Some Food for Thought From The Politics of New-Townville

Last week, there was a council by-election in my home town. Hardly the stuff of excitement, county and borough council by-elections, even when accompanied by the councillors' arrest on child pornography charges. However, being a dedicated political geek, I lugged myself to the polling station in pretty miserable weather and cast my vote. The woman from the Electoral Commission looked shocked; I reckon my brother and I were the first people she'd seen in a while!

Anyway, meandering story aside, the results are now out, and as such provide the potential for a fascinating insight into the state of the parties in a south-eastern 'marginal' of the type everyone keeps banging on about with regards to opinion polling and election winning. (My beloved New Town was solid blue 1979-1997, buried beneath the Labour landslides of 1997 and 2001, narrowly went back to the Tories in 2005 before swinging heavily to Cameron in 2010, although I suspect the popularity of the local MP, doubled with the closure of the entire general hospital helped a lot last time). Also interesting is the difference between the two seats; the borough council was last elected in May 2011, whereas the County was up for grabs in 2009; in between, the politically unthinkable has happened in the form of the 2010 election and the coalition.

So, anyway, enough waffle, here are the figures:

Borough Council Seat (27.24% turnout)

Conservative- 566 (49%, -17.5%)
Labour- 406 (35%, +10.6%)
Liberal Democrats- 70 (6%, -3.1%)
English Democrats- 47 (4%, +4%)
UKIP- 43 (4%, +4%)
Greens- 24 (2%, +2%)

And the County Council Seat (23.82% turnout):

Conservative- 1413 (48%, -2.4%)
Labour- 693 (28%, +13.4%)
Liberal Democrats- 456 (15%, -6%)
Green- 180 (6%, -7.1%)
UKIP- 151 (5%, +5%)
Independent- 61 (2%, +2%)

Now, despite all the flaws of local elections, local issues, time till the next general election and dismal turnout, I still reckon there's something to be read in these figures. For those of you still awake, I've drawn the following conclusions:

1. Despite their apparent national unpopularity, the Conservatives are staying in a strong first place. Yes, the Borough seat does show a 17.5% drop in their support, but this is to a mere 49% of the vote...

2. Labour appears to have recovered its position as the leader challenger to the Tories. However, most of this seems to have come from hoovering up votes from the Lib Dems and other minor parties, whereas they don't really seem to have made much of an inroad into the Tory vote.

3. Poor Nick Clegg. Even by splitting the difference between these two sets of results, the Lib Dems come in with only around 10% of the vote. And I reckon, short of some unforeseen event of stupendous proportions (Lembit Opik's asteroid, perhaps?) then this is how their poll ratings will stay.

4. There has been a rise in minor party voting, but only because more candidates from these groups are standing. They won't win seats, but they'll siphon off the Lib Dem's former protest voters.

So what I've maintained since about September 2010 appears to be broadly true. Labour did terribly at the 2010 election in terms of share of the vote, and in many areas it has to take to win outright (ie, the South) it has sunk into third place. In 2015, Labour's greatest achievement could be getting back into second place across vast swathes of the country. Meanwhile, many voters will figure 'better the devil you know' and put the Tories back in Number 10. This 'realignment of the opposition' may lead to the resurrection of two-party politics in Britain in the long run, but it could leave us lumbered with David Cameron until 2020. Now there's a sobering thought...

I do hope I'm wrong...

(Disclaimer: For the pedants who actually added my figures, they're based on rounding, so may not come to 100% at the end...)

The Wit and Wisdom of... Sir Keith Joseph

[They will be] tougher, because it would demand more of pupils; would be fairer because pupils would be judged by what they could do and not how they compared to someone else; and would be clearer because everyone would know what had been tested.

Sir Keith Joseph, while Education Secretary, in 1984, advocating the new GCSE exams

The Wit and Wisdom of... Ike

Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history

President of the United States Dwight D. Eisenhower (Ike) in 1954; Eisenhower was a Republican.