widespread, the two parties look interchangeable. That creates difficulties for Greens who tout a Derek Wall-type line on one side, and Orange Bookers on the other. It starts to look like one amorphous mass, arbitrarily defined.

Plus, from Greens I know, there are easily as many who would be more comfortable with Labour than the Lib Dems.

[timrollpickering]

Feb 17, 2020 16:39:15 GMT European Lefty said:

Feb 17, 2020 14:51:42 GMT David Boothroyd said:

Greens and Lib Dems agree a stand-down electoral pact: www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/greens-liberal-democrats-agree-exeter-3856360

Can the two parties please just formally merge already?

Perhaps the media rules should be changed so that parties that form explicit pacts (whether partial or whole) should be considered as one entity for the purposes of broadcast allocation and the like. Give the parties an incentive to make distinct offers and prevent alliances from getting two bites of the cherry.

[greenchristian]

Feb 18, 2020 1:46:50 GMT timrollpickering said:

Feb 17, 2020 16:39:15 GMT European Lefty said:

Can the two parties please just formally merge already?

Perhaps the media rules should be changed so that parties that form explicit pacts (whether partial or whole) should be considered as one entity for the purposes of broadcast allocation and the like. Give the parties an incentive to make distinct offers and prevent alliances from getting two bites of the cherry.

Did the Liberal/SDP alliance get given joint or separate broadcasts back in the day? Because electoral pacts back then were a lot more significant than electoral pacts now, where they only ever affect a very tiny proportion of seats.

In any case, a local pact like the one in Exeter should - at most - affect local media coverage in that area. As far as the Greens are concerned the decision will have been made entirely at local level. The only involvement any other part of the Green Party would have had would be if the local party asked for some advice from the regional party. It would be unfair to penalise candidates in other areas of the country who had absolutely nothing to do with the pact in question.

It's also worth noting that Media and broadcast coverage has always been at least in part a function of candidate numbers (e.g. being allowed a party election broadcast is entirely a matter of standing in a certain proportion of seats, though some parties have occasionally been given additional slots on other criteria). Electoral pacts on any significant scale should, therefore, automatically reduce the amount of media time/column inches a party gets in those parts of the media which follow political balance rules during the short campaign period.

[alien8ted]

Feb 17, 2020 19:03:05 GMT peterski said:

Surely there is mileage in a lib dem/green merger. They could call themselves the 'Woke Party'
Think of all the great electioneering slogan opportunities it could offer.
Wake up Britain : vote Woke !
Don't sleepwalk to climate catastrophe: vote Woke !
I almost wouldn't be surprised if someone hasn't already registered the name.

This may have been posted slightly synically but unfortunately for the Liberal Democrats and Greens it does have a ring of truth to it.

👽

[The Bishop]

Feb 18, 2020 2:46:30 GMT greenchristian said:

Did the Liberal/SDP alliance get given joint or separate broadcasts back in the day?

Pretty sure they were treated as a single entity.