Indigo public affairs have e-mailed through their predictions for the outcome of the May elections.
Four years on from a huge protest vote to the Liberal Democrats in the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq, with around half of all Liberal Democrat Councillors in England up for re-election this year, it may be a suprise to see the ‘L Dem gain’ column looking quite as long as it is in these predictions.
In the absense of a polarising national issue to convert the local elections in to a real referendum on the Labour government, people are more likely to vote on local issues so, as Simon Hughes is fond of saying, “where we work, we win.”
In North Dorset, the Lib Dems and the Conservatives both have 13 seats each, with the Conservatives at present in control. None of the other predicted gains by Labour or Conservative are either directly from the Liberal Democrats, or from Liberal Democrat controlled councils.
Indigo claim a 69% success rate in their predictions of the London local election results last year.
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14 Comments
I am very surprised to see Mid Sussex in the list of LibDem gains. I live there and in a ward we hold I have not had a Focus from us since June, but have had 4 very good Conservative leaflets since September.
Unless our lot get their act together pronto here, the Tories will take it from the current NOC.
Only good news from Sussex is that I very much doubt the predicted Tory gain of Brighton & Hove.
Echo Matt , the Conservatives have no chance of overall control in Brighton . They may well end up the largest party but they are not challengers in enough seats to get a majority .
This is a prediction by the Indigo team. I’m only one member of the team, and they are not by me personally.
David – yours is the only name given from the team, and yours is the only photo from the team shown in the PDF, so you must be content to be associated with the release?
If you read the thing you would note that it says that it is the work of a team and that it can’t be taken as the views of any individual member. I’ll let you into a secret: the reason it says that is because we knew we’d be sending it to Lib Dems.
David, I saw the sentence, which basically amounts to a footnote – but above it I also saw your picture, your name, your biography, a description of you as an “elections guru”, and no other names from your team, so clearly you want to be prominently associated with the output?
I’m not being funny here – I just don’t think that one-sentence disclaimer has any weight when your name and photo are slapped all over the press release, which is why I headlined the piece the way I did. Presumably your name was there to give the figures credibility? To be honest that’s the only reason I ran them at all…
Canterbury is already Tory-controlled, & has been for nearly two years.
I’d be putting money on Labour losing Sheffield again this time, but maybe that’s a combination of local knowledge and local optimism. 😉
I’d also be surprised to see Derby in the “Lab gain” column given a) their current coalition with the Tories and b) that they went backwards last time…
I suppose that losing Sheffield to NOC would be a possibility if Labour don’t perform as well as last year. I suppose the following wards is where Labour can lose: Gleadless Valley, Hillsborough, Mosborough, Walkley.
I don’t think you can class Shepway as Lib Dem majority – though I don’t know if these work on the basis of councils “as now” or “as after the last election”
It’s very inaccurate indeed for Shepway. Sad to say it is run by a pretty ropey Con the People First coalition these days. Should really be classified as a NOC. I’ll settle for a Lib Dem majority afterwards though.
I don’t think we should get to worked up about ropey predictions from’experts’!
Remember Dunfermline – the so called election ‘expert’ got that toally wrong saying that SNP would probably win.
Whilst I love your optimism on Bristol and South Glos (please not South Glocs) and I hope you’re proved right. Every other expert is predicting a Tory gain for South Glos. We only hold 31 now and we lose 2 wards due to boundary changes the rest of which also favour the Tories. And sadly in many wards we find ourselves reliant on the Labour party to hold their seats to be able to fight off the Tory challenge! Tim Kent may well be wise to distrust the ‘ides’ of ‘experts’!
I’m quite surprised that Hull is not a predicted gain for the Lib Dems next time. Just a few councillors will do the job.