Holborn and St Pancras

[Deleted]

Jun 17, 2024 14:14:18 GMT aargauer said:

Jun 17, 2024 12:27:34 GMT @weld said:

SOAS does have a lefty reputation. UCL and LSE are fairly left wing. I don't know about Birkbeck but a lot of them are slightly older so I'd guess more normal. 

It's a pity Andrew Feinstein hasn't made an ad like this chap or some Justice Democrat style campaign video:

Really? Its where you go if your only aim is to be rich.

That's true and a lot of the students here are international and not registered to vote here. Although LSE was pretty left-wing back in 1968.

[norflondon]

29% Feinstein! No chance imo. I'd go

FEINSTEIN 8%
STARMER 58%
LD 16%
CON 9%
GREEN 7%
REF 2%

So Sir Keir will be first loto whose party is clearly ahead in national polls to suffer a drop in vote share in his seat.

[No Offence Alan]

Jun 17, 2024 9:51:13 GMT johnloony said:

Jun 17, 2024 5:19:46 GMT @weld said:

I have now seen a Feinstein sign in Camden Town. I guess if he has stupendous momentum here, there's a remote chance of a win:

FEINSTEIN 29%
STARMER 29%
LD 22%
CON 15%
OTH 5%

VAT on private school fees helps the Tories hold up well around Primrose Hill and similar areas where they have a bit of a vote, as well as triggering a Lib Dem revival in the areas they used to win here in the 2000s (Haverstock, Cantelowes etc), and animosity to HS2 work disruption dampens Labour's showing across the seat. 

Feinstein, while running even with Starmer across the seat, pulls ahead in Bloomsbury, Holborn & Covent Garden and Regents Park, while losing St Pancras & Somers Town narrowly due to the Tories running a Bangladeshi candidate here who gets some votes based on that factor. The east-west split is reminiscent of how parts of the seat voted locally in the 2000s and (probably) in the 1959 GE when the Tories narrowly snatched Holborn & St Pancras South from Labour. Feinstein carries the old Holborn borough while Starmer edges him out in the former St Pancras wards of the constituency. 

UCL, SOAS, and Birkbeck postal votes come in strongly for Feinstein.

The stoner vote comes out in force for Feinstein, not the Greens. 

There is a species of parasitic grub which lays its eggs on leaves which are eaten by snails. The larva from the egg grows to become a colourful worm which wriggles into the eye-stalk of the snail. It changes the snail’s behaviour by making it crawl on the upper side of the leaf (instead of the shaded bit underneath) so that it can be seen by predatory birds. The bird notices the bright colours of the worm wriggling inside the snail, grabs and eats the snail, and the parasitic worm continues the next stage of its life cycle by growing inside the bird and laying its eggs in the bird poo which ends up on the leaves for the next snail to eat.

Doesn't renowned atheist Stephen Fry give a similar example when asked "What if you are wrong, and actually met God?" and then says "OK, God, why?"

[nyx]

My prediction here

Labour 55%
Feinstein 18%
Con 10%
LD 6%
Reform 4%
Green 3%
Others 4%

[Deleted]

Let's have another look here.

Lib Dems - they used to do very well here, holding seats in Camden Town & Primrose Hill, Cantelowes (north of Kings Cross), and Haverstock (Chalk Farm). They ran strong in Kentish Town back in the day. All gone now. Sidebar - this is one of the few London seats where no non-Labour Councillors got elected in 2022 on these boundaries.

Where will the Lib Dems do well here? Wealthier parts of Bloomsbury ward abutting the City of Westminster, which helped the Tories narrowly win a seat in that ward in 2006, will be fertile for Ed Davey's party and parts of Primrose Hill. You have some former Tories in these areas who might be opposed to VAT on private schools (don't forget, only around 1/4 are owner-occupiers here, and that may be a decent (albeit haphazard) proxy for having kids at private school in this constituency or any Inner London seat to boot).

I don't see the Lib Dems doing all that well this time.

Greens - Kentish Town is currently their best area in the seat, and they came a clear second in the new Kentish Town North and South wards in 2022 - you'd have thought the student areas around Bloomsbury or Holborn & Covent Garden (ish) might be good for them. There have also been lefty lawyer candidates who've done respectably for the Greens in Holborn & Covent Garden in past election cycles.

But, you say, this was the seat Natalie Bennett stood in and got 12% of the vote - yes, many students and stoners here *would* vote Green - but Feinstein will limit their potential since both are fishing in the left-of-Labour pond, and Feinstein (backed by LCCW and Socialist Worker, IIRC) is running a far more visible campaign. I've seen 0 Green posters in this seat, Islington North or Diane Abbott's constituency (yet). I suspect the reason why is pretty obvious when you look at who the incumbents or lefty upstart challengers are.

Tories - they don't have a single strong ward anymore although they won in Bloomsbury in 2006 and were competitive in Holborn & Covent Garden and Regents Park in those days (how times change). Yes, you have grand houses in Regents Park, but many of the owners (if they live in London at all, big if, and are registered to vote, even bigger if, are possibly non-doms and/or Arabs). I am curious to see what the London Central Mosque thinks about Feinstein (if at all) since Arabs are a non-negligible demographic of Camden's Regent's Park ward but a lot of that is (gentrifying?) council estate territory. 

If you think about the recent discussion on the Kensington & Bayswater thread, I've talked about how Arabs in Bayswater may vote for Emma Dent Coad or another pro-Gaza candidate in that seat, and I guess some of the small Arab population here could vote for Feinstein, but how much outreach has he done in that community (Arab language literature, where appropriate) etc.

Feinstein - logically you'd have to say that St Pancras & Somers Town will be, by far, his best ward in the constituency - Respect got 23% in 2006 and the Workers Party took 8% in 2022. I could see Feinstein winning something like the 2006 Respect share here, depending on how hard his team are working the ward. Still, do not assume that the only Muslim-influenced area will be SP&ST, there are large Muslim numbers in Holborn too, and there's a mosque in that area.

18% would be good for Feinstein, but he would need to squeeze the Greens to deposit-losing numbers here to go beyond that possibly. You may have Tories here, who are frustrated at potential 15-20% private school rises thanks to Keir Starmer and higher mortgage repayments thanks to Liz Truss, who don't feel able to vote Tory or Labour, and that's where I see the Lib Dem uptick coming from - whether these people would vote tactically for Feinstein to give "Keith" a bloody nose is an open question - Feinstein may have more cut-through with white voters since he's not some bearded whacko but a well-spoken South African democratic socialist who's lived in this seat for 20 years (and Jewish, IIRC).

The issue, ladies and gentlemen, is this - Feinstein is a long-term resident, but Starmer has much better name recognition - although some of that is negative publicity over his car crash LBC interview after October 7th. I've not seen any big endorsements for Feinstein from Jeremy Corbyn or George Galloway although I have asked Corbyn if he's endorsing Feinstein. As an aside, hustings will be held on 27th June. 

The reason The Squad were successful in the USA is that they worked together. For example, when Democratic Socialists of America-backed Jamaal Bowman bested long-term New York congressman Eliot Engel at the height of the BLM unrest, he then turned his focus to backing Cori Bush in St Louis (she narrowly ousted a 20-year incumbent and the scion of a political dynasty). You'd need Jeremy Corbyn, Emma Dent Coad, George Galloway, Akhmed Yaqoob, Leane Mohamed, Faiza Shaheen, Andrew Feinstein etc working together if they all want to win.

P.S. Labour are fortunate Respect didn't stand everywhere in 2006, or the Tories may have won majority control of Camden Council due to split votes - they got close in Holborn & Covent Garden and Regents Park, and with Respect standing in Bloomsbury and Highgate, the Tories could've won the other seats in those wards.

P.P.S. Some posters didn't cover themselves in glory when discussing the November 2023 Highgate by-election in this seat (old boundaries) and suggested that Labour would get a full house in Highgate for the first time since 2002. Well, the Greens held their Camden Council seat by 30 points! 

N.B. I will always have fond memories of my state sanctioned lockdown walk from our flat in Camley Street up the Regents Canal to Primrose Hill with this on repeat while gawking at the City skyline from the top of the hill (if you do campaign here at all, do visit Primrose Hill via the canal):

[batman]

So many words. I think Feinstein is being grossly overestimated by some here. I won’t say any more for now, except note that in fact there are quite a lot of London constituencies which have a full slate of Labour councillors. Islington South and Finsbury, and Hackney South and Shoreditch, are 2 more but there are quite a lot of others.

[Deleted]

Jun 18, 2024 5:18:59 GMT batman said:

So many words. 

TL;DR: Holborn & St Pancras is an anti-establishment Labour safe seat. Three examples:

1. Ken Livingstone won big here in 2000 over one Frank Dobson MP (MP for where?)

2. Holborn & St Pancras voted for AV in 2011.

3. Labour surged hugely here under Corbyn.

[batman]

It has been a safe Labour seat throughout its existence, which began in 1983. Not at any time has Labour had the remotest difficulty in holding it since then in any general election. We will not have any such difficulty this time either.

[Deleted]

That's an appeal to tradition which isn't the greatest argument to say Labour won't face "any such difficulty" since this isn't like any election since 1983.

AdminSTB could we please have a poll? Labour vs Independent vs the rest. Thank you.

[cogload]

Jun 18, 2024 9:05:32 GMT @weld said:

That's an appeal to tradition which isn't the greatest argument to say Labour won't face "any such difficulty" since this isn't like any election since 1983.

AdminSTB could we please have a poll? Labour vs Independent vs the rest. Thank you.

Waste of time. Feinstein will struggle to hold his deposit. But you knock yourself out.

[stb12]

I did say I’d add any poll as requested but I think I might need to draw the line at any possibility of the leader of the party set to win a massive, possibly even record majority, being in danger of losing his seat

[batman]

Thanks stb12. Some, though not most, of the polls are pointless & I am extremely confident that in the case of this seat I will be proved right in saying so.

[stb12]

Jun 18, 2024 9:52:09 GMT batman said:

Thanks stb12. Some, though not most, of the polls are pointless & I am extremely confident that in the case of this seat I will be proved right in saying so.

For my own judgement of where to put polls I’ve felt it appropriate to do them for even what looks like the most obvious of Tory losses as ultimately you’re still dealing with a seat changing hands and there’s always the faint possibility of incumbency springing a surprise

In terms of Labour losses I’ve only really picked out the odd one worth questioning like Islington North for obvious reasons, Sheffield Hallam if the Lib Dems have a big surge of their own there, the Birmingham independent with a high profile, Leicester East as that’s been talked about a lot as a potential against the trend and then there’s Galloway in Rochdale

But the idea of even speculating about Starmer under these circumstance seems like madness. If the Labour government is unpopular at the end of the first term and he’s still in place then I could even vaguely understand it then

[ricmk]

Feinstein's intervention may well only make the seat safer for Starmer, by diluting any left wing vote further than in most constituencies. Agree this does not merit a poll, and I haven't seen any signs of concern such as Keir Starmer having to take time off the national campaign to work his own patch.

[norflondon]

SKS thinks ppl are laughing at the the fact his "father was a toolmaker".

How on earth does he not realise ppl laugh because he's said it very very often? This is odd and illustrates a detachment from reality and a lack of good humour.

[The Bishop]

We've been through all this before, but current polling shows that maybe about a quarter of voters are now aware of said supposedly endlessly repeated factoid.

What is maybe even more remarkable is that prior to this election being called, that number was around 10%.

[Pete Whitehead]

Jun 18, 2024 12:57:26 GMT The Bishop said:

We've been through all this before, but current polling shows that maybe about a quarter of voters are now aware of said supposedly endlessly repeated factoid.

What is maybe even more remarkable is that prior to this election being called, that number was around 10%.

Well tell it to the people who laughed then. It's neither here nor there how many people know it or used to know it. The fact is it has been oft-repeated by Starmer in the leader's debates and it was obvious to everyone watching that it was another repeition of it which caused the laughter. I don't think Starmer really believed that they were laughing at his father either..

[aargauer]

Jun 18, 2024 7:06:18 GMT @weld said:

Jun 18, 2024 5:18:59 GMT batman said:

So many words. 

TL;DR: Holborn & St Pancras is an anti-establishment Labour safe seat. Three examples:

1. Ken Livingstone won big here in 2000 over one Frank Dobson MP (MP for where?)

2. Holborn & St Pancras voted for AV in 2011.

3. Labour surged hugely here under Corbyn.

I guess you were still quite young then.

That was not an anti-establishment choice. Quite the inverse - central London, Oxford, Cambridge...

[finsobruce]

Jun 18, 2024 13:07:45 GMT aargauer said:

Jun 18, 2024 7:06:18 GMT @weld said:

TL;DR: Holborn & St Pancras is an anti-establishment Labour safe seat. Three examples:

1. Ken Livingstone won big here in 2000 over one Frank Dobson MP (MP for where?)

2. Holborn & St Pancras voted for AV in 2011.

3. Labour surged hugely here under Corbyn.

I guess you were still quite young then. That was not an anti-establishment choice.

It was an unpopular and unsuccessful choice though. Even people who support PR didn't like it.

[stb12]

If I remember correctly one of the Edinburgh constituencies voted for it as well