The Green Party has selected Ricky Knight from West Devon as their parliamentary candidate for Bristol West. Knight makes a great deal of the Green’s local election results and suggests that the seat is a ‘four horse race’.
Local election results have a poor record in predicting general elections and in Bristol west this is particularly tough. When Valerie Davey won Bristol West for labour in 1997, she received 6,000 votes more than the Labour local election candidates and on that day of Labour Landslide the Lib Dems won Cotham ward from Labour. In 2001 Labour had another landslide but the Lib Dems secured their grip on Bishopston and Redland wards. It is clear that the Liberal Democrats do much better in council elections in the constituency than they do in the parliamentary seat. In 1987 and 1992 Labour Party activists were told how local election results in key seats showed that they were about to win the general election, they didn’t.
The greens have also had a strong showing in local election results in the area for some years now but have failed to turn it into general election voting. There are two factors which affect this:
1) Split voting – people voting one way at local elections and another at general elections. Some of this is about specific candidates who tend to have a larger influence at local level. Some people also use local elections to ‘punish’ the main parties. Others vote on ‘local’ issues in council elections and national/international issues in the General.
2) Differential turnout. The number of people voting in local elections is smaller than in general elections. Those voting at the local level are not a representative sample of the voting electorate in general elections. Those who are more passionate about politics and more engaged in the local community are more likely to vote locally, also those who have been contacted by or know the candidates. The general election turnout is likely to be around twice as high as the council elections and the main parties do better partly because general election coverage is focussed on who is likely to form a Government.
There are two websites that seek to identify the starting point for the 2010 general election taking account of the Parliamentary boundaries:
Electoral Calculus http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk (this site also allows you to type opinion poll results into a calculator and predict the general election result in any seat, it also does its own calculations monthly on average of polls – popular with political geeks)
Its starting point for election (i.e. its calculation of the 2005 result on new boundaries is)
Lib Dem 18,157 38%
Labour 17,709 37%
Con 8,380 18%
Others 3,539 7% (this would be mainly green votes but also Respect/socialist Labour)
Majority 448 0.9%
UK Polling report http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog (this site analyses all polls and also has a rolling average but doesn’t predict the results in individual seats only overall)
Lib Dem 18,051 41%
Labour 17,411 39%
Con 6,117 14%
Other 3,010 7%
Majority 640 1.4%
These are both independent sites with no party political bias. Although Knight is the best name of all the candidates for a horseman this seat is a two horse race.
http://www.bristol247.com/2009/12/13/green-candidate-says-bristol-west-is-four-horse-race/
Hi Paul, thanks for your response and your ‘welcome’.
I look forward to meeting you, socially or otherwise – politically, even.
Your analysis is interesting and informative.
I look forward to a challenging and rewarding campaign.
Excellent image – if you’re on the right, am I next to you?
best regards
Ricky
PS Did we meet at the FoE euro-hustings, albeit briefly?
Ricky hi, no but we were both at the anti-nazi rally, march and demo in central Bristol
[…] https://bristolwestpaul.wordpress.com/2009/12/14/four-horsemen/ […]
Proof that the Greens don’t have a firm line, Vowles the Green candidate for Bristol East has not included the Bristol West seat in the list of Green opportunities
http://vowlesthegreen.blogspot.com/2010/01/2010-general-electionor-should-that-be.html
Although he does talk about horses
Hi Paul
Its nice to see you are sufficiently worried about us to keep blogging about us.
Thanks very much!!!
Always happy to help
Nah – he knows that if he can encourage enough of the green leaning Lib Dem waverers to vote for the Green Party in Bristol West instead of Stephen Williams, he might just stand a chance of the seat!
Other techniques he is using have been to disown many of his own key Labour party policies, like on the Iraq war, Tuition fees, Trident missiles, ID cards, etc, etc
Fun watching though!
if they were my policies I wouldn’t be disowning them! indeed many of them are not Labour Party policy either. Glad to be providing fun
…. but we do have a firm line about who we want leading the party into the election whichever seat it is…
Come on Paul, this is very weak and doesn’t portray the image of a man confident in his abilities to take down the Lib Dems.
Bristol West is the seat most likely for the Greens in the Bristol area. Even if nationally, there are seats in Brighton, Lewisham and Norwich which, at least on paper, offer a better change, Bristol West is close to that top trio. Whereas Labour probably have doubts whether Bristol West is even in their three most important seats in Bristol!
Let’s be honest, do Labour think gaining Bristol West from the Lib Dems is more important than stopping Bristol NW, Kingswood or Bristol East going to the Tories?
Realistically, in the coming election, whoever is leading the Labour party, the priority has to be holding seats rather than gaining them.
Tony thought you would appreciate the joke.
I was trying to put my serious face on…..
Tony take it off you will scare the children
Paul, tell me how this ‘firm line’ you talk of is consistent with your view that your party is your platform not my prison…
What’s your view on the party whipping system? Independent thought or….a firm line…?
Haha love the typo.
Glenn I agree with collective action to meet the needs of the people of the world, this sometimes requires compromise but I also believe that people should be able to speak their mind and vote with their conscience and in line with their principles. Political Parties are an essential form for bringing together people of similar views but should not be systems for dictating a unity of view. These things are always a bit messy because the world we live in is complicated, I am sure you and I could agree on many issues but we have different priorities which leaves us in different parties however that should not stop us working together when our views overlap. To see in more detail my views on party politics try the following link:
opps! thats sgould be …your party is you platform not your prison…!!
Hi
I like to use this image of the four horsemen on a print.
Could you please send me a link to the source?
Do you know if the image is protected by copyright?
Thanks very much.
Regards
Benjamin
don’t know found it on google images