Mo's election predictions: South West of England

Mo's election predictions: South West England

Every fortnight, I am going to be releasing, region by region, my predictions of who each constituency will be called for at the general election. Today, I am going to start with South West England, an area with a huge number of Tory-Lib Dem marginals, and an area of massive importance to David Cameron in his pursuit of an overall majority. In this area of the country, Labour is a relatively minor party, but it does have some hope in some of the seats, in particular in places such as Stroud. UKIP easily topped the poll here at the Euro elections, with 33% of the vote, but they are unlikely to be competitive in more than a small number of seats here. In many seats, they will replace the Lib Dems as the main opposition to the Conservatives, but the UKIP vote seems to be far too thinly spread here to make them likely winners in any particular seat.

Bath
2010 result: Lib Dems 56.6%, Conservative 31.4%, Labour 6.9%, others 5.1%
Majority: 11,883
Prediction: Liberal Democrat HOLD
Only an absolute calamity will see the 11,000 Lib Dem majority here wiped out. Don Foster is standing down, but this seat should remain rock solid yellow nonetheless.

Bournemouth East
2010 result: Conservative 48.4%, Lib Dem 30.9%, Labour 13.3%, other 7.4%
Majority: 7728
Prediction: Conservative HOLD

Bournemouth West
2010 result: Conservative 45.1%, Lib Dem 31.7%, Labour 14.8%, others 8.3%
Majority: 5583
Prediction: Conservative HOLD

Bridgewater and west somerset
2010 result: Conservative 45.3%, Lib Dems 28.3%, Labour 17.1%, others 9.3%
Majority: 9249
Prediction: Conservative HOLD

Bristol east
2010 result: Labour 36.6%, Conservative 28.3%, Lib Dems 24.4%, others 10.7%
Majority: 3722
Prediction: Labour HOLD

Bristol North West
2010 result: Conservative 38.0%, Lib Dems 31.5%, Labour 25.9%, others 4.6%
Majority: 3274
Prediction: Conservative HOLD
This seat was won by the Conservatives from Labour in 2010, with Labour collapsing to 3rd place after some boundary changes. The seat is a mixture of wealthy commuter suburbs, with deprived areas where Labour tends to do sell, in places around Anonmouth Docks. The Conservatives outpaced Labour by 33.6% to 24.5% in the 2014 local elections here, with the Lib Dems languishing behind on 17.4%. A Labour gain here is not out of the question if they can sufficiently squeeze the Lib Dem vote, but the Conservatives should have enough support to get over the line.

Bristol South
2010 result: Labour 38.4%, Lib Dems 28.7%, Conservatives 22.9%, others 10.0%
Majority: 4734
Prediction: Labour HOLD

Bristol West
2010 result: Lib Dems 48.0%, Labour 27.5%, Conservative 18.4%, others 6.4%
Majority: 11,366
Prediction: Lib Dem HOLD
Bristol West is a difficult seat to call. The seat has quite a large Green vote, with many Green cllrs, which complicates things to some extent. Stephen Williams' incumbency should see him through but with a much smaller majority. I expect a divided opposition vote between Labour and the Green party will also help him to hold on.

Camborne and Redruth
2010 result: Conservative 37.6%, Lib Dems 37.4%, Labour 16.3%, others 8.7%
Majority: 66
Prediction: Conservative HOLD
Camborne and Redruth has been Labour, Lib Dem, and Conservative between 1997 and 2010. This seat used to have a large labour vote, but, surely, they start from too low a base to win this seat. This seat is a firm UKIP target, has a primarily older demographic, and several constituency polls have put them ahead, but I now think the Tories will win due to a split opposition vote. George Eustice may manage to hold on with the support of just 29% of his constituents.

Cheltenham
2010 result: Lib Dems 50.5%, Conservative 41.2%, Labour 5.1%, others 3.2%
Majority: 4920
Prediction: Lib Dem HOLD
This seat could go Tory, although I am tipping the Lib Dems to hold on. The Labour vote has collapsed to just 5% and will inevitably increase this May. Martin Horwood has been a hard working constituency MP, but if the Labour vote increases significantly, he may have a problem.

Chippenham
2010 result: Lib Dems 45.8%, Conservatives 41.0%, Labour 6.9%, others 6.3%
Majority: 2470
Prediction: Conservative GAIN
Duncan Hames has a very tough job to hold on in Chippenham. Similarly to Cheltenham, the Labour vote was at rock bottom last time, and should increase at the Lib Dems' expense. Hames has only had a single term to build up an incumbency vote. His success depends on telling Labour voters that there is absolutely no point in voting Labour because they can't win in Chippenham, and encouraging Tory supporters to vote UKIP, but I think the Conservatives will narrowly take this.

Christchurch
2010 result: Conservative 56.4%, Lib Dem 25.3%, Labour 9.8%, others 8.5%
Majority: 15,410
Prediction: Conservative HOLD

North Cornwall
2010 result: Lib Dems 48.1%, Conservative 41.7%, UKIP 4.9%, Labour 3%, others 2.3%
Majority: 2981
Prediction: Lib Dem HOLD
Another small majority for the Lib Dems to defend, but this seat has a large UKIP vote, which inevitably depresses the Tory vote. Dan Rogerson should hold on with a similar majority to what he had in 2010.

South East Cornwall
2010 result: Conservative 45.1%, Lib Dems 38.6%, Labour 7.1%, others 9.2%
Majority: 3220
Prediction: Conservative HOLD

The Cotswold
2010 result: Conservative 53.0%, Lib Dems 29.6%, Labour 10.7%, others 6.7%
Majority: 12,864
Prediction: Conservative HOLD

Devizes
2010 result: Conservative 55.1%, Lib Dem 27.0%, Labour 10.2%, others 7.8%
Majority: 13,005
Prediction: Conservative HOLD

Central Devon
2010 result: Conservative 51.5%, Lib Dems 34.4%, Labour 6.9%, others 7.3%
Majority: 9230
Prediction: Conservative HOLD

East Devon
2010 result: Conservative 48.3%, Lib Dem 31.2%, Labour 10.8%, others 9.7%
Majority: 9114
Prediction: Conservative HOLD

North Devon
2010 result: Lib Dems 47.4%, Conservative 36.0%, UKIP 7.2%, others 9.4%
Majority: 5821
Prediction: Lib Dem HOLD

South West Devon
2010 result: Conservative 56.0%, Lib Dems 24.1%, Labour 12.4%
Majority: 15,874
Prediction: Conservative HOLD

Torridge and West Devon
2010 result: Conservative 45.7%, Lib Dems 40.3%, UKIP 5.5%, Others 8.6%
Majority: 2957
Prediction: Conservative HOLD

Mid Dorset and North Poole
2010 result: Lib Dems 45.1%, Conservative 44.5%, Labour 5.9%, others 4.5%
Majority: 269
Prediction: Conservative GAIN
It was remarkable that the Lib Dems held onto this seat in 2010. With the sitting MP, Annette Brooke, stepping down, the Lib Dems need a miracle to hold this seat.

North Dorset
2010 result: Conservative 51.1%, Lib Dems 37.0%, Labour 5.4%, others 6.6%
Majority: 7625
Prediction: Conservative HOLD

South Dorset
2010 result: Conservative 45.1%, Labour 30.3%, Lib Dems 19.0%, others 5.7%
Majority: 7443
Prediction: Conservative HOLD
This seat was gained by the Tories from Labour in 2010 on a huge swing, and, as such, it looks far too difficult for them to take back in May. If Labour were heading for a comfortable majority, you would expect them to take back this kind of seat, but current polling shows that they are not. Richard Drax should hold on, probably with his majority cut in half.

West Dorset
2010 result: Conservative 47.6%, Lib Dems 40.7%, Labour 6.7%, others 5.0%
Majority: 3923
Prediction: Conservative HOLD

Exeter
2010 result: Labour 38.2%, Conservative 33.0%, Lib Dems 20.3%, others 8.6%
Majority: 2721
Prediction: Labour HOLD

Filton and Bradley Stoke
2010 result: Conservative 40.8%, Labour 26.4%, Lib Dems 25.3%, others 7.5%
Majority: 6914
Prediction: Conservative HOLD
Again, this seat looks far too difficult for Labour to take. If Labour are heading for a comfortable majority, they take this seat. If they aren't, they won't.

Forest of Dean
2010 result: Conservative 46.9%, Labour 24.2%, Lib Dems 21.9%, others 7.1%
Majority: 11,064
Prediction: Conservative HOLD

Gloucester
2010 result: Conservative 39.9%, Labour 35.2%, Lib Dems 19.2%, others 5.7%
Majority: 2420
Prediction: Labour GAIN
The Conservatives only narrowly won this seat last time and will struggle to hold on. If even a fraction of the lib dem vote goes to Labour, they will regain this seat.

Kingswood
2010 result: Conservative: 40.4%, Labour 35.3%, Lib Dems 16.8%, others 7.4%
Majority: 2445
Prediction: Labour GAIN
Labour should win this seat back in May. The bulk of the constituency is very heavily inclined toward Labour, with Kingswood once having been a coal-mining town. The collapse of the lib dem vote, and UKIP taking 1-2000 Tory votes, should be enough for Labour to win this seat back.

Newton Abbott
2010 result: Conservative 43.0%, Lib Dems 41.9%, Labour 7.0%, Others 8.0%
Majority: 523
Prediction: Conservative HOLD
The Lib Dems lost this seat in 2010 and will be desperate to win it back. At the moment, that looks difficult, though not beyond the realms of possibility. The Lib Dems narrowly outpaced the Tories by 33% to 31% in the 2013 local elections here, yet despite their considerable resillience on a local level, constituency polls have found them to be trailing the Tories substantially in Westminster voting intentions.

Plymouth Moor View
2010 result: Labour 37.2%, Conservative 33.3%, Lib Dems 16.9%, others 12.6%
Majority: 1588
Prediction: Labour HOLD

Plymouth, Sutton and Devenport
2010 result: Conservative 34.3%, Labour 31.7%, Lib Dems 24.7%, others 9.4%
Majority: 1149
Prediction: Labour GAIN
Labour should win this seat back. The seat is considerably more middle class than neighbouring moor view, but has some areas where Labour racks up overwhelming majorities. The Lib Dems have 10,000 votes here, the bulk of which are inevitably going to go to Labour. UKIP has done well here too in recent years, winning several seats.

Poole
2010 result: Conservative 47.5%, Lib Dem 31.6%, Labour 12.7%, others 8.2%
Majority: 7451
Prediction: Conservative HOLD

Salisbury
2010 result: Conservative 49.2%, Lib Dem 36.9%, Labour 7.6%, others 6.3%
Majority: 5966
Prediction: Conservative HOLD

North Somerset
2010 result: Conservative 49.3%, Lib Dem 35.7%, Labour 11.1%, others 3.9%
Majority: 7862
Prediction: Conservative HOLD

North East Somerset
2010 result: Conservative 41.3%, Labour 31.7%, Lib Dems 22.3%, others 4.7%
Majority: 4914
Prediction: Conservative HOLD
Jacob Reece Mogg has built up a significant personal following in N.E Somerset. Demographically, the seat does not look good for Labour, with low levels of council housing and an overwhelmingly white population, though there are some areas that used to be part of the Somerset coal field. Mogg should be ok.

Somerton and Frome
2010 result: Lib Dems 47.5%, Conservative 44.5%, Labour 4.4%, others 3.6%
Majority: 1817
Prediction: Conservative GAIN
With sitting MP David Heath retiring, the Lib Dems need a miracle to hold on here. A poll by Lord Ashcroft showed the Tories comfortably ahead by 11 points here, so they should take this comfortably.

St Austell and Newquay
2010 result: Lib Dems 42.7%, Conservative 40.0% Labour 7.0%, others 10.1%
Majority: 1312
Prediction: Lib Dem HOLD
This seat could go one of 3 ways. My gut feeling is that Stephen Gilbert will manage to hold on with a tiny majority, if he can sufficiently squeeze the Labour vote. A poll by Lord Ashcroft had a 1% tory lead here over the Lib Dems, with the Tories on 27%, Lib Dems on 26%, and UKIP on 25% on the "How will you vote in your constituency" question.

St Ives
2010 result: Lib Dems 42.7%, Conservatives 39.0%, Labour 8.2%, others 10.1%
Majority: 1719
Prediction: Lib Dem HOLD
Andrew George is your typical, pavement politician. Some would call him a typical Lib Dem. He has built up a considerable personal vote that should allow him to hold on in May, despite his tiny majority. An Ashcroft poll confirmed that it would be a tough race, with both the Lib Dems and Conservatives on 30%, and UKIP on 21%. George's incumbency should see him home with a small majority.

Stroud
2010 result: Conservative 40.8%, Labour 38.6%, Lib Dems 15.4%, others 5.1%
Majority: 1299
Prediction: Labour GAIN
If, as expected, even a small fraction of the 9000 strong lib dem vote at the last election goes to Labour, they should regain this seat, which they probably should never have lost in 2010. The long term demographic changes in the constituency do not favour the conservatives.

North Swindon
2010 result:  Conservative 44.6%, Labour 30.5%, Lib Dems 17.2%, others 7.7%
Majority: 7060
Prediction: Conservative HOLD
This seat is the more working class of the two swindon seats, but the demographics of the constituency favour the conservatives, with a growing number of middle class professionals migrating toward the affluent private estates within the boundaries of the constituency. The Tories continue to dominate the council, and winning here will be an uphill struggle for Labour.

South Swindon
2010 result: Conservative 41.8%, Labour 34.3%, Lib Dems 17.6%, others 6.3%
Majority:3544
Prediction: Labour GAIN
This seat looks to be very tight. The reason? The Conservatives have wards in the rural areas of Wroughton and Chiseldon where they rack up overwhelming majorities, whilst Labour does well in the working class council estates and the central and park wards. The current MP, Robert Buckland, will face off against the previous Labour MP for this seat, Anne Snelgrove. Turnout is going to be a major factor here. If there is a higher turnout, Labour should win. If not, the Tories will hold on.

Taunton Deane
2010 result: Lib Dem 49.1%, Conservative 42.2%, Labour 5.1%, others 3.6%
Majority: 3993
Prediction: Conservative GAIN
After Jeremy Browne decided to kick the bucket and resign as an MP, I now think the Tories will win Taunton Deane.

Tewkesbury
2010 result: Conservative 47.2%, Lib Dems 35.5%, Labour 11.6%, others 5.7%
Majority: 6310
Prediction: Conservative HOLD

Thornbury and Yate
2010 result: Lib Dems 51.9%, Conservative 37.2%, Labour 7.0%, others 3.9%
Majority: 7116
Prediction: Lib Dem HOLD

Tiverton and Honiton
2010 result: Conservative 50.3%, Lib Dems 33.3%, Labour 8.9%, others 7.4%
Majority: 9320
Prediction: Conservative HOLD

Torbay
2010 result: Lib Dems 47.0%, Conservative 38.7%, Labour 6.6%, others 7.7%
Majority: 4078
Prediction: Liberal Democrat HOLD
This seat is on the outer edges of the kind of seat the Tories could gain, but they have been targeting it. However, I think Adrian Saunders should be ok, but may suffer a dent in his majority.

Totnes
2010 result: Conservative 45.9%, Lib Dems 35.6%, Labour 7.4%, Others 11.4%
Majority: 4922
Prediction: Conservative HOLD

Truro and Falmouth
2010 result: Conservative 41.7%, Lib Dems 40.8%, Labour 9.6%, others 7.8%
Majority: 435
Prediction: Conservative HOLD
Once upon a time, this may have been a seat that you would expect the Lib Dems to gain, but not anymore, as polling by Lord Ashcroft suggests the Lib Dems have collapsed to 4th place, with UKIP and Labour in 2nd and 3rd place.

Wells
2010 result: Lib Dems 44.0%, Conservative 42.5%, Labour 7.5% others 6.0%
Majority: 800
Prediction: Conservative GAIN
This is yet another seat that the Lib Dems will have to perform miracles to hold. I can't see that happening.

Weston Super-Mare
2010 result: Conservative 44.3%, Lib Dems 39.2%, Labour 10.9%, others 5.5%
Majority: 2691
Prediction: Conservative HOLD

North Wiltshire
2010 result: Conservative 51.6%, Lib Dems 36.2%, Labour 6.7%, others 5.6%
Majority: 7483
Prediction: Conservative HOLD

S.W Wiltshire
2010 result: Conservative 51.7%, Lib Dems 30.5%, Labour 11.5%, others 6.4%
Majority: 10,367
Prediction:  Conservative HOLD

Yeovil
2010 result: Lib Dems 55.7%, Conservative 32.9%, Labour 5.2%, others 6.2%
Majority: 13,036
Prediction: Liberal Democrat HOLD

Total number of seats in S.W
Conservative: 36 (NC)
Liberal Democrat: 10 (-5)
Labour: 9 (+5)
UKIP: 0 (NC)

Predicted share of the vote:
Conservatives: 38% (-4)
UKIP: 19% (+13)
Labour: 18% (+3)
Liberal Democrats: 16% (-18)

London: Swing to Labour drops as Greens pick up left-wing Labour votes.

London at election 2010

I have decided that I am going to go under the microscope and take a deeper look at what is happening in the capital. The General Election is only 5 months away, and the capital is going to be a key battleground, where Ed Miliband needs to do well if he is to get a majority and become Prime Minister. For the purposes of this examination, I shall be using YouGov regional extrapolations, from the 1st-10th of December, calculating the swing toward or against Labour since 2010, and showing how this would impact on how many seats Labour is set to gain in London. Firstly, here are the Labour target seats:

And, here are the regional extrapolation figures from 1st-10th December: Sources for extrapolations can be found here.

                                          Lab 36.2%, Con 34.4%, LD 8.4%, UKIP 11

The findings came as quite a surprise to me, as the extrapolation suggested that there has been no swing at all to Labour in London since the last election. On this kind of result, only the 3 Liberal Democrat seats and maybe Hendon would fall to Labour, and all of the rest of the marginal seats would remain held by the Conservative Party. As early as this May, Labour was polling at 40% plus in London, and surveys from a few months ago indicated that there was a huge swing to Labour in London. What is the reason for the sudden collapse?

I did some digging, and pretty quickly discovered the reason. The Green Party has eaten substantially into the Labour Party support in London, and is polling at 8-9%, slightly higher than it is nationally. The Greens have picked up some of the left-wing liberal democrats who defected to Labour earlier in the parliament but are now slowly drifting away. My suspicion is that the party knows that this has been happening, slowly but surely, as they have appointed a London MP, Sadiq Khan, as head of the Labour taskforce on how to deal with the Green Party. Labour must persuade these voters to lend their votes to the party for the general election. If they do not, the prospect of a Labour majority government becomes very unlikely.

Labour lead at 1: Labour 33, Conservatives 32, UKIP 17, Lib Dem 7, Green 6

The Labour Party has its lead cut to 1% yet again in this week's poll of polls. It is not surprising to see a Labour lead of 1% yet again, as Labour's lead has been largely stuck around the 1% mark ever since the poll of polls started. Both parties are effectively neck and neck, and the polls are static.

In 2005, Labour won many more seats despite being 0.5% behind

The fact that the polls are neck and neck will make Labour much happier than the Tories, simply because it maintains a lead despite collapsing in Scotland. This means that Labour must be doing significantly better in England, which means that it may gain many more seats than it would otherwise. In 2005, Labour managed to win many more seats in England despite being 0.5% behind. In 2010, the Tories were 12% ahead in England, but still failed to win a majority. To be doing so badly in England is appalling for them.

And, finally, if you thought the general election was already looking difficult to predict, just take a look at this! Martin Baxter, the mathematician who created and maintains electoral calculus, said:





” Map only shows movement for the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties. It assumes the votes for other parties, including UKIP and the SNP, are fixed at current support levels. UKIP are not currently to predicted to win many seats, so they are not yet a factor in coalition permutations. Since other parties have 28% support nationally, the map is missing the top-right corner where the Conservative plus Labour total would be more than 72%.”

Labour lead at 2: Labour 34%, Conservatives 32%, UKIP 17%, LD 7%, Green 6%

The Labour Party has a lead of 2% in this week's poll of polls, a 1% increase from last week. The Tories are down 1%, UKIP hold steady, the Lib Dems shed one point and the Greens climb one point to 6%.

The slightly larger lead may be as a result of the Rochester and Strood by-election, in which David Cameron's party suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of Mark Reckless and UKIP. Regional extrapolations from YouGov will be out in the next few days in my post on Agora.

On a uniform national swing, this would lead to a Labour Majority of 24. Considering Labour's collapse in Scotland, however, the actual result would have Labour on around 290 seats, around 30 seats ahead of the Tories, but possibly unable to form a stable government.

However, a battlebus/comres marginal poll this week showed that Labour is continuing to do much better in the marginals than it is nationally,giving Labour an 8% lead in marginal seats. Lord Ashcroft's poll of the Tory-Lib Dem battleground also shows that the Tories will struggle to pick up more than a small number of Lib Dem held seats. The same poll also shows that Nigel Farage trails his Tory opponent by 5% in Thanet South, and will have to work hard to win that seat.

All in all, nothing remains certain at this stage, and everything could change. The autumn statement is this Wednesday, and we will see whether or not it causes any large scale changes in public opinion.

Labour lead at 1: Labour 34%, Conservatives 33%, UKIP 17%, Lib Dems 8%, Greens 5%

The Labour Party retains a small 1% lead in this week's poll of polls. Labour, the Tories, and UKIP are all up very slightly from last week's poll, the Lib Dems and Greens are holding steady on 8% and 5% respectively, whilst the share for parties other than these 5 has dropped by 3%.

The situation remains largely the same as it has done for the last few weeks, with Labour retaining a narrow lead, UKIP someway behind in 3rd, and the Lib Dems and Greens grapple for 4th place.

A note of caution about the Green Party surge. The Greens polled 0.8% in 2010 and managed to win 1 seat. To poll at 5% is very good news for them and confirms that they have, to some extent, "Surged." However this does not make it likely that they will win another seat at the general election next year, as their vote is too thinly spread, which is not a good way to win FPTP seats. The same goes for UKIP, which has an upper ceiling of around 20 seats on its current level of support. Up until UKIP get 25% of the vote, or until they surpass one of the two main parties in support, winning more than 20 seats is not possible for them. There comes a tipping point, up until which UKIP does not win many seats, and after which it starts to win many seats at once. That tipping point is when they manage to get 25% or more of  the vote.

A word about "Thornyberry gate"

Labour did very poorly in the Rochester and Strood by-election, but its misery was compounded by the fact that its shadow atourney general, Emily Thornberry, was forced to resign after posting a tweet which many people regarded as being offensive. The tweet was of a house owned by a working class man, with an England flag and a white van, labelled "Tweet from Rochester". The tweet itself was not offensive, but the implication behind it offended people: after all, what is unusual about working class patriotism? Thornberry apologised and resigned, but the damage had been done, and "Thornberry gate" was all over the Sun newspaper the next day, giving Sky News and the Tory media the excuse to talk about something other than Cameron's embarrassment in Rochester.

My recommendation to the party would be to be very careful about what its elected representatives post on twitter during the election campaign. Miliband must run a sleek and professional campaign with no gaffs to ensure that the hostile press cannot make scandals out of little things. Can he do it? Only 6 months are left.

Labour lead at 1: Labour 33%, Conservatives 32%, UKIP 16%, Lib Dems 8%, Green 5%.

There is precious little change in this week's opinion poll aggregate, with Labour remaining on 33%, the Conservatives on 32%, up 1 from last Sunday, UKIP are down 1 on 16%, and the Lib Dems and Greens remain where they are on 8% and 5% respectively.

All changes are very small and within the margin of error. Looking at all of my weekly polls, a remarkably consistent picture emerges. The Conservatives and Labour remain within 1% of 31.5 and 33.1% respectively, with UKIP hovering around 16-17% and the Lib Dems and Greens hovering around 5-8% respectively. As I have said before, it isn't about any single poll, but the underlying aggregate trend, as can be seen here.

There was speculation that infighting within Labour over Miliband's leadership over the last week would harm Labour. On the face of it, it doesn't seem to have made much effort. Voters already had their doubts about Miliband-Simply enhancing these doubts does not seem to have made much of a difference to Miliband's prospects.

The weekly regional extrapolations will be published on agorans.org (The think tank I now work with) where I will publish an extended analysis alongside other polling data tomorrow. It will use regional extrapolation data from every poll in the last two weeks, giving a total sample size of over 2000, and therefore being more accurate than any single poll can be.

 Now, time to move on to some more topical polling news. A poll of Rochester and Strood earlier this week showed that Mark Reckless looks to be heading for a comfortable win. The Ashcroft poll showed UKIP on 44%, with the Tories on 32%, Labour on 17%, the Lib Dems on 7%, and the Green Party on 3%. Looking at a graph of all opinion polls taken in the constituency, the underlying trend looks quite clear:

I have already talked about what the likely implications of such a result could be in this blog post. Yesterday, the Daily Mirror quoted senior Tory backbenchers, who said that Mr Cameron could face a no-confidence vote and leadership challenge if UKIP managed to win by a big margin. It looks as if Thursday will be an extremely interesting night. Could this be the knockout blow for Mr Cameron? We will have to wait a few days to find out.

Rochester and Strood: What are the implications of the likely result?

According to the polls, Mark Reckless is heading for a comfortable win.

It looks likely now that Mark Reckless of UKIP is heading for a comfortable win in Rochester and Strood with his new party. The UKIP MP defected from the Tories to UKIP, in a similar fashion to Douglas Carswell, who had defected several weeks earlier. The Lord Ashcroft poll taken just a few days ago gives Reckless a comfortable 12% lead, as has previous polling. What would the implications of such a result be for the party leaders?

Firstly, we should come to the big winner of the Rochester and Strood victory for UKIP, if it is a UKIP win: Nigel Farage. Farage will be delighted by a UKIP win, for obvious reasons, and even more so than the Carswell win in Clacton. He will be hoping to destabilise David Cameron and his government, and, with Labour doing so badly in the polls, he will be hoping to steal their thunder and claim that his party are "The real opposition", thus increasing their support. A similar thing happened after Clacton, when the Douglas Carswell landslide resulted in an increase in support for UKIP that has lasted ever since. It is looking good for the UKIP leader, as this graph of opinion polls from Rochester and Strood, alongside the result from the 2010 general election, shows:

Next, to the biggest loser in the event of a UKIP win, David Cameron. It will look utterly embarrassing and humiliating for David Cameron, and a bitter personal rebuff, if the constituency which the Tories have thrown everything at and that he has personally visited 4 times ends up electing a UKIP MP. It will be a bitter blow that will hurt the prime minister, and his authority. The chances are that further Tory MPs will soon decide to defect, after calculating that they would have more chance of keeping their seats as UKIP MPs and eventually jumping ship to join with them. The stakes are high, and David Cameron cannot afford another defeat 6 months before a general election....and yet, considering the weakness of the opposition, a defeat may not quite be the knockout blow that Cameron is fearing.

Then we come to Ed Miliband. Labour has been hit nearly as hard as the Tories in Rochester, and the party will be bracing itself for a fairly poor result. You would think that because the Tories, and not Labour, are the incumbent party and the ones most likely to be heading toward a bruising defeat, that Labour would be ok. However, a result on the level being shown in opinion polls would be terrible for Labour. It would be extraordinary in the modern history of the party, to collapse to 17% in a seat that they once held (Albeit under different boundaries.) There were reports earlier in the week that more Labour MPs would call for a leadership election if Labour had a poor result,but these rumours largely seem to be dying down. If Labour can get above 20% of the vote in Rochester, then they will be pleased. Either way, I cannot see a viable leadership election this close to the general election, whatever happens. The party seems to be heading toward the general election with a sense of weariness and resignation, and Rochester is unlikely to change this, unless Labour spectacularly defy the polls and do much better than expected.

And now, finally, we come to Nick Clegg. You would expect another awful result for the Lib Dems, which is now looking likely, to be a disaster for Nick Clegg. But, just like Labour, the Lib Dems are heading toward the general election with a sense of resignation, and a feeling that Nick Clegg will remain leader, no matter how many deposits are lost in seats where the Liberals were once competitive. Nevertheless, Lib Dem claims that they are "On the way back" and that the pain for them is getting less worse simply are not standing up to scrutiny in election results. The party is likely to be beaten once again by the Green Party in Rochester and Strood. That is an awful result, and confirms that the party is just as unpopular now as it was a year or two ago, and Nick Clegg remains politically toxic.

Nevertheless, no matter what the result, the repercussions of the by-election next thursday will be massive, and I am finding it difficult to call what may happen, if, as expected, UKIP win the seat. There has been talk of a leadership challenge to David Cameron from the Eurosceptic Right if the Tories lose, so, in the plausible but most unlikely scenario of both Cameron and Ed Miliband being removed as the leader of their respective political parties, we could be set for a massive shakeup in British politics.

Labour lead at 2: Labour 33%, Conservatives 31%, UKIP 17%, Lib Dems 8%, Green 5%

This week's poll of polls has Labour unchanged on 33%, the Tories down 2 on 31%, UKIP unchanged on 17%, the Lib Dems are up 1 to 8% and the Greens shed 1 point to finish the week on 5% overall.

I have decided to make my extrapolations fortnightly rather than weekly as of now on. This is due to the much larger sample size available as a result, which will reduce the margin of error and give a more practical picture as to where each party is doing best.

In recent days, Ed Miliband's leadership has come under severe scrutiny. This is because his approval ratings have sank to an all-time low as of late, with some polls putting him behind Nick Clegg, the politically toxic Lib Dem leader. Only 49% of Labour voters, and 17% of the electorate, approve of the job Mr Miliband is doing, compared to 51% of Labour and 77% of the public who disapprove.

In my view, Miliband has always been unpopular with the public, and yet Labour have maintained a small but consistent lead in the majority of polls. Even now when the party is in turmoil it still is ahead of the Conservatives. Leadership speculation is bound to achieve nothing but to damage the party and help neutralise the affect of the Tories' being a badly disunited party, which will make next year's election result even more unpredictable.

To put into context how fickle public opinion is, here is some polling that I obtained from YouGov as to how Labour would do under a different leader. The data is newly released and can be found here. I am only going to examine
 how Johnson and Cooper would do, as they are the most likely challengers.

If Alan Johnson was the leader of the Labour Party, how would you vote?
Labour 33
Con 31
UKIP 17
LD 7

So, as you can see, with Johnson as leader, Labour gets a very slight boost from the last YouGov poll, but the changes are well within the margin of error. There is no evidence at all to support the assertion that having Alan Johnson as leader would dramatically improve the chances of the Labour Party, according to this poll.

If Yvette Cooper was leader of the Labour Party, how would you vote?
Labour 31
Con 33
UKIP 17
LD 6

So, it turns out that Yvette Cooper would in fact be doing worse than Ed Miliband currently is as leader. The Tories would race into a two point lead as opposed to being a point behind as they are now.

Either way, looking at the evidence, it seems to be that Miliband is going to be safe, and that any further speculation over the leadership is a fruitless exercise. Labour must take care not to descend into the bickering of the late Brown era, and if they do, the electorate will punish them savagely.

Students Poll: Labour most popular party amongst students.

Over the past week, I have interviewed 130 Students at Manchester Metropolitan University to get their political views. I asked the interviewees several different questions. For starters, my first question was: "Are you going to vote at the UK General Election next year?" If they said No, I then straight on moved to a second question: "Why have you decided that you are not going to vote?" If they answered yes to my first question, I then moved on to ask two further questions: "Which political party will you be voting for next year?" and "What is the single biggest issue affecting you as a young person?" The results are quite startling. I am going to be using a series of pie charts to illustrate the results of my polling.

First of all, the intentions to vote:

65% of people said they would probably vote at the 2015 General Election,whilst 35% said they would not vote at all. This is a much higher proportion of Students saying they would vote than has previously been found by pollsters, but the reason for this can be found in the next graph of voting intentions, which includes undecided voters.

As you can see, a significant proportion of people said that they were undecided. My guess would be that many of these are probably the kind of voter that would only turn up if he/she was pushed very hard to turn up, or had been enthused and invigorated by a particular party. As you can see, the Labour Party is clearly doing very well, as are the Green Party, whilst the Conservatives, UKIP, and Lib Dems fare pretty badly. Here is a graph of voting intentions with undecideds excluded, which gives a far more accuratte picture:

So as you can see, the Labour Party has a massive lead here, whilst the Green Party also does very well, much better than how it fares amongst the general population. If Labour want to win the 2015 General Election, they must make sure that the Student Vote turns up and votes for them in large numbers, as they are a very strong demographic for the Labour Party.

On to issues. When asked to name a specific issue, here were the results:

So, as you can see, although a significant % (14%) said "Dont know" when they were asked to name an issue, this is proof that students are far from apolitical when it comes to thinking about things in terms of specific issues, and not party politics. Here is one final pie chart, and it is of responses to the final question that was put to those who were not going to vote, about why they were not going to vote:

As can be seen here, a significant % (22%) said they would not vote because they did not know enough about the issues or political parties involved. Politicians and parties must look to re-engage these people with politics, as they are not apolitical because of apathy, but rather because of a simple lack of knowledge.

LABOUR AND CONSERVATIVES TIED: Labour 33%, Con 33%, UKIP 17%, LD 7%, Greens 6%

My poll of polls for this week shows Labour on 33%, unchanged from last week, the Conservatives up 1 to 33%, UKIP up 1 to 17%, the Lib Dems stay where they are, and the Greens increase their support by 1% to move to 6%.

Effectively, both main parties are tied. The regional variations found previously have continued: UKIP continues to do poorly in Scotland but performs strongly in the North and South, whilst both Labour and the Tories perform strongly in their own heartland areas....apart from Scotland, where the Labour Party is doing very badly indeed. There is virtually no change, apart from Labour doing slightly worse and the Tories slightly better in the South than they were last week.

Here are the regional extrapolations:

London: Labour 39%, Conservatives 33%, UKIP 10%, Liberal Democrats 8%

The North: Labour 42%, Conservatives 27%, UKIP 20%, Lib Dems 5%

The South: Conservatives 40%, Labour 25%, UKIP 18%, Liberal Democrats 9%

Scotland: SNP 41%, Labour 27%, Conservatives 19%, Lib Dems 6%, UKIP 4%

It's perfectly conceivable that we could end up with 5 parties that have at least 10 seats each (Labour, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats,UKIP, SNP) after the next election.

A good argument for keeping the First Past the Post electoral system, has been that it helps form strong and decisive election results, and therefore strong governments. Yet, that does not look likely to happen at this moment in time, and we are likely to see a deeply divided and fractured parliament after 2015, which reflects the deeply divided views of the people of Britain at the moment. Perhaps such a result would speed up moves toward electoral reform. Either way, the election is next May, and neither party has grasped it by the neck as of yet.

UKIP's Paddy Ashdown General Election Strategy

UKIP's strategy at the election will be the same as that adopted by the Lib Dems in 1997

Nearly everybody has heard the phrase "4 Party politics" being uttered in the mainstream Media. And, it is quite clear that we are in a new, and unprecedented, era of 4 party politics. My Poll of Polls has consistently found Labour and the Tories polling less than 65% combined- a record low, whilst UKIP are polling at record highs, have gained an MP in Clacton, and are looking set to gain yet another in the Rochester and Strood By-Election. The same has been found by nearly all pollsters. This, of course, helps smaller parties such as the Lib Dems and UKIP (Lib Dem MPs will be under less pressure due to the lower share of the vote of the other parties). But this is not the main point being made. Do we truly have a 4 party parliamentary system yet? Not until there are 4 parties with significant seat totals (That is, over 10 seats) will we truly be able to describe the UK as having a 4 party system.

This is where UKIP come in. Nigel Farage has revealed he is targeting 12 constituencies at the General Election, but the true number is suspected to be 25. The seats are: Portsmouth South, where the sitting Lib Dem MP, Mike Hancock, has been disgraced, Eastleigh, where UKIP polled 27% in the 2013 by-election, South Thanet and Thurrock (South Thanet is where Nigel Farage is standing, in both South Thanet and Thurrock UKIP have been shown to be in the lead.) Boston, Great Grimsby, North Thanet, Forest of Dean, Aylesbury, East Worthing and Shoreham, Sittingbourne and Sheppey, and Great Yarmouth.

UKIP target seats

Looking at the seats that UKIP are targeting, two things become clear.

• UKIP is targeting mostly Conservative seats (Only one is held by Labour)
• ALL of these seats are in the top 100 seats most likely to go UKIP (Based on Demographic Data, and research from Matthew Goodwin)

UKIP claims that it takes as many Labour votes as it does from the Tories, yet, looking at this list, it is clear that this is not the case. Most of the seats UKIP are targeting are Conservative held seats. However, one or two of the seats are Con-Lab marginals, and if UKIP and its claim that it takes significant Labour votes is correct, we should be able to see that in these seats.

In effect, UKIP are adopting the Paddy Ashdown strategy. Before the 1997 election, Paddy Ashdown, the Liberal Democrat leader, had realised that there was no use targeting Labour Party areas, as the Labour Party was going to win a massive landslide. The Government and its popularity had collapsed after the events of Black Wednesday, and, after the election of Tony Blair, Labour had a popular and potent leader capable of leading the party to a substantial victory (Tony Blair had a popularity rating of +65, the highest rating in history for a party leader until it was briefly broken by Nick Clegg in 2010). Therefore, Ashdown realised that he had to selectively target constituencies where there was a high likelihood of the Conservative Party losing. 

He ensured that the Lib Dems targeted many seats due to local factors, which the Lib Dems have traditionally been very strong on due to their style of pavement politics, and targeted those constituencies which were most demographically suitable to the Lib Dems, e.g seats with a high number of Middle Class and Liberal professionals that had become disenchanted with John Major and his Tory Government. The seats targeted tended to be areas with high concentrations of Liberal Democrat Councillors, built up through hard work over the years. Through this effective targeting, Paddy Ashdown and the Liberal Democrats were able to win 46 seats, an increase of 28 seats from the previous election, despite a slight decline in their share of the vote. In effect, the Ashdown style is that you don't have a national campaign. You work out where you are strong, and throw everything at these seats. It is a style that has worked for the Liberal Democrats, and now the Kippers are adopting it, and it seems to be working for them, as they are pulling off spectacular by-election victories as the Liberal Democrats used to do. Indeed, in the majority of these constituencies, the Kippers have significant numbers of Cllrs on the Local Councils within them. Only time will tell if they are as successful as the Liberal Democrats were in 1997.

Lab 33%, Con 32%, UKIP 16%, LD 7%

Does David Cameron still have a chance next year?

This week's poll of polls shows that Labour is unchanged on 33%. The Tories are up 2 points to within a point of Labour, at 32%, UKIP and the Lib Dems both shed a point, on 17% and 7% respectively, and the Greens are up one point to 5%.

It is striking to consider how Labour's poll ratings have declined. Back in 2012, just after George Osborne's now famous "Omnishambles" budget,, the party was polling on 40%, and the Tories were polling just about where they are now. Since then, Labour has seen a slow but steady decline whilst the Tories have remained where they are. My guess would be that the Tories have gained supporters as a result of the economic recovery, but any advantage they will have gained will have been neutralised by the increase in support for UKIP. Labour is, in effect, relying very heavily on Nigel Farage's party maintaining its current levels of support at the General Election.

Overall, most people feel that they are worse off than they were 4 years ago, but only very few believe that they would have been any better off if Labour had remained in power. Labour has still not addressed the core reason for its rejection 4 years ago, which is causing the party some quite significant problems.

In theory, a 1% lead like this would be enough to deliver a wafer slim majority for Ed Miliband. But, in my analysis of the YouGov regional extrapolations, I found some quite interesting regional variations that would deprive Labour of an overall majority.

Scottish Labour leader Joanne Lamont resigned recently, citing meddling by Westminster colleagues in Scottish Labour affairs.
One wonders whether polling figures like these (The regional extrapolation for Scotland) would also have persuaded her to jump ship.

SNP 43%, Labour 26%, Con 16%, Lib Dems 5%

A result anything like this would lead to a disaster for Labour in Scotland. The party could lose over half of its Westminster seats. Other polling figures listed below are not going to fill Labour figures with confidence either:

The North: Labour 43%, Conservative 28%, UKIP 15%, Lib Dems 8%
The South: Conservatives 38%, Labour 25%, UKIP 20%, Lib Dems 8%
London: Labour 40%, Conservatives 33%, UKIP 12%, Lib Dems 8%

The major issue for Labour is that its support is very heavily concentrated in some of its heartlands; the North and London in particular. In reality, on this kind of share nationally, you would have to rule Labour out from about 10 Tory seats that they would take on a uniform swing, and subtract around 20 seats from the Labour total because of Scotland, plus add 5 UKIP seats that they are likely to take, all from the Tories. That would lead to a total result of something like Labour 298 seats, Conservatives 283, Liberal Democrats 16, UKIP 5, SNP 32, Others 22. That would lead to a hung parliament in which forming a stable government would be very difficult indeed. So, in the last October poll of polls, there's everything still to play for.

Wythenshawe and Sale East by-election- Opportunity for UKIP, A tricky test for the reds.

The sad and untimely death at the age of 60 of the popular former minister, Paul Goggins, creates what could be a tricky by-election defence for Labour and an opportunity for UKIP. For in spite of all the good polling the party has yet to win a Commons seat. In fact the best it has ever done in a Westminster election was the 27.8% in the high octane contest at Eastleigh last February. By-elections don’t come round very often and UKIP needs to be totally committed to the fight in a way that they weren’t in South Shields in May filling the vacancy created by David Miliband’s departure. Major UKIP donors were not convinced about South Shields and there was a reluctance to put the money in. For Labour there’s a problem. Wythenshawe and Sale East is one of those heartland seats which, not to put too fine a point on it, it takes for granted and puts very little effort into. The Tories, who in the 1960s had the MP, have now all but given up with the result that turnouts are pitifully low. At general elections the parties just go through the motions. What is interesting is that UKIP polled well above their national average of 2.1& in this seat. If their current polling is anything to go by, this could get extremely tricky for the Reds. It’s low vote outcomes in heartland seats like Wythenshawe and Sale East which are a main reason why the electoral system seems biased to the red team. This means that there is nothing like the machine in place that you get in a marginal. Thus if it’s like South Shields there’ll be very limited data records which, as the yellows showed in Eastleigh, are the platforms on which wins can be based. If the parties could only get 54% out to vote at the general election then the chances are that we’ll see turnout in the 20s. Thus the threshold in terms of votes for victory will be quite low. If UKIP can manage to build on the 7.3% that the party and the BNP secured last time then who knows. What’s absolutely certain is that a UKIP by-election victory would totally change the media narrative. It seems likely that UKIP will be the undisputed challenger to Labour in the red strongoholds, since it tends to pick up a lot of disgruntled white working class voters in traditional Lab strongholds.