The Eastern Daily Press has produced an intriguing analysis of last month’s local elections results, attempting to estimate how voting then might map across to the Norwich North by-election to be held later this month:
Calculating party support ahead of the by-election is difficult due to division boundaries overlapping constituency ones.
An approximation would give a line-up based on the June 4 results of: Conservatives 10,656 (40.1pc); Labour 4,953 (18.6pc); Lib Dem 4,371 (16.5pc); Green 4,251 (16.0pc); Ukip – standing in only four seats – 2,106 (7.9pc); BNP 228 (0.9pc). …
Labour, Lib Dems and Greens will be seeking to establish themselves early in the campaign as the main challenger to the Tories.
This compares with an ICM opinion poll last week (with a high margin of error) suggesting the Tories (34%) and Labour (30%) out front, with the Lib Dems on 15% and the Greens on 14%.
Of course not only do the local county boundaries not overlap directly with the constituencies, but the way folk vote in Parliamentary elections is often different than in local elections – just ask the Lib Dem PPCs in Liverpool city! My guess is the opinion poll figures will prove more accurate than an analysis of local election results, but we’ll see soon enough.
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5 Comments
The EDP figures are similar, but not identical, to those I posted in the member’s forum last week. I don’t know the EDP’s methodology, but our boffins had us a wee bit further ahead of the Greens, on 17% and the Tories on 41%. It will be interesting to see how this local vote translates after a full on campaign at Parliamentary level….we barely contested all but four wards, since our Parliamentary targets are (mostly) in neighbouring constituencies. No doubt the turnout for a July by election will be similar to that for the Counties, so a good comparison of performance will be available.
To call the EDP analysis intriging is pushing it a bit.
In essence all the County wards fell entirely withing Norwich North excelt for Drayton and Horsford and that means you just half the vote in that seat because Horsford is in Mid Norfolk/Broadland and Drayton is in Norwich North.
I hear that Labour have spoken to a sizable sample of their voters in NN recently and the ‘definitely voting Labour’ response was under 10%.
Its very likely Labour could come 4th
“Its very likely Labour could come 4th” Hmm, fourth behind the Greens, I’d like to hear how they’d spin that one!
Labour are certainly not having much luck in Norwich North.
“Labour’s candidate in the Norwich North by-election is being treated in hospital for suspected swine flu.
A scheduled visit by Lord Mandelson was cancelled because party workers had been in contact with Chris Ostrowski.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8161065.stm