Local council by-elections 20th October 2022

[andrewp]

Oct 21, 2022 9:25:51 GMT The Bishop said:

Apart from Fareham, these results are much more what you would expect the Tories to get given current polling.

The Broadland seat is the first seat for a while that has been even better for Labour than the national polling and worse for the Tories.

I posted the below 2 weeks ago. Obviously national polling has got a bit better for Labour and a bit worse for the Tories since then, but if the current national polling were reflected, Broadland would have been a narrow Labour gain and Monmouthshire would have been a Labour gain. 


A note on what would happen if national polls were reflected in local by election results

So taking an average national poll position at each of the 3 baseline sets of local elections of:

2019 Lab 30, Con 27, LD 12
2021 Con 40, Lab 38, LD 7
2022. Lab 41, Con 34, LD 10

And a current polling average of Lab 51, Con 24, LD 9

The uniform swing in local elections would be :

From 2019 contests, Con to Lab swing of 12%, pretty much no swing between Con and LD
From 2021 contests, Con to Lab swing of 15%, Con to LD swing of 9%
From 2022 contests, Con to Lab swing of 10%, Con to LD swing of 4.5%

Extrapolating that to recent results. Last week Labour ‘should’ have gained both Rossendale contests on national polling.
Next week, Labour would gain the Gloucester seat by about 15% if national polling is reflected.
On 20 October, the Conservatives would hold the Broadland seat by about 3% on national polling, and Labour would gain the Monmouthshire seat.

[evergreenadam]

Oct 21, 2022 9:47:25 GMT andrewp said:

Oct 21, 2022 9:25:51 GMT The Bishop said:

Apart from Fareham, these results are much more what you would expect the Tories to get given current polling.

The Broadland seat is the first seat for a while that has been even better for Labour than the national polling and worse for the Tories.

I posted the below 2 weeks ago. Obviously national polling has got a bit better for Labour and a bit worse for the Tories since then, but if the current national polling were reflected, Broadland would have been a narrow Labour gain and Monmouthshire would have been a Labour gain. 


A note on what would happen if national polls were reflected in local by election results

So taking an average national poll position at each of the 3 baseline sets of local elections of:

2019 Lab 30, Con 27, LD 12
2021 Con 40, Lab 38, LD 7
2022. Lab 41, Con 34, LD 10

And a current polling average of Lab 51, Con 24, LD 9

The uniform swing in local elections would be :

From 2019 contests, Con to Lab swing of 12%, pretty much no swing between Con and LD
From 2021 contests, Con to Lab swing of 15%, Con to LD swing of 9%
From 2022 contests, Con to Lab swing of 10%, Con to LD swing of 4.5%

Extrapolating that to recent results. Last week Labour ‘should’ have gained both Rossendale contests on national polling.
Next week, Labour would gain the Gloucester seat by about 15% if national polling is reflected.
On 20 October, the Conservatives would hold the Broadland seat by about 3% on national polling, and Labour would gain the Monmouthshire seat.

My take always from last night’s results:
The Lib Dem gain in Guildford is in Mole Valley constituency which was one of the 37 constituencies recently forecast to be won by the Lib Dems on current polling. Unlike say Esher & Walton and Guildford it has not been thought of as marginal until now.

The Lab gain from Con in Broadland is in Norwich North constituency which is a key marginal where Labour have previously struggled.

[jamesdoyle]

GWBWI

Lab +124
LDm +31
Grn -19
Con -131

Adjusted Seat Value

Lab +2.1
LDm +0.5
Grn -0.3
Con -2.2

Decent score for Cons in Fareham, but wiped out and more by negatives elsewhere, especially Broadlands.
Positive scores for Labour everywhere, but nominally so except Broadland and St Helens
Would have been a really decent week for the LibDems except for Portchester.
Greens lost a seat, but ward history means it's heavily discounted, so scores are meh

[The Bishop]

Still waiting for Khunanup to comment on his local patch....

[andrewp]

Oct 21, 2022 8:41:59 GMT Clark said:

Although Election Calculus (yeah, I know) have Labour gaining Monmouth, they don't have them carrying the Devauden ward in doing so.

A couple of thoughts. It’s interesting that Labour have got 30% in that ward twice this year. It’s basically a ward of nice villages in a nice part of The country. If that ward were in England I don’t think Labour would get 30%. But that might have saved the Tories there. If that ward were in say Herefordshire about 40 miles up the road, Labour would probably get 10% and one of the Lib Dems/ Greens/ Indy’s would challenge the Tories.

Also on electoral calculus, the forecast for my constituency of Taunton Deane is currently LD 18245, Con 17559, Lab 16724. 3 way marginal!

If there were a real election in these national conditions I would expect the result to be more like LD 26000, Con 17500, Lab 9000. I can’t see Lab getting 30% in Taunton. So does that mean that for Labour to be on 50%+ nationally, there are 7000 extra Labour votes from every  Con/ LD contest which will actually be in more useful places for Labour.

[Tony Otim]

Oct 21, 2022 12:38:20 GMT jamesdoyle said:

GWBWI

Lab +124
LDm +31
Grn -19
Con -131

Adjusted Seat Value

Lab +2.1
LDm +0.5
Grn -0.3
Con -2.2

Decent score for Cons in Fareham, but wiped out and more by negatives elsewhere, especially Broadlands.
Positive scores for Labour everywhere, but nominally so except Broadland and St Helens
Would have been a really decent week for the LibDems except for Portchester.
Greens lost a seat, but ward history means it's heavily discounted, so scores are meh

Greens didn't lose a seat - it was the Conservative seat up in Tillingbourne...

[Khunanup]

Oct 21, 2022 12:58:37 GMT The Bishop said:

Still waiting for Khunanup to comment on his local patch....

I was barely involved in the campaign (due to work and council/councillor responsibilities), I was just running the count so I can't really shed any light.

[matureleft]

Oct 21, 2022 16:45:29 GMT Khunanup said:

Oct 21, 2022 12:58:37 GMT The Bishop said:

Still waiting for Khunanup to comment on his local patch....

I was barely involved in the campaign (due to work and council/councillor responsibilities), I was just running the count so I can't really shed any light.

I've not tracked the boundary changes from the dark ages of the 1970s, but Portchester as an area used to be a relative (in Fareham terms) Labour area with some council successes. As we discussed long ago the key Labour figure moved to the Alliance in the early 1980s and has only recently stood down (?). While I'm sure that it's changed a lot it used to have a lot of social housing. I'd guess that parts of it have gentrified as the harbour area has been cleaned up - the view used to be dominated by a submarine that suffered a battery explosion during the war and remained there for decades. (I saw that had finally gone perhaps 25 years ago). 

I note that Labour increase that proved critical. There must be a latent Labour vote that has been suppressed by Lib Dem councillor dominance? 

[Khunanup]

Oct 21, 2022 16:56:57 GMT matureleft said:

Oct 21, 2022 16:45:29 GMT Khunanup said:

I was barely involved in the campaign (due to work and council/councillor responsibilities), I was just running the count so I can't really shed any light.

I've not tracked the boundary changes from the dark ages of the 1970s, but Portchester as an area used to be a relative (in Fareham terms) Labour area with some council successes. As we discussed long ago the key Labour figure moved to the Alliance in the early 1980s and has only recently stood down (?). While I'm sure that it's changed a lot it used to have a lot of social housing. I'd guess that parts of it have gentrified as the harbour area has been cleaned up - the view used to be dominated by a submarine that suffered a battery explosion during the war and remained there for decades. (I saw that had finally gone perhaps 25 years ago). 

I note that Labour increase that proved critical. There must be a latent Labour vote that has been suppressed by Lib Dem councillor dominance? 

The ward is very 'white van man' country these days (so similar to many Lib Dem held wards in Eastleigh and some elsewhere in Portsmouth, Kingston, Hull, Eastbourne etc.) with an additional older than average (even for Fareham) population (though not as much as Portchester West). There's also the proper posh bits round the castle and big, expensive property with amazing views on the hill. As such the Labour vote has been demographed out with a lot of the social housing being RTBed and the rest being too inconsequential to make much of a difference.

The last Labour councillor in Fareham (who sat for a prior Portchester ward) was at the count as it happened, they were pleased they weren't last but shocked that the Tories won.

[listener]

When I was working in Dubai, I tried to download election notices from the Broadland website, but it was blocked by the Dubai authorities, who thought it was a porn site. I had to obtain election notices from the council elections officer by e-mail request.

[maxque]

Oct 22, 2022 2:06:41 GMT listener said:

When I was working in Dubai, I tried to download election notices from the Broadland website, but it was blocked by the Dubai authorities, who thought it was a porn site. I had to obtain election notices from the council elections officer by e-mail request.

Some councils are actually blocking their websites or part of them from non UK IP adresses. like Hartlepool.

[evergreenadam]

Oct 22, 2022 2:35:14 GMT maxque said:

Oct 22, 2022 2:06:41 GMT listener said:

When I was working in Dubai, I tried to download election notices from the Broadland website, but it was blocked by the Dubai authorities, who thought it was a porn site. I had to obtain election notices from the council elections officer by e-mail request.

Some councils are actually blocking their websites or part of them from non UK IP adresses. like Hartlepool.

They wouldn’t want to do that in RBKC, immediate decline in Council tax payments!

[evergreenadam]

Oct 21, 2022 19:42:39 GMT Khunanup said:

Oct 21, 2022 16:56:57 GMT matureleft said:

I've not tracked the boundary changes from the dark ages of the 1970s, but Portchester as an area used to be a relative (in Fareham terms) Labour area with some council successes. As we discussed long ago the key Labour figure moved to the Alliance in the early 1980s and has only recently stood down (?). While I'm sure that it's changed a lot it used to have a lot of social housing. I'd guess that parts of it have gentrified as the harbour area has been cleaned up - the view used to be dominated by a submarine that suffered a battery explosion during the war and remained there for decades. (I saw that had finally gone perhaps 25 years ago). 

I note that Labour increase that proved critical. There must be a latent Labour vote that has been suppressed by Lib Dem councillor dominance? 

The ward is very 'white van man' country these days (so similar to many Lib Dem held wards in Eastleigh and some elsewhere in Portsmouth, Kingston, Hull, Eastbourne etc.) with an additional older than average (even for Fareham) population (though not as much as Portchester West). There's also the proper posh bits round the castle and big, expensive property with amazing views on the hill. As such the Labour vote has been demographed out with a lot of the social housing being RTBed and the rest being too inconsequential to make much of a difference.

The last Labour councillor in Fareham (who sat for a prior Portchester ward) was at the count as it happened, they were pleased they weren't last but shocked that the Tories won.

Which parts of Eastbourne are white van man territory? Just interested as may be moving there.