Carshalton and Wallington

[The Bishop]

There is maybe some fatigue with the LibDems locally given they have been in power since 1986. It wouldn't be surprising to see them gain this seat whenever the GE is, but then lose their majority on Sutton council after 40(!) years of unbroken control.

[Deleted]

Sept 26, 2023 9:51:05 GMT batman said:

Sorry to be consistently contrary but I don't think I agree. a ) it's a general election not an Assembly one b ) the swing needed by the Lib Dems is very small c ) it's very clear who the main opposition is in this constituency to everyone, with the possible exception of graham (even he probably accepts that) d ) yes Tom Brake is not standing but the Lib Dems have a very strong track record in the constituency in general for the last quarter of a century. e ) ULEZ will lose some of its saliency as a factor by the time of the next general election. Lower than average swing? very possibly. Conservative hold? Unlikely in my opinion.

I think this is dependent on 1) the Lib Dem candidate; 2) whether the Reform Party stands and inherits the BXP vote from 2019 and 3) what the Labour vote does here. So, perhaps, I’m jumping the gun assuming ULEZ will impact the GE, and am getting carried away by the Uxbridge result. I note C&W Lib Dems were still 6% ahead of 2015 last time.

[borisminor]

I think there is no chance here of Labour launching a solid challenge. This is the number one target for the LDs in the country, and they will be throwing everything at it, especially as the other South West London seats are comparatively safe. Although bafflingly the YouGov MRP has this as a C hold.

In the Rallings & Thrasher 'official' nationals, despite this having some boundary change, it is so minimal that they have used the 2019 result rather than calculating nationals.

[Davıd Boothroyd]

It's really difficult to work out any impact of the boundary changes between the two Sutton seats as the realigning of ward boundaries involves a mass of changes involving individual houses swapping between seats/wards. The net shift is pretty small and ignoring it is probably reasonable.

[heslingtonian]

Do we have a sense of how big Tom Brake's personal vote was? This should be a straightforward Lib Dem pick up in the current environment but I suspect it may be less easy than many believe with Labour potentially coming through the middle.

[graham]

Jan 25, 2024 23:31:54 GMT heslingtonian said:

Do we have a sense of how big Tom Brake's personal vote was? This should be a straightforward Lib Dem pick up in the current environment but I suspect it may be less easy than many believe with Labour potentially coming through the middle.

Potentially there is clearly a big Labour vote here which has been largely hidden due to tactical voting in recent elections. Until the 1980s this was a Tory /Labour marginal.

[bjornhattan]

Jan 25, 2024 16:28:54 GMT Davıd Boothroyd said:

It's really difficult to work out any impact of the boundary changes between the two Sutton seats as the realigning of ward boundaries involves a mass of changes involving individual houses swapping between seats/wards. The net shift is pretty small and ignoring it is probably reasonable.

My model suggests the Conservative majority may have increased by just over 50 votes - but the only change large enough for it to detect is a reasonably large and upmarket owner occupied cul de sac east of the Royal Marsden Hospital. Since it works on the basis of census areas, tiny changes to align with wards won't be picked up at all (but will change the voting numbers).

Realistically there's no way that the changes could materially impact the situation. Regardless of whether the true Conservative majority on the new boundaries would have been 629, 684, or some other figure entirely, the point remains that it is a very marginally held Conservative seat that the Lib Dems will hope to gain.

[nyx]

Jan 25, 2024 23:31:54 GMT heslingtonian said:

Do we have a sense of how big Tom Brake's personal vote was? This should be a straightforward Lib Dem pick up in the current environment but I suspect it may be less easy than many believe with Labour potentially coming through the middle.

It was a marginal in 2019, a Conservative landslide year. Any seat which the Tories won by only 1% in 2019 isn't going to be remotely competitive this year. I could maybe imagine Labour managing to get second place (something like LD 45%, Lab 25%, Con 25%), if they do regain some strength in the seat.

[johnloony]

Jan 26, 2024 5:44:41 GMT nyx said:

Jan 25, 2024 23:31:54 GMT heslingtonian said:

Do we have a sense of how big Tom Brake's personal vote was? This should be a straightforward Lib Dem pick up in the current environment but I suspect it may be less easy than many believe with Labour potentially coming through the middle.

It was a marginal in 2019, a Conservative landslide year. Any seat which the Tories won by only 1% in 2019 isn't going to be remotely competitive this year. I could maybe imagine Labour managing to get second place (something like LD 45%, Lab 25%, Con 25%), if they do regain some strength in the seat.

In 1997 there was a lot of tactical voting, with people voting Labour or Lib Dem in order to defeat the Conservatives. But in some places, Labour had good increases in third place, and the Lib Dems didn’t win or gain all,of their obvious targets.

In 2024 I think there will be more direct swings from Conservative to Labour, and less tactical voting to the Lib Dems. So Lib Dems might not win places like Carshalton & Wallington as obviously as in 1997.

[The Bishop]

Having said that, the LibDems lost by such a small amount in 2019 that their election leaflets will almost literally write themselves. And there was a significant increase in the Labour vote here in 1997 - Tom Brake still took it with a double figure swing.

[iang]

In a seat like this, a direct movement from Conservative to Labour would hand the lib Dems the seat. Worth remembering that from 92 to 97 the Lib Dem vote nationally went down slightly, but as the Conservative vote dived by far more, the number of Lib Dem seats more than doubled

[nyx]

Jan 26, 2024 10:05:13 GMT johnloony said:

Jan 26, 2024 5:44:41 GMT nyx said:

It was a marginal in 2019, a Conservative landslide year. Any seat which the Tories won by only 1% in 2019 isn't going to be remotely competitive this year. I could maybe imagine Labour managing to get second place (something like LD 45%, Lab 25%, Con 25%), if they do regain some strength in the seat.

In 1997 there was a lot of tactical voting, with people voting Labour or Lib Dem in order to defeat the Conservatives. But in some places, Labour had good increases in third place, and the Lib Dems didn’t win or gain all,of their obvious targets.

In 2024 I think there will be more direct swings from Conservative to Labour, and less tactical voting to the Lib Dems. So Lib Dems might not win places like Carshalton & Wallington as obviously as in 1997.

2019 in Carshalton and Wallington: Con 42%, LD 41%, Lab 12%. If there's a direct Con-Lab swing without the Lib Dems gaining, you might be looking at LD 41%, Con 28%, Lab 26%, which is of course a comfortable victory margin. Any seat which was a marginal Conservative victory in 2019 is pretty much unquestionably lost now regardless of who the runner-up was. (Scotland may be an exception thanks to how unique it is, but that's it)

I do think it's a reasonable point that there might be more direct Con-Lab swings and less tactical voting, but marginals don't even need tactical voting for the Tories to lose.  If the Tories hang onto seats thanks to split Lab/LD opposition it's more likely to be in places like Woking/Chelmsford, not Carshalton and Wallington.

[batman]

I really can't see the Tories holding on here no matter how well Labour do - and I must once again emphasize that Labour are very unlikely to campaign hard here. They will be out trying to ensure gains in other nearby seats, e.g. Wimbledon & Croydon South, which are far from straightforward Labour gains, but both at least possible.