Looking at my fuzzy computer screen it would appear that you’ve reduced the Conservative majority in Torridge and West Devon down to 1,677. Sorry if this sounds negative but that result is completely wrong - there is no way the boundary changes would come even close to reducing the Tory majority by a 1,000, let alone 2,000 as your suggesting. I saw the votes come out of the ballot boxes in Torridge, and by my estimation the boundary changes would make a negligible effect on the majority, and that is before the addition of Buckland Monachorum, a relatively good ward for the Tories.

I appreciate that reading local election results in Torridge and West Devon can be difficult due to the high numbers of independents contesting/winning seats. A factor to consider also, which you probably wouldn’t have been aware of is that there was a huge amount of ticket-splitting between parliamentary and local level, for example in the Holsworthy Rural County Council Division, where the Lib Dems romped home by more than a 1,000 votes, at Parliamentary level the result was the reverse, with a Tory landslide - the Lib Dems won just a single parish in the entire division, and were even defeated comprehensively in Holsworthy (ward) itself.

What I tell you is true; I hope you will reconsider your calculations on this seat. If you want any more help I’d be happy to drop in an email.

A wonderful labour of love, Anthony - many thanks.

Slightly surprised to see nothing more than a listing for the new (or exhumed) Westminster North in the “Tory targets” - I would’ve expected you to have flagged it as a major Tory target, since I presume the North Kensington wards that go into the new Kensington are the strongest Labour areas in Karen Buck’s present seat (Regent’s Park and Kensington North) and Lancaster Gate, which it gains from Cities of London & Westminster is a safe Tory ward.

Andrew - as I say above, it’s a straight mathematical calculation that can’t even try to take account of the sort of local factors you point out (that why I’ve put the caveat in the post as well as in the actual pdf). I’m leaving the figures as being based on the raw sums so they are completely even handed (even my home constituency is based solely on the figures, rather than my own knowledge of the wards).

But I would always recommend people look at these figures are a guide to the bigger picture - if you want to know what’s actually happening in an individual seat it’s best to talk to an activist like yourself who knows the seat.

I probably came across as a little overbearing there - but I would urge you to look again at the figures for Torridge and West Devon. There are a number of Lib Dem wards as well as Tory ones from West Devon being moved into Central Devon, like North Tawton, though as I said most of these, including the ward I mentioned, were contested by independents which completely clouds the picture. The net effect should be no change in the majority.

That said I appreciate the work you’ve done, the results in the other constituencies in Devon look right to me, and I appreciate that local factors can’t come into a mathmatical calculation.

For what its worth btw, when I was in Lancaster I was told by local activists there that the new boundaries would create a Labour majority of 4,000 so I guess your notional result is spot on for Lancaster and Fleetwood.

A question if I may?

You say: Lab 346, Con 212, Lib Dem 63, Others 29 (Lab 42)
Baxter: Lab 350, Con 214, Lib Dem 59, Others 27 (Lab 50)

Who’s right?

(and could you also send me the complete list of notional calculations so I can compare?)

No problem Andrew - your comments were very welcome. When I did a similar post on my first draft figures I received a huge number of comments from people who knew the various seats involved - the comments ended up being as good as guide to the seats as my original post.

Harry - I’m not publishing the full list at the moment - I might be using it for something else (that said, I’m sure the lists of target seats will be enough to show the differences with Martin’s calculations). The difference between what Martin Baxter has done and what I’ve done is that Martin has assumed that party support in each constituency is uniformly spread, while I’ve used local election results to calculate a notional Parliamentary vote in each individual ward, allowing party support to be unevenly distributed within constituencies.

I think Martin intends to do the same thing that I’ve done in the long run- his website says his present figures are just provisional.

Anthony, what about Harlow? We have some boundary changes which I could not see mentioned in your report.

Also the Labour majority was just 97 not over 300.

Kind regards, Robert Halfon

Hi Robert - the 357 majority is my estimate for the notional majority on the new boundaries, so I’m predicting the new Harlow boundaries will be better for Labour, but only by a tiny amount.

I’ve only mentioned new seats, disappearing seats, seats that change hands and seats where there has been a large significant change. As you’ll know, the charges in Harlow are very minor and and the way I’ve calculated them based on local elections, tricky to quantify because Hastingwood etc is an independent held ward. If (as I suspect is the case, though I haven’t allowed myself to make such assumptions for the figures) Hastingwood votes Tory by a heavy margin at general elections, then the notional majority will be smaller.

Many thanks. That’s an excellent report.

If/when there’s another Conservative government, would it not make sense for them to change the terms of reference of the Boundary Commission so that

(a) it bases its recommendations on predicted future electorates (rather than electorates that are already several years out of date), and

(b) once the review has been completed for a particular county, the new boundaries come into effect for the next election, rather than waiting several years longer for all the new daries to be agreed.

Hi Anthony, must say absolutely excellent work, am very impressed with all your effort. Was just wondering about my home patch Aberconwy, I know in the local elections labour put up about 9 more candidates than the Tories (being inept here they didnt even contest some words they would’ve easily won), so I think the Labour maj is down to that as I’m inclined to say that now that we’ve jettisoned Bangor the seat should be Tory and in a good election firmly so. What do you do with the Independent vote which (as you rightly say) is a factor in North Wales. Is it discounted and divvied up amongst the other parties? One ward (Llandudno Penrhyn) is won heavily by the Independents but is landslide Tory in parliamentary elections and also has the second largest vote in the constituency. Thanks

Predicting future electorates was tried before (in the 1950s) and proved as controversial as the present system with some costituencies failing to meet expectations—Surbiton was one such.I doubt that any boundaries using the present voting system could consistently guarantee a more even result, especially when more than two parties are receiving large shares of the votes and seats.
The Tories famously claimed that post-war boundary changes had an in-built Labour bias but the 1951 election result said otherwise.I suspect that the unpredictability of the British electorate (see Dunfermline&West Fife) is always likely to upset manipulative micro-changes of the sort suggested.
Leave alone or change the voting system.
Thanks for all the work Anthony–ah the joys of the internet!

Anthony also in the SW I think Kingswood is going to a get a good deal more marginal, losing two Bristol wards and getting some edges of the old Wansdyke seat. I have the majority for Labour down to around 3000 from almost 8000 on rough calculations - does this tie in with your calculations?

RE the Independents - I too would be interested with what you did with the independent vote in Torridge and West Devon. It can be quite difficult, especially when you have a result in Holsworthy ward in 2003, where the Tories came a poor 3rd, only to produce a comfortable Conservative win at parliamentary level.

Fred - I have Kingswood still with a 6000+ majority. Of the Wansdyke wards, the part of Longwell Green gained appears to be good for the Tories, but Hanham and Bitton are closer and Oldham Common appears to be more favourable to Labour. On the wards going to Bristol, the Tories must be glad to lose Staple Hill, but Downend looks Tory.

Andrew - broadly speaking independents are ignored, though in seats uncontested by major parties there are obviously notional votes for the unrepresented parties. The problems are indeed in seats like Holsworthy where there was a Conservative candidate, but there was presumably lower because of the intervention of the independent. Other than getting feedback from local people in every seat (which there’s no possiblity of me being able to do!) there’s no good way of dealing with it - the bottom line is that notional figures for areas stuffed full of independents (like Torridge) aren’t that reliable.

Anthony - you are right that staple hill and downend are leaving and that one is labour and one tory. But - two City of Bristol wards (Frome Vale and Hillfields) are also leaving, with c17k voters. Frome Vale is quite tight between Lab-Con but Hillfields appears strongly Labour. The seat is losing around 38% of its current voters - quite a big shake up.

Well done Anthony on a monumental tour-de-force
For completeness Lewis Baston’s calculations give
Lab 350 Con 205 Lib Dem 65 Others 30 .
The Baxter calculations although close have a fundamental flaw in the way they are calculated . It would be interesting to have a debate on the contentious seats where opinions differ but in fact the differences are very small .

Anthony,

Could you give me your calculations for the expanded Sheffield Central seat?

Thks

UK Polling Report

I can now report some good news. Anthony Wells, who runs the fantastic UK Polling Report Blog at YouGov, has done exactly that calculation, which he has published in rather an interesting report.

Anthony,

Has anyone thought about the way giving Prisoners the vote (if it happenS)would distort the size of various electorates - and what electoral consequences such a move might have?

Markpls

OBL - my figures are at home, I’ll look up Sheff Central later.

Markpls - I think most prisoners on remand (who can already vote) vote in their previous consistuencies, rather than the constituency in which the prison is located.

Even if substantial numbers of inmates vote in the constituencies in which the prisons are located, it won’t make a huge difference - Even the largest prison in England (Wandsworth I believe) has only got a capacity of 1,416 prisoners, so giving prisoners the vote won’t have a vast impact at Parliamentary level, though obviously it would have a big impact in local council wards.

Anthony - was surprised that the new Stockton South seat is not further up the Tory target list. Is it not losing its ’safe Labour’ bits to another constituency?

Anthony - If you were to use your approximation method for all the parliamentary seats do you know how well that figure would match the actual result for 2005? I would be interested if this gave an indication of how accurate the method being used to calculate party support in the new and re-drawn seats is.

Phillip - I’m not sure what you mean. If you mean what would happen if you summed my notional votes for all the seats in the country, would it match the actual result of the general election - well, give or take a few rounding errors and minor typos, they should match exactly.

This doesn’t mean it’s accurate though, the whole method works by re-allocating the general election votes to individual wards and then reallocating the wards to their new seats. Accurate or not - the final totals will be the same because every 2005 vote ends up in one constituency or another.

Anthony,

Thanks very much

Good work.
Taunton (now Taunton Deane)’s LibDem notional maj on your system is only 661 compared to its current one of 573. I’d add another 1,000 -1,500 to this: the sections going to Bridgwater are strongly Conservative.
Innocent Abroad’s comment about RP&KN are correct (2/3 of Bayswater also moves) - this will be a Conservative target - I reckon

OBL -

I have the Sheffield Central as a considerably less Lib Dem -
C 3165
L 13978
LD 9171
Oth 3662

Kippaxed - the curse of the independent (or at least, uncontested elections or no Lib dem candidate) once again. Given the limited number of people actually moving from Taunton though, an increase of 1,500 sounds quite a lot.

Which seats I put in the other significant changes are pretty arbitary so while I didn’t flag it up specifically Westminster North will indeed be a good Tory target.

I agree the revised changes made Sheffield Central rather better for Labour than the original proposals but it will no doubt still be a Lib Dem target seat .

Anthony I fear Kippaxed may not be far wrong. Looking at the district results, I can see where the calculations ran into trouble, with the independents holding Dulverton and Quarne and Exmoor Tory unopposed. But have a look at the County Council elections for the Dulverton & Exmoor division - the Conservatives took 67% of the vote and got a 2000 vote majority out of only 4455 votes cast. About 60% of this CC division is leaving Taunton to go into Bridgwater/West Somerset - so this could well mean an area with a 1000-1200 Tory majority exiting Taunton.

Anthony,

Thanks for the Sheffield C figures. 16% majority, 4,800 votes. Am I right that that would still make it the LibDems 3rd best target in Yorkshire after York Outer & Bradford East (leaving aside Haltemprice of course)?

Requiring an 8% swing, I would think that Mark Senior is right it would be a pretty strong candidate for being a target seat. Especially as they achieved a 6% swing last year without a real campaign.

Well - I’ve got York Outer as a notional Lib Dem seat anyway, so it depends if you count it as a target. After that you’ve got Haltemprice & Howden, Colne Valley (Lib Dems are in 3rd place, but need only a 5.7% swing to win), Bradford East then Sheffield Central.

Ah Colne Valley, I’d forgotten about that one.

Though given the LD vote actually went down at the last election (albeit marginally) I’d have thought it unlikely to be a target. Also, just looking again at Sheffield I see they got a 9% swing last time not a 6% one.

Anyway, very helpful & informative, thanks again Anthony.

Congratulations, Anthony: I can only imagine how much time and effort this must have taken. It’s very impressive.

One or two points, though. First (a small point) Gordon _would_ have been Tory in 1992, just not by as much as Rallings & Thrasher had it. Second, how does your methodology deal with levels of turnout? One of the problems I’ve found with the R&T method is that parties who do better locally than nationally, and do really well locally in one or two wards, can skew the figures for the rest of the seat. R&T’s notional figures for East Dunbartonshire for 2001, for instance, had a turnout that was clearly much lower than would have been the case for a constituency of that particular demographic (and, I suspect, actually underestimated the size of Labour’s notional majority there). With your figures, the turnout for Lancaster & Fleetwood seems very low (barely 50%) and that for Selby & Ainsty very high (well over 70%), with respect to their predecessor constituencies.

These, though, are minor quibbles: many thanks for sharing your work with us!

Aidan - in short, it doesn’t, so you’ll get the same problems as with R&T (though I thought that they did do some form of turnout adjustment, so their figures will be better than mine).

I think there were one or two cases where I made a manual adjustment on the basis of turnout where a seat covered two local authorities (or the local authority was elected by thirds and my results were drawn from two different elections) and one set of local elections had a vastly higher turnout than the other because of an all-postal pilot. I made no systematic attempt to resolve the problem though.

Anthony how did you get a meaningful result for North Cornwall? As far as I can see only 166 votes were cast (in one ward) for Labour candidates in the local elections in its consituent wards in 2003 - but over 6000 at the GE, making for a ‘multiplier’ around 40. How can you determine how many labour voters are leaving the constituency with the Newquay area and how many staying?

Anthony - a fascinating bit of work. I’m surprised to see no mention of the sort of new Penistone and Stocksbridge seat - this is a combination of the more rural bits of Sheffield Hillsborough and Barnsley West, and ‘feels’ like it should be an exciting three-way marginal - yet it doesn’t appear on anyone’s target seats. What are your figures for this?

Thank you for your hard work in putting together this guide. If I might suggest one very small correction, seat no. 27 on the Tory Target List should be listed as Hereford and South Herefordshire, according to the Boundary Commission’s report.

I am curious about the newly created seat of Sefton Central. It looks from the local government returns like it should be very marginal, but it clearly wasn’t marginal enough to make the target list. Would you mind posting your figures for this seat?

Thank you again for your hard work.

Excellent work. Really fascinating. I watched Rallings & Thrasher’s 97 predictions with interest & 09/10 will provide a similar challenge. Good to see sources additional to R&T -unfortunately 97 was so exceptional post-hoc analysis was difficult.

I’d be really grateful for any info on 2 queries:
1. North Gloucestershire. I was surprised to see the shedding of outer urban wards to rural constituencies that will occur with just a few wards had so much impact. The LibDem Cheltenham MP’s majority seems to have taken a real hit given that limited scale of change. These are suburban wards, I wonder if the presence of not-so-called independents (”People Against Bureaucracy”) in a couple of these had undue influence? If so, as they are hard to factor in, does this shift in LibDem vote mean Tewkesbury becomes something more approaching a straight Con-LibDem marginal? It is also gaining a very tight ward (Longlevens) split between those two parties from Gloucester…
2. Any chance you may revisit the close London results on the basis of the Local Elections imminent?!? This may prove more satisfactory given the London Elections were dominated by Ken/congestion rather than ‘general’ politics? I’m sure you’re just raring for more!

Fred - there are a couple of seats like that (it’s more often seats where there are no Lib Dem candidates whatsover). In those cases I just had to assume that the party’s vote is evenly distributed throughout the seat - luckily there are only a few such seats.

Cookie - Penistone & Stocksbridge is CON 9331, LAB 19074, LDEM 10225, OTH 1960 so still a relatively safe Labour seat, though I’ve had some feedback from local Tory activists who think that it’s likely that hte part of the seat coming in from Sheffield does contain potential Tory votes who simply haven’t been tapped yet, so in practice it could be more margin than these figures suggest.

Charles - Sefton Central: CON 13642, LAB 19184, LDEM 7543, OTH 1146. The Conservatives will need a swing of 6.68% to win it, so it’s not far outside the list of target seats in the guide. (And thanks for the correction on Hereford!)

Mac - not much change at all in Tewkesbury, the Conservative majority only falls by a couple of %. I don’t plan on doing a new version on the London election results, using the London Assembly results takes away all the problems of having wards without a candidate from a particular party, wards with councillors with strong personal votes, wards with independents, etc, etc. Rallings and Thrasher’s figures will be based on the 2006 results.

I am very impressed with the notional boundaries document, Anthony. I entirely agree with the notional Labour majority of my local seat, Hastings & Rye. It definitely will be one of the top Conservative targets in the country.
I look forward to the release of information regarding the all the notional boundaries.

Some more observations:
1. Chelmsford could definitely be subjected to a strong Lib Dem challenge at the next election.
2. Will Chelsea & Fulham be a stronger Conservative seat than Kensington?
3. Will the Notional Conservative majority in Meon Valley definitley be that small?

Thanks again for a most enjoyable read,
Terry

Re. 40 a possible source of bias in the Meon Valley results is the strong personal vote Mark Oaten seems to have in Winchester. If you compare the GE and county council results for 2005 it appears the Lib Dem vote is about 11% higher in the GE than the CC, the Tory vote around 11% lower. I doubt this will continue to be the case in the new Meon Valley seat. I think the majority there is more likely to be 4-5k.

Anthony

I saw your guide and found it useful and interesting. However, although I think you accept there is a need for a change in the Taunton Deane proposed majority, it is indeed bigger than Kippaxed suggested. It is easy to get this wrong as the County Council seat (electorate 5988) already includes an element of the Bridgwater constituency. We do know that the number of electors that the new Taunton seat is losing from the West Somerset district is about 4050. Therefore, if you take 67% (4050/5988) of the 2000 vote majority that Cllr John Edwards got, the Conservative ‘margin’ lost to the new Taunton Deane seat is almost 1400. Add to this a further complication in that Walker, the Independent candidate was I think previously a Conservative councillor in a nearby West Somerset District Council seat and you can increase the ‘loss’ further, albeit slightly. With a May 2005 result of a 573 majority, the LibDem majority (based on 2005) going into the next election should sadly really read a majority of 2,000.

.

Yes, I agree that the notional Taunton Lib Dem majority will be about 2,000. Has there been any implications for Somerton & Frome at all, or will the notional result be broadly similar?

Somerton & Frome may be very slightly better for the Conservatives, by 200-300 votes but it’s hard to say given two of the three wards affected are independent held. CC results would suggest Ivelchester leans to the Lib Dems in GEs and Blackmoor Vale to the Conservatives, and the Camelot ward is Tory but any estimates must be sketchy.

Anthony,

Very interesting reading.

Are you going to publish your Guide to the New Electoral Boundaries (2nd Version)? I would really like to see the whole picture for how the new boundaries effect the next general election. I’d really like to purchase it if it’s published.

It’s interesting to see the effect of the boundary changes have on my constituency Bournemouth West where the Tory majority seems to have been cut by 2,000 votes. This puts the Tories in the most precarious postion in Bournemouth ever recorded.
However there majority in went up in the East seat with a new MP.
What cut the majority? Was it the inclusion of of the two Poole wards and tranfering of more Tory inclined wards to Bournemouth East?

Interested to hear the comments on both of the above

Paul - I shall have a look at my Bournemouth workings tonight and let you know. At present I haven’t decided what to do with the full figures.

Everyone else - please keep comments about individual seats and wards coming. I *will* be doing an updated version of the guide taking into account people’s comments since there are at least two seats (Milton Keynes North and South) where there is a serious error that needs correcting.

I very much look forward to this, Anthony.
I do, by the way, feel that you have my home seat of Hastings & Rye spot on!

Many congratulations on this document obviously a lot of work. My interest is mainly in the new Aberconwy and Arfon seats. The new Aberconwy seat may be close to a four way marginal at the general election what price all four parties below 30%?

Things will be complicated by the Assembly elections next year being conducted on these boundaries. Whoever wins each of these seats in the assembly elections will have an advantage going into the general election.

Off topic. Have you seen any polling evidence to suggest the Cameron affect is stronger in some regions than others. I ask because I recall seeing data that showed Camerons improvement mainly coming from middle class female voters and this groups is most heavily represented in SE England/London.

Thanks

mark

Hi Anthony,

If you don’t already know, the revised proposals for Greater Manchester are now online: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pbc/review_areas/Greater_Manchester_Boroughs/default.asp

Most of the seats are unchanged from the original. The exceptions are those in the group of eastern boroughs Rochdale, Oldham, Tameside and Stockport. Rochdale borough has now been awarded two whole seats, and the remaining boroughs have been awarded eight between them. Denton & Reddish has been restored as a cross-borough constituency. I’m not sure what the partisan effects of these will be, but I would suspect Oldham East & Saddleworth will be better for Labour than the original proposals (it looks quite like the current seat), and - possibly - that Rochdale might be slightly better for the Lib Dems. But I await your response to this with interest!

Aidan.

Oldham East is indeed much better for Labour in the revised recommendations - I’ve got a notional majority of about 4,000 for them now, as opposed to about 500 before. Rochdale on the other hand doesn’t look much different to before.

Hi Anthony , Agree that Oldham East is rather better for Labour . Rochdale is difficult to work out as it depends how many Conservatives in Bamford voted tactically last year - perhaps a marginal increase in Lib Dem favour . Stockport looks interesting as the Lib Dems move into a clear 2nd place - would be interested in seeing your calculations here .

“Stockport looks interesting as the Lib Dems move into a clear 2nd place - would be interested in seeing your calculations here”

I haven’t got that - I’ve still got the Tories in second place there with not a huge amount of change. Looking at the figures, Stockport gains small sections of Heatons North (which seems to be Tory leaning) and Manor (With appears LD leaning), a small part of Brinngington (Lab leaning). It loses a small bit of Reddish South (Con leaning) and a much larger piece of Stepping Hill (which appears Lib Dem leaning).

Of course, they are all just bits of larger wards, so someone with a better idea of the areas might be able to say they are losing the Tory bits of the wards and gaining Lib Dem bits of other wards, but the straight calculations suggest no massive change.

Unless I’ve made a horrible error somewhere

Hi Anthony , I am comparing the new proposals with the provisional recommendations and not with previous boundaries . It makes it easy to see the effect as the wards moved are whole 2004 wards . Stockport loses both Reddish wards safe Labour with Conservatives 2nd and gains Manor Lib Dem with Labour 2nd . The votes in 2004 in the 6 wards now comprising Stockport were roughly Con 6,000 Lab 9,000 Lib 7,000 Others 1,600 compared to Con 7,700 Lab 11,800 Lib 6,500 Others 900 on the provisional boundaries . I would make the notional figures roughly Con 6,500 Lab 17,000 Lib 9,000 Others 2,000 .
Still a fair Labour majority .

Hi Anthony,

I was just wondering if - in doing your calculations - you have looked carefully at the mistakes that were made last time round by Rallings and Thrasher, in order to help you to avoid the same mistakes this time.

The most obvious example, of course, would be the notional results for Gordon last time round, which gave a huge majority to the Conservatives which most people now believe was a big mistake.

Also, in my own constituency of Lichfield, the Lib Dems were given a vote share of 5.7% (I think, from memory!), which was clearly ridiculously low for such a middle-class seat.

If you are doing so, I would be very interested to briefly hear about what steps you are taking in that regard.

Andrew. I’ve no idea what R&T did or didn’t do in Lichfield. In Gordon it was a case of people voting very differently at local and Parliamentary elections - without making manual adjustments based on local knowledge there’s not much you can do about that, so there could be new “Gordons” lurking in this data. As I’ve said above, at some point I’m going to publish a new list taking into account feedback I’ve received about individual seats which might reduce the risk of such errors a bit, but it depends upon someone knowing about that particular seat.

A marvellous piece of work, and I can confirm that your figures regarding the Sittingbourne and Sheppey seat is pretty well what we had worked out locally,
A mix of rural farmland and village areas with a dense concentration of estates around Teynham just takes the country’s second most marginal Labour seat to become the 7th most marginal Tory seat!
Given that the voters have moved from a very safe Tory seat, one might expect a higher turnout amongst both Tory voters and Labour voters in the area, with and Lib Dems having to consider some tactical voting next time round…

Thanks for the reply.

It’s interesting to know you’re going to take into account local knowledge to a certain extent, because I definitely think a phenomenon exists in notional results in general whereby one can do the estimates using local council results, and have them calculated in a perfect mathematical, statistical way, yet still end up with results which seem to ‘feel wrong’ to those with local knowledge and experience. Allowing such people to have some input is, in my opinion, a sensible decision.

Any thoughts on changes to the seats in Hillingdon - Uxbridge, Ruislip-Northwood and Hayes?

Uxbridge & South Ruislip will still be safish Conservative - notional majority in the region of 13% compared to 18% for the old Uxbridge seat. There will be a larger Lib Dem notional vote that could concievable go to the Labour party making it more marginal, but realistically it will be Tory.

Hayes & Harlington will still be safe Labour, it’s a tiny weeny bit better for the Tories but the Labour majority is still about 30%.

Northwood & Pinner will be a Conservative fortress, absolute rock solid Tory. The notional majority will be about 32%. Losing Pinner though will change Harrow West from a close marginal to a safe Labour seat.

Generally speaking the changes in that part of London are bad for the Conservatives - Tory votes are piled up in Northwood & Pinner where they are surplus to requirements to the party’s detriment in the neighbouring marginals.

Re Lichfield: I think the reason R&T gave the Lib Dems such a low figure for the revised seat in 1997 was that there had been a big Lib Dem squeeze in the seat in 1992 because of the Mid Staffs by-election a few years earlier. I assume that what Lib Dem vote there was in Mid Staffs must have been concentrated in the parts of that seat that didn’t go into Lichfield.

Aidan, its interesting what you say about Lichfield, but I think the last part of your comment is probably not correct, in my opinion.

In 1992, the Lib Dems polled 10.2% in Mid Staffs. R&T calculated the Lichfield notional result for 1992 for the Lib Dems to be just 5.7%. Now, Lichfield was by far the most middle-class part of the Mid Staffs seat, and therefore I’m pretty certain the Lib Dem vote would have been either average for the seat or perhaps even higher than 10.2%. (I think I have a fairly good idea, being a previous Lib Dem member in Lichfield, although of course I accept I could be completely wrong). More evidence is that Lichfield has one of the highest levels of university educated voters in the West Midlands, which usually indicates a relatively high vote for the Lib Dems.

The Lib Dems actually polled 11.2% in Lichfield in 1997, when their share of the vote fell nationally from 18% to 17%, so a more accurate notional result for Lichfield Lib Dems in 1992 would have been around 12%.

I think the explanation for the mistake was probably the fact that the Lib Dems don’t bother to contest some of the wards in local elections. This doesn’t always mean that there are very few Lib Dem voters in those wards, as is sometimes believed. It can simply mean that the Lib Dems are concentrating their resources on even better prospects somewhere else in the local region.

Under the radically altered seats why is there no mention of the new Morley & Outwood seat which will consist of 4 Leeds wards and two Wakefield wards?

A job well done, it makes very interesting reading. I was curious what you thought the change to the Harrogate constituency would be. Isn’t it going to be a tighter race between the Tories and the LibDems with the new boundaries?

Makes very interesting reading! I am very impressed by the reasoned and well thought out predictions in this document, I look forward to any further update.

I wonder if you have considered South Ribble, following the correct observation of a slashed (but still strong) Tory percentage in the expanded Ribble Valley. South Ribble has stretched further south and south west into rural Chorley, making a very tight Tory/Labour dog-fight. The local elections in the West Lancashire elements suggest a Tory resurgance to unbalance the Leyland-based Labour support…

Great Work Anthony. Sefton Central is an interesting one, you might want to look at. Applying the standard methodology gives a result fractionally MORE favourable to Labour, which seems and feels nonsensical. On the other hand, talking to a local Labour councillor, he is convinced “on their canvass returns” that Sefton Central is ALREADY a Tory seat! My own guess is that it has a notional Labour majority of about 11%, with a strong LibDem presence and should be on the Tory hit-list.
By-the-way, can you update your list with say a further 25 seats to take the Tories to a majority of 50, as we know that if the Tories ever get in sight of the winning post, they will fail in some easier seats, but win some harder ones!

Rod - my calculations have got Crosby being more favourable to the Tories, not Labour (a notional majority of about 13%, so slightly less favourable than your estimate). If you have any personal knowledge of the political make up - any particular wards that are more Labour/Tory/Lib Dem than local election results would suggest, then drop me an email.

When I do an updated version I’ll list he fist 150 or target seats instead (wich should, incidentally, make Sefton Central one of them - it will be Tory target 133 or thereabouts)

The pdf says that the new Devon central will include Exeter wards, however, the final version of the Devon recommendations, changed so that instead two (different) Exeter wards went to East Devon, some of East Devon went to Tiverton and some of Tiverton went to Devon Central. This makes Exeter very safe for Lab and most likely the three other three will all be Tory.

Thanks Lod - I have that down as a correct needed in the updated version. The figures for Devon Central are based on the correct final boundary changes - it’s just the description of the boundary changes that wasn’t updated properly.

I am looking forward to the new version of this already!

Lancashire could be an interesting county to look at, with South Ribble, Lancaster & Fleetwood, Wyre & Preston North and the two Blackpools all looking like tough Lab/Con dog-fights.

Liam - I wouldn’t get on the edge of your seat, it won’t be for a very long time yet!

Anthony, I look forward to seeing re-calculations for Greater London based on May 2006 (nearer to 2005 than 2002 was). I believe this is one reason why the ‘official’ Rallings and Thrasher figures have not appeared yet.

One point which became apparent to me while writing the 8th edition of The Almanac of British Politics:
Everyone so far has had Sheffield Hillsborough as the abolished seat in South Yorkshire, but I would suggest it is Barnsley West and Penistone.
The majority of Hillsborough forms the majority of Penistone and Stocksbridge. Barnsley W &.. forms the majority of no new seat.
This does not make any difference to the political effect calculations, of course.

Re: Not from me you wont Robert! My London figures are based on the constituency votes in the London Assembly elections in 2004, not the 2002 local elections.

Using the assembly elections mean you don’t have to invent notional scores for wards that one party doesn’t contest, takes away the problem of how to deal with independents and means that individual councillors personal votes cease to be an issue. I’m sticking with them

Re: Sheffield. As you know, it can be pretty arbitary which seat is described as the one that is vanishing (unless, I suppose, you are an MP for such a seat fighting for selection in a successor seat, in which case I expect being perceived as the incumbent rather than the guy losing their seat is an advantage at selecton meetings). Looking at through seeing which seats make up 50% of the new seats though sounds like as good a way as any though - so you’ve convinced me!

Hi,

My Computer has no problems reading most PDF files. However, when I tried to read the PDF file on your predictions, it comes out as illegible dots. Looks like a very interesting report; pity I can’t read it - try and make it more user friendly next time.

I would be very interested in your predictions for my home county of Hampshire (Meon Valley, Romsey & North Southampton, Winchester as revised with Hiltingbury included, Eastleigh, the Portsmouths) and Northamptonshire (which could be a hidden disaster for the Conservatives).

I do not have a website, but my e-mail address is:

jh_sandland@hotmail.com

I am an MSc in Statistics; I have 3 ways of assessing public opinion:

1st: Real Votes (by-election results, council election results: recently Dunfermline)
2nd: Some Big Brother Votes (such as the Bez/MacCririk straight eviction vote - a vote between the Respect Agenda and the Madchester Agenda - and the Derek-Laud/Eugene eviction vote)
3rd: Opinion Polls - a poor 3rd; “Eight Out of Ten Cats” sums them up.

I’ve no idea why you are having difficulties wiuth the pdf - it is a standard pdf, without any unusual features, and I have heard of no other problems.

In Hampshire, I have Meon Valley as a Lib Dem/Conservative marginal, with a notional Conservative majority of around 2000.
Romsey & Southampton N notional LDem majority of around 450, Winchester remains a “safe” LDem seat with a notional majority of around 8,000 (though whether it is safe in reality or not may be a different question given Mark Oaten’s recent difficulties).

The changes make little difference in Eastleigh or Portsmouth South. Portsmouth North will be better for the Tories - notionally I have it as Tory seat with a majority in double figure, so realistically it is far to close to say who would have won it in 2005 on the new boundaries.

In Northamptonshire I have the new Northamptonshire South seat as safe Conservative, and the currently Conservative seat of Northampton South becoming a notionally Labour seat. Kettering becomes much worse for the Conservatives, but not bad enough to stop it being a notionally Tory seat - the notional majority is only around 100 compared to about 3,300 at the last election.

Hey Robert and Anthony…suppose I can use this opportunity to ask when both the 8th addition of the excellent Almanac is set to be published? Many thanks…

Anthony - with regard to the new Blackpool seats - North & Cleveleys, and South - are your figures suggesting a Tory revival here?

Regards - Liam

Anthony,

What do you make of York Outer though. Bearing in mind that the lib dems finish 3 in York and Selby and 2nd in the other two seats it is been made up of, how come it is a Lib Dem seat when the Tories hold two and are second in the other two of the 4 seats it draws the new boundaries from?

Anthony,
Very interesting work - thanks. I was struck by the notional result you predict for the new Hammersmith seat. This is a different result from that predicted by the 2005 GE (which suggests Con maj of 400) and the 2006 Council elections (Con maj +/-1,000). Do you stick by your “secure Labour” categorisation?!
Thanks,
Anthony

Anthony - remember it isn’t a prediction for what will happen next time, but what would have happened in 2005. Judging by the local election results it could well end up returning a Conservative MP, but had the 2005 election been fought on those boundaries it would have been Labour (the contrast with the 2005 election is because it has lost Conservative Fulham to the new Fulham & Chelsea seat).

Re: Sefton Central. It could be very interesting.

Basically, the reason it is no longer called Crosby is that half of the Crosby area has been shifted south into Bootle. Those two wards are essentially Lab/LibDem with very little Tory presence. I live in one of them and it will mean I can vote for who I want being in a safe seat!

Sefton Central now consists of the safe Tory ward in Crosby (Blundellsands) which is far less solid than it once was, but the Tories still win. Manor ward is a Lab/Con marginal which takes in the Thornton area (Labour) and Hightown (Tory). The LibDems have been gaining some ground locally

The two Formby wards are Tory. Harington safely so, Ravenmeols can be won by Labour in a good year, but their organisation has gone to pot there.

The other three new wards are the Maghull and Aintree wards of Sudell, Park and Molyneux.
Sudell and Park and impregnably LibDem locally. They were previously in the very safe Knowsley North and Sefton East seat which was Labour. It seems that the Maghull vote is more Labour nationally than locally. The Tories do badly in Maghull locally.
Labour used to hold all three Molyneux ward seats, basically Aintree and Ince Blundell, but are now a way behind the LibDems locally.

So, if you look just at local election results, Labour don’t have a prayer on paper - but, then, I thought the Tories would have taken Crosby in 2005 - I voted Labour despite everything. The current Labour Crosby MP is very politically ‘flexible’ and seems popular amongst the Tory voters. There are rumours that she would love to get her hands on the safe Bootle seat where the MP is likely to retire, but if that was tried I would seriously foresee a Blaenau Gwent situation.

I live in Garforth at the moment on the south-west of the Elmet constituency. Can you let me know what constituency Garforth falls into and the make-up of this seat (and the Elmet one if now not Elmet) and a bit of info on chnages in this area. Any help appreciated.

Garforth and Swillington ward is placed in the Elmet and Rothwell constituency. The changes in the constituency compared to the current Elmet constituency overall make it slightly better for Labour.

I would say Elmet & Rothwell will be substantially better for Labour than the old Elmet seat. Rothwell, although now returning Lib Dem councillors, has been historically a solidly Labour ward in South Leeds and I would expect its addition to add a sizeable chunk to Mr Burgeon’s majority there

What views on the revised Newcastle seats? Lib Dems ran Labour close in Newcastle Central last time but the new boundaries would appear to make Newcastle North and Newcastle East more marginal than Central, with Tyne Bridge getting axed.

Hi Anthony - Could you tell me how you get to the 12,000 maj for the Tories in the new seat of Kenilworth and Southam please.
The returns to the ballot boxes in 2005 from Kenilworth were not as impressive as one would imagine, a large proportion of the Lib Dem vote came from there.
The village of Ryton must be very strong Labour but has an impressive Ind Cllr. Some parts of Southam are Labour strongholds. I would guess that Rugby council results do not accurately represent the strength of the national Tory vote there, especially as one sees the Lib Dem strongholds at local elections evaporate when activists stand over the boxes at GE’s.
This resource is a credit to your hard work. Thank You!

David - I’m going over all the results now for an updated version later in the year taking into account feedback I’ve received. If you can drop me an email with details of where you think local election results might give a misleading impression of the distribution of the national vote (especially things like your comments on Ryton, and any information from box counts at elections) then please do drop me an email so I can factor them in

If it looks wrong to someone with local knowledge - then it probably is, and I’d rather put it right!

Looking at the changes in North Wales, I suggest that the Labour voters of Bangor contain a large number of PC supporters who were tactically voting Labour to keep the Conservatives out of Conwy, and that in the new Arfon seat they will switch to their party of choice - Plaid - and the new Arfon seat will remain as a Plaid stronghold.

The new Aberconwy seat, as well as losing Bangor, gains PC votes from Nant Conwy, and I think that this will make this seat a Conservative/Plaid marginal with Labour dropping to 3rd place. I believe that this seat will go to Plaid in the Assembly and Conservative at Westminster.

Anthony, with the news that Sarah Teather is going for the Brent Central seat, do you have figures for that. Everyone is comparing it with Hampstead and Kilburn, but without substantive info.

Erlend Watson

Erlend -

Notional figures are

CON 4901
LAB 18383
LDEM 11776

Very many thanks for a good work. Nice and useful. Like it!

Dear Anthony,

Wonderful research, looks like a real labour of love.

Would it be possible to have your figures for the new Bath constituency. I assume with the 1 1/2 Bathavon wards transfering to the North East Somerset Seat it becomes substantially safer for the Lib Dems?

Bathonian (and Toon Army and other people after particular seats). My updated figures, with full details for every seat, are almost done - should be available at some point over the next month or so.