Bristol’s Mayoral Election: A statistical perspective
Elections allow those politicos who like to play with figures a fantastic opportunity to prove that the losers actually won and that their team did fantastically. I can’t resist an analysis of my own but will try and remain as objective as possible. I have looked at two issues:
1) How would the parties have expected to have done if there hadn’t been the huge vote beyond the mainstream parties (including the Greens).
2) What are the long term trends in Bristol based upon the last 4 all out elections in the City.
How well did the parties in Bristol really do?
The last election which all people in the city could vote? That was the general election in 2010. The turnout then was just over twice that on Thursday. 196,077 votes compared to 89,156. This means that any comparison is affected by two factors. That the profile of the turnout across the city is not the same and that in a general election people may vote differently than in a local election. A third factor is that the voting system is different allowing people to have a heart and a head vote in Thursday’s election whereas in a general election some people will vote tactically for the candidates who they think might be in with a chance winning. This means that in Thursday’s supplementary vote election you would expect ‘minor’ parties to do better.
The Results for the two elections were as follows:
# 2010 2012 Change
Liberal Democrat 34.3% 7.0% -27.3%
Labour 32.3% 29.0% -3.3%
Conservative 27.1% 9.1% -18.0%
Green 2.4% 5.9% +3.5%
Left parties 1.1% 3.3% +2.2%
Others 4.3% 45.6% +41.3%
However the national polls are not the same as they were at the general election so to have a more accurate picture of party performance we need to adjust for the change in the national picture. I have done this taking the poll of polls published by Anthony Wells on his yougov related blog.
# 2010 %s 2012%s Change
Labour 29% 42% +13%
Conservative 36% 33% -3%
LD 23% 9% -14%
Others 12% 16% +4%
If we factor these changes into Bristol (which assumes that the national changes are reflected in Bristol) the percentages we should have expected in the mayoral election and the difference to the actual result are as follows:
# Projected Variation
Labour 45% -16%
Con 24% -15%
LD 20% -13%
Others 11% +44%
This tends to suggest that the party which did worse compared to what might be expected was Labour (although rounding means it could be just as bad for the Conservatives). A reading of the turnout statistics suggests that much of this loss was due to spectacularly low turnouts in traditional labour areas (barely above 10% in Labour’s core areas while nearer 40% in conservative and lib dem ‘core areas’ – excluding postal votes) but it would be hard to argue that the whole effect was just due to this and that some normally Labour supporters did vote for independent or ‘minor party’ candidates.
Long term trends
Bristol rarely has all out elections. This is due to the ‘election by thirds’ in local elections. Also prior to 2010 the parliamentary boundaries did not match the city boundary. There were two all out elections in 1999 (following boundary changes, now long overview) and 1995 following the abolition of the County Council. 1995 was a the high water mark of the Labour vote, at least since the formation of the SDP and the last time that one party got over 50% of the vote in the City. This does skew the analysis a little but the trends in party share in the 4 all out elections does tell an interesting story.
Labour appears to be on a steady slide, The Lib Dems and Conservatives have seen a catastrophic collapse in their vote last week and the greens have risen (partly due to the difference in voting system) but are still trailing the other mainstream parties.
It could be argued that this recent vote was unusual, which it certainly was. It we look just at the four parties share ignoring other parties the graph looks very different:
This shows Labour in a strengthening position after Thursday in comparison to the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives.
Conclusion
It doesn’t take a genius to realise that the election result was bad news for the three traditional political parties. The analysis here suggests it was much worse for Labour than just looking at the votes cast might suggest. However it does also suggest that if we start to see more independents standing in local elections following this result Labour may be in a stronger position than the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in holding and gaining council seats.
Labour will be hoping that turnout rises among its core voters in future elections and the Tories and Lib Dems that after a brief flirtation with independents that their voters will come back to them in May. The Greens will be hoping that some of the independent vote will come to them and that they can hold onto the voters who want to vote for them but don’t wish to see their vote wasted.
Party politics in Bristol’s local government is not dead, indeed traditional political parties (including ‘minor’ parties) polled more than independents (just) but it is wounded.
They are not your core voters anymore Paul. Labour has lost the working class vote. It has lost its working class constituency parties and lost its working class candidates. There is no longer a grass roots labour party.
I don’t see Labour getting these voters back. They will not bother voting cos no one represents them
Almost thought the title was a Sillitoe reference but that’s ‘Saturday Night and Sunday Morning’ isn’t it?
“What I want is a good time, the rest is all propaganda,”
My blog titles are songs, this one is the specials
http://www.nevillehobson.com/ He makes some good points on ‘trust’ in public institutions. Including political parties. It has completely worn thin now in southern Europe. It is beginning the same process in northern Europe. It can be reversed, but it needs leadership and there are none that I can see at the moment, anywhere in any country. Political parties have visisions that match up nicely to a decade ago. They need to match up to times now. There does need to be some harsh decisions made, but this has to be balanced against hope and a strong vision for the future. We are all stuck in the past in the UK accepting or supporting too many old institutions that can be argued to be past their sell-by date, but are in fact in urgent need of becoming relevant to the problems of now, and the opportunities of tomorrow. We revere them, rightly or wrongly, for what we imagine them to be: the Nurse Goddess, The incredibly inspiring teaching profession, the incredible ands selfless trade unionist – but have they ever existed? We need to ask unthinkable questions and strengthen what is good about society by challenging its precepts and views so that they become better and more relevant for today. And problems that affect the world (climate change, increasing amount of food to meet 2bn more mouths by 2050 etc) are just as much everyone’s problems. Can a top heavy, elitist London-centric political structure really understand have solutions for the Aberdonian, the Bristolian and the Etonian? I see us bumping along, patching up this and that and kicking real problems further and further down the road (e.g energy – our power stations almost all shut in 5-10 years and we cannotn afford to go dark if we are to find a million more jobs?). I may sound like a doom monger but I honestly believe it is a very exciting time to be alive. And we now need to do what Yorkshire County Cricket club allegedly did in the 1950′s when it needed to find the next in a line of Fred Trueman style fast bowlers, shout down the nearest coalmine. Maybe it is a Starbucks? Maybe it is in an up and coming university, maybe the leader is already in poltics, but….whoever it is can they please stand up and be counted now as we need them pretty quick.
I wonder how well Labour would have done with a feisty and glamorous transgender candidate…
I’m seeing the gender shrink this week. I should be excited but the NHS has a way of squeezing the joy out of these things. It’s just another top down authoritarian, bossy, antiquated, sloooow, penny wise and pound foolish organisation. They couldn’t give a fuck for the outcome we have to live with.
I said earlier this year that anyone who can’t run a GIC isn’t up to running the country:
* The Americans (and believe it or not the Australians) are now charging ahead with better transgender healthcare. The Dutch look on in horror at how the UK is a decade behind. In spite of organisational improvements (which is arguable) the budget per transgender patient is actually falling. Given the Department of Health’s attitude it’s unlikely any improvement in outcomes will be seen after their latest consultation closes early next year.
* Pakistan is a very transgender unfriendly and a hellhole. Asia is very transgender friendly and a resilient and growing economy.
* Unusually for its size and the size of capture area Bristol doesn’t have a GIC. Labour flopped and the multimillionaire wideboy George Ferguson won. He wants to legalise prostitution and improve transport (which is not a bad thing but not the most important priority) so hookers and maids can get to work on time. Thanks, I’m sure.
Compare this with the relative differences in other economies and the picture is remarkably close to prediction. And yeppers. Just as transgenders are being shit on the economy goes into a triple dip.
Ooookay, Paul. Um, remind me. Whose turn is to buy lunch? Eeny, meany, miney, mo…
This makes no sense to me, from the phrasing of the questions to the use of data to support the research.
What is your thesis and hypothesis? Are you suggesting that the mainstream parties lost out to independents?
>>
1) How would the parties have expected to have done if there hadn’t been the huge vote beyond the mainstream parties (including the Greens).
You point out that general election results do not reflect local results and then you go on to use the data offering only poll results as an alternative. Local election results are also available, why not use those?
https://www.bristol.gov.uk/LocalElectionViewer?XSL=main&ElectionId=-2
Also, can you argue any of these points without publishing the results from Thursday?
In conclusion:
1) You don’t mention the referendum which has a similar turnout to the mayoral election vote; 2) you don’t note the very different character of the mayoral vote which would probably be better compared to other mayoral votes around the country rather than a general election; and 3 you don’t mention the other characteristics of the candidates which may have affected the result.
I don’t understand the second half of your argument so can’t comment.
If your thesis is that independents, or more likely, an independent vote for George Ferguson, swayed and changed the nature of political voting and voter affiliations in Bristol, then that would be a fascinating read. Hopefully in the next post?
2) What are the long term trends in Bristol based upon the last 4 all out elections in the City.
Joanna, I have quoted the results from Thursday, however I have quoted them as percentages rather than number of votes cast. This is the standard way of comparing results between elections and is used to calculate swings. Percentages are also the way in which opinion polls are published. You are right that I highlight some of the failings in this approach but that doesn’t make it invalid. I recognise that its very 2am in the morning BBC type approach.
As to why did I pick the last 4 all out elections, because that is the only way to compare like with like. In the bristol elections when only two thirds of the seats are contested the results are not comparable due to the different demography.
This blog was looking at what happened to party support on Thursday as the referendum was not a party political vote it didn’t have a bearing on this topic.
When the election results are out in May I can compare those results to the previous elections fought on the same demographic.
The one long term thing that can’t be predicted from one election is whether or not independents are going to be a lasting feature in Bristol elections or whether last Thursday was a ‘flash in the pan’.
Hi Paul,
Yes, you are right – you did quote the mayoral election results. It was the following part that I thought merited a closer look and made me wonder if publishing the complete results would have been useful
From your first table:
Others 4.3% 45.6% +41.3%
In reality it was George Ferguson with over 30% and the other “Others” making up various slices of the rest.
I think there is a bigger case to be made for mayoral elections being different from general and local elections and I am not sure if you can infer any reasonable conclusion on party politics from this.
The election was about changing the system of (“lower case”) politics and that may be why the results do not conform to previous voting. When Marvin started to distance himself from Labour by saying (and having his followers say) that the only reason he was in a party was because he couldn’t afford to run for mayor otherwise, then the signs start getting a little more clear.
If you modelled the results I suspect the party affiliations would have lost their significance in favour of individual candidates.
Yes I think you may be right, truth is we need to have several elections of this nature before we can draw conclusions. I hope to be around for a few more mayoral elections and as you can see from the original blog I am not adverse to looking at results over decades as well as years. I probably need therapy
There were 318893 Bristol people registered to vote in the Mayor elections;
Initially 31321 voted for Ferguson. Turnout was 28%. Ferguson got 30% of that turnout
However Ferguson got 9.82%, [on the first vote], of those registered to vote.
Turnout across Bristol for the mayoral election varied from 42.64% in Henleaze to 11.21% in Hartcliffe. In other words people on low income, Council tenants, the working class didn’t vote. In some voting booths, ‘suggested‘, there were no votes taken?
Because Bristol didn’t have a Local Authority election this year, only about 1 out of 6 people voted for an elected Mayor. Where Local Authority elections took place they voted against having an elected Mayor.
It was the more conservative areas of Bristol that voted to have a Mayor and the areas of the, ‘old Labour Wards‘, that voted against having a Mayor, or did not vote.
People voted against the old political parties. The electorate of Bristol do not want a Mayor. It was not a vote for a Mayor, but a vote against having a Mayor
Is this the new democracy, when 90% of Bristol did not vote for Bristol to be run by one unrepresentative person?
A Mayor will be in control for 4 years. Not very democratic. We elect, 1 out of 3 councillors nearly every year. Better democracy. A Mayor could bring in policies that would need 2 out of 3 elected councillors to overturn. Less democracy.
I f Labour cannot acknowledge this, it does not acknowledge it’s traditional voters, and Labour will continue to suffer consequently.