Hendon

[batman]

Jul 5, 2024 9:28:12 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

It's like 2010 in reverse. Lots of people expected an easy Tory gain then. It's not a very swingy seat and with the large Hindu population as well as the more obvious Jewish vote, and you look at relatively good results in Outer London generally, I'm not surprised it's close. Probably woould have been held on the old boundaries.

I'm thinking that the swing to Labour amongst Jewish voters was very likely nearly nullified by the swing to the Tories amongst Hindus. This seat after all is next door to Harrow East & has certain similarities to it (though some significant differences too). 

In general I am quite pleased with my predictions, but the Tories have definitely done better amongst middle-class Hindus than I (or probably Labour in general) expected. Whether this factor survives Sunak's departure remains to be seen; I think it was a factor before Sunak became PM & thus may well remain a factor.

[rcronald]

Jul 5, 2024 9:55:44 GMT batman said:

Jul 5, 2024 9:28:12 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

It's like 2010 in reverse. Lots of people expected an easy Tory gain then. It's not a very swingy seat and with the large Hindu population as well as the more obvious Jewish vote, and you look at relatively good results in Outer London generally, I'm not surprised it's close. Probably woould have been held on the old boundaries.

I'm thinking that the swing to Labour amongst Jewish voters was very likely nearly nullified by the swing to the Tories amongst Hindus. This seat after all is next door to Harrow East & has certain similarities to it (though some significant differences too). 

In general I am quite pleased with my predictions, but the Tories have definitely done better amongst middle-class Hindus than I (or probably Labour in general) expected. Whether this factor survives Sunak's departure remains to be seen; I think it was a factor before Sunak became PM & thus may well remain a factor.

It’s another wound from the last decade that is unlikely to ever fully heal. (and even less likely to fully heal than the Jewish one, as touching Kashmir would probably hurt Labour even more and give them back even less)

[ibfc]

I am fairly sure Sunak wasn’t much of a contributing factor to the Hindu movement away from Labour. This is part of a global phenomenon across all Anglophone countries.

[rcronald]

Jul 5, 2024 10:10:30 GMT ibfc said:

I am fairly sure Sunak wasn’t much of a contributing factor to the Hindu movement away from Labour. This is part of a global phenomenon across all Anglophone countries.

I’m honestly rather surprised that there hasn’t been a significant shift to the right among Hindus in America, especially as the pro-missionary Christian-right wing of the GOP has lost much of its power to the very pro-India MAGA/Nationalist wing.

[ibfc]

There’s a lot of genuine worry that the GOP is institutionally racist in a way the equivalent parties in the other countries aren’t. The GOP hasn’t had its equivalent of a Cameron, Abbot or Harper yet. Trump for obvious reasons doesn’t really cut it. While I don’t share this view, I am obviously not a stakeholder.

[rcronald]

Jul 5, 2024 10:21:39 GMT ibfc said:

There’s a lot of genuine worry that the GOP is institutionally racist in a way the equivalent parties in the other countries aren’t. The GOP hasn’t had its equivalent of a Cameron, Abbot or Harper yet. Trump for obvious reasons doesn’t really cut it. While I don’t share this view, I am obviously not a stakeholder.

I understand where they are coming from (especially as there is non-stop propaganda against the GOP when it comes to race, and the party being full to the brim with xenophobes/isolationists probably doesn’t help either). But the party’s ranks seem to be diversifying pretty rapidly (especially since 2019-2020), so I would have expected the shift to already start in the areas where there’s less anti-GOP propaganda like TX.

Edit: I guess that the shift could start in 2024 just like the East Asian shift in NY that came out of nowhere in 2020/2022.

[ibfc]

Jul 5, 2024 10:29:44 GMT rcronald said:

Jul 5, 2024 10:21:39 GMT ibfc said:

There’s a lot of genuine worry that the GOP is institutionally racist in a way the equivalent parties in the other countries aren’t. The GOP hasn’t had its equivalent of a Cameron, Abbot or Harper yet. Trump for obvious reasons doesn’t really cut it. While I don’t share this view, I am obviously not a stakeholder.

I understand where they are coming from (especially as there is non-stop propaganda against the GOP when it comes to race, and the party being full to the brim with xenophobes/isolationists probably doesn’t help either). But the party’s ranks seem to be diversifying pretty rapidly (especially since 2019-2020), so I would have expected the shift to already start in the areas where there’s less anti-GOP propaganda like TX.

Edit: I guess that the could start in 2024 just like the East Asian shift in NY that came out of nowhere in 2020/2022.

Yes, you’re right but old habits die hard. And more mainstream Democrats have addressed concerns when required like Newsom vetoing SB 403. The more decentralised nature of politics in the US also helps.

[aargauer]

Jul 5, 2024 10:10:30 GMT ibfc said:

I am fairly sure Sunak wasn’t much of a contributing factor to the Hindu movement away from Labour. This is part of a global phenomenon across all Anglophone countries.

It was already visible in 2019 and a pre-existing trend, but I can't believe that Sunak (and numerous others at the top) didn't accelerate that trend.

[Peter Wilkinson]

I will admit that this result rather surprises me - I had it down mentally as Labour's likely strongest result in the three fully Barnet constituencies, not the weakest.

However, I would caution against assuming that the constituency's "large" Hindu population is a major factor because, while far from negligible, it is actually not particularly large - it's somewhere under 10% of the constituency total (and its Muslim population is rather larger).

Likewise, explanations in terms of the constituency's Jewish population almost certainly have some truth, but do run into some problems. The fact that the constituency's new Labour MP is himself Jewish may (or may not) be minor, but it should also be recognised that the "Jewish vote" is certainly not a monolith - as is rather evidenced by the result next door in the even more Jewish Finchley and Golders Green. Though one factor here is probably that Judaism itself is not a monolith even religiously - there are (to simplify) more orthodox and more progressive variants. The most (ultra-)orthodox variant has, of course, a major centre in Finchley and Golders Green - Golders Green itself, particularly the ward of that name (which is politically very strongly Conservative) but also spreading across the constituency boundary into part of Hendon ward. However, the Jewish community in the rest of Finchley and Golders Green seems to contain a wide spread of both orthodox and progressive variants (though in practice, these usually seem to be at least tolerant of one another, and even co-operate where they have common problems relating to the rest of society). By contrast, so far as I can see, the Jewish community in Hendon constituency seems to have less visible representation of the more progressive variants. There is certainly no absolute correlation between orthodox or progressive variants and particular political views, but there still seems to be a rather loose correlation, which may be enough to explain what are mathematically rather small differences between Hendon and the other two Barnet constituencies (even if these do translate into the difference between two-figure and four-figure majorities).

[eastmidlandsright]

Jul 5, 2024 10:10:30 GMT ibfc said:

I am fairly sure Sunak wasn’t much of a contributing factor to the Hindu movement away from Labour. This is part of a global phenomenon across all Anglophone countries.

I would respectfully disagree. Obviously it wasn't the only factor but it was definitely a strong one.

[rcronald]

Jul 5, 2024 13:52:01 GMT Peter Wilkinson said:

I will admit that this result rather surprises me - I had it down mentally as Labour's likely strongest result in the three fully Barnet constituencies, not the weakest.

However, I would caution against assuming that the constituency's "large" Hindu population is a major factor because, while far from negligible, it is actually not particularly large - it's somewhere under 10% of the constituency total (and its Muslim population is rather larger).

Likewise, explanations in terms of the constituency's Jewish population almost certainly have some truth, but do run into some problems. The fact that the constituency's new Labour MP is himself Jewish may (or may not) be minor, but it should also be recognised that the "Jewish vote" is certainly not a monolith - as is rather evidenced by the result next door in the even more Jewish Finchley and Golders Green. Though one factor here is probably that Judaism itself is not a monolith even religiously - there are (to simplify) more orthodox and more progressive variants. The most (ultra-)orthodox variant has, of course, a major centre in Finchley and Golders Green - Golders Green itself, particularly the ward of that name (which is politically very strongly Conservative) but also spreading across the constituency boundary into part of Hendon ward. However, the Jewish community in the rest of Finchley and Golders Green seems to contain a wide spread of both orthodox and progressive variants (though in practice, these usually seem to be at least tolerant of one another, and even co-operate where they have common problems relating to the rest of society). By contrast, so far as I can see, the Jewish community in Hendon constituency seems to have less visible representation of the more progressive variants. There is certainly no absolute correlation between orthodox or progressive variants and particular political views, but there still seems to be a rather loose correlation, which may be enough to explain what are mathematically rather small differences between Hendon and the other two Barnet constituencies (even if these do translate into the difference between two-figure and four-figure majorities).

From my experience, Hendon’s Jewish population is more socially/culturally/religiously conservative than the one in Finchley and Golders Green. For example: Berger wouldn’t have won even 2/3 of the amount of votes she did in F&GG if she run in Hendon imo.

[batman]

I think that's right, with the exception of Golders Green ward itself & bits immediately abutting it. In Finchley & the Garden Suburb more socially liberal Jews are frequently found. There are quite a few more secular liberal ones in Hendon but much fewer in Edgware.

[rcronald]

Jul 5, 2024 15:25:10 GMT batman said:

I think that's right, with the exception of Golders Green ward itself & bits immediately abutting it. In Finchley & the Garden Suburb more socially liberal Jews are frequently found. There are quite a few more secular liberal ones in Hendon but much fewer in Edgware.

If Garden Suburb wasn’t so Jewish (doesn’t matter if only culturally/politically like my family or actual synagogue attendees), it would have been prime LibDem attack territory over the last couple of years.

[Deleted]

1997 / 2024

Brent North / Brent West
LAB 50.7% / 41.7%
CON 40.2% / 32.5%
LD 8.1% / 7.3%
OTH 1% / 18.5%

Harrow East
LAB 52.5% / 28.9%
CON 35.4% / 53.3%
LD 8.2% / 3.2%
OTH 3.9% / 14.6%

Hendon
LAB 49.3% / 38.43%
CON 37% / 38.38%
LD 10.8% / 4.8%
OTH 2.9% / 15.9%