Here’s the full list of selection contests in the coming month available for Lib Dems on the approved parliamentary candidates’ list, together with the closing date for applications.
They include Portsmouth South, where the incumbent MP, Mike Hancock, is currently suspended from the Lib Dems and is therefore ineligible to be selected for the party; and also the City of Durham, on paper the 27th most winnable seat for the Lib Dems, needing a swing of just over 3%.
The following seats have selections in progress and are currently advertising for candidates:
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Bracknell, 3rd July
Ribble South, 4th July
Gainsborough, 7th July
Angus, 11th July
Bishop Auckland, 11th July
City of Durham, 11th July
Easington, 11th July
Erewash, 11th July
Northampton North, 11th July
Northampton South, 11th July
Portsmouth North, 11th July
Portsmouth South, 11th July
West Worcestershire, 12th July
South West Wiltshire, 18th July
Inverclyde, 1st August
In addition, three seats are selecting their candidates to stand for the Scottish Parliament:
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Angus North and Mearns, 11th July
Angus South, 11th July
Inverness and Nairn, 18th July
Further information, including Returning Officer contact details, can be found on the Lib Dem members’ website: http://www.libdems.org.uk/forms/user_sessions/new and then once you have logged in by following the links: Our Party > Selection Adverts – Latest News. Note you will need to register online and login in order to access the advert webpage.
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14 Comments
Latest electoral calculus has our party down to 19 seats, not far off my prediction of 10 -12.
Two latest opinion polls we are 7 and 8% respectively.
Does not look good at all.
How much longer do we have to continue in this way. It will not be alright on the night.
@theakes
As you are another of these pseudonymous “experts” could you tell me whether Southport is one of the 11 seats that the Lib Dems will win in 2015?
Also, when Rallings & Thrasher in the Sunday Times projected 37 Lib Dem seats to be won in 2015, why should we think you know more than they do?
Simon
They (we?) are not claiming themselves as experts! I am sure you have a go st prediction sometimes. There is near consensus here that the Lib Dems will do a lot worse than you seem to be suggesting in 2015 on here. Perhaps you are a “wishful thinker”?
Simon, have I tapped a raw nerve.
Are you reluctantly and gradually coming to appreciate the reality?
@theakes
Yes, in a way you have tapped a raw nerve.
The simple fact is that if Lib Dems go into the 2015 General Election saying we expect to win 10 to 12 seats (or even 19) then there is a serious risk that is all we will win.
Only a month ago were Rallings & Thrasher were projecting 37 Lib Dem seats to be won in 2015, based on their analysis of the actual elections that took place on 22 May. You’ll forgive me if I pay slightly more heed to them than to your “predictions”, theakes.
I believe Rawlings and Thrasher analyse local election data. Since this is always relatively favourable to Lib Dems, it gives optimistic results if read straight across as a predictor of Parliamentary results. Opinion poll data, if not perfect, is more likely to be correct.
@David Allen, Rallings & Thrasher analyse changes in votes at Local Elections, comparing like with like, thats why they can predict National Elections. They have a very good record of prediction, much better than Polls taken more than a few weeks before Elections.
Libdems are averaging 8% in current Polling but that is distorted by the effects of The European Elections, if we are going to look at Polling at least wait until they are back to “normal”.
It is no good clutching at straws, a national party we are not, local parties collapsing, large councilor basis all but destroyed , votes at parliamentary by elections appalling, even Eastleigh 15% down, local elections votes deplorable and totally embarrassing, MPs standing down in large numbers, MEPs destroyed, many voters identifying us with one word”betrayal”, opinion polling frightening over the past 12 – 18 months, the Ashcroft Con/Lib Dem marginal seat polling devastating. There is no time to wait, we have to act now and stop ignoring the obvious.
@paul barker
Quite correct. I think David Allen was implying Rallings & Thrasher don’t know what they are doing. More likely David Allen doesn’t know what he is doing.
Portsmouth North and South are very juicy seats indeed.
Juicy for who, or do you mean the Lib Dems getting squashed?
Ashcroft reporting LD support down by 50% since GE 2010 in Lab-facing marginals. From 38% to 19%. Labour up 11% to 47%. So in this snapshot we lose 17 Labour facing seats.
Four Polls yesterday suggesting that the effect of The European Elections may be starting to wear off. The average Labour lead was 1.5% compared to the 5% average that UKPolling Report calculated 2 days ago.
We shouldnt forget that our main rivals are going through crises of their own.
Before we follow Paul in Wokingham all the way down the 2015-Disaster for Lib Dems narrative, it is worth recording that three of the four Lib Dem-Labour marginals polled by Lord Ashcroft – Brent Central, Manchester Withington and Norwich South – have been likely losses to Labour on everyone’s radar for quite a time. It is odd that Lord Ashcroft chose not to poll in Bermondsey and Old Southwark, Birmingham – Yardley, Cardiff Central, or Hornsey and Wood Green, in any one of which the figure for Lib Dem support is likely to have been higher. He also did not poll Burnley or Redcar, where the electoral arithmetic is more likely to be adverse to our party, but in both of which current polling might well have been a little more favourable than that in the seats that he did poll. So let us not get carried away simply by accepting Lord Ashcroft’s conclusions as gospel.