Yorkshire voting intentions
Interesting YouGov poll in the Yorkshire Post reported here:
http://www.ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/931
It's very rare to get regional polling figures. This one shows Cameron isn't playing well in a key region with quite a lot of marginal seats in the Pennines/Leeds patch.
Voting intentions are Lab 42% (down 2% from the General Election), Con 29% (unchanged), LD 15% (-6%), Others 15% (presumably mainly BNP and UKIP).
On such a low regional swing the Tories would miss prime targets like Bradford West (number 60 on their UK hitlist on new boundaries), Halifax (no.72) and Keighley (no.92), Dewsbury (no.96) , Pudsey (no.98) and Elmet & Rothwell (no.106) and even ultramarginal Colne Valley and Calder Valley might stay Labour.
The LDs would lose Leeds NW (though not clear whether to Lab or Con) and the new York Outer (to Con).
posted by Luke Akehurst at 11:42 pm
7 Comments:
Worth having a look at this too. Project Cameron is clearly a regional phenomenon
12:04 am, January 18, 2007
The Yorkshire area also produce a decent set of local elections for Labour last year. So this poll figures are plausible. In 2006 locals the tories didn't do better than in 2004 locals.
It would be interesting to see if the situation is similar in North West...another North area with a lot of marginals (18 Lab seats with less than 15% majority over the tories). If the tories can't make much inroads also there, they probably just can hope in a hung parliament (unless they start to overtune many safish Labour seats in the South and in the Midlands)
8:21 am, January 18, 2007
As a Yorkshire member, this ring true to me although I'd be cautious about reading too much into a single poll. However, I think I have seen regional splits for some other polls and they have all shown similar trends.
The only concern I would have is about the growth in support shown for 'other parties'. I don't believe that they will actually poll at this level in a General Election, and their final destination will be critically important to the outcome.
As the agent in Calder Valley in 2005, I hope Luke's comment about that seat is right. My gut feeling is that we are doing slightly better there at the moment than we were in 2003-04, and we were certainly damaged in 2005 by Iraq.
In Halifax we are about to face a local byelection defending a marginal Labour seat against the BNP, in a ward where the Tories were a respectable third, so it will be interesting to see how this reflects those trends. (Help welcomed!)
11:39 am, January 18, 2007
"The only concern I would have is about the growth in support shown for 'other parties'"
Considering the area, there's the chance that the growth of "others" is a growth of BNP.
"I don't believe that they will actually poll at this level in a General Election, and their final destination will be critically important to the outcome"
yes. And I think that not all fringe parties will stand in all Yorkshire seats. So maybe for ex there can be a couple of Halifax residents who say that they'll vote Green when interviewed, but then they can find a ballot paper without the Greens. So they can't obviously vote for them.
12:25 pm, January 18, 2007
Although there's undoubtedly a growth in activism on the part of the BNP up here, there's not much evidence of a growth of support. It would be interesting to see 'others' broken down. I think Tim's right that there are people who might say BNP to a poll but would vote differently come a General Election. But in the few places where they've had a local impact, it's been as much to do with the poor turnout of other parties in a particular ward than much increase for them. I think what the 'other' might represent is a certain growing anti-politics position, and all manner of parties and groupings could be being mentioned.
3:35 pm, January 18, 2007
Leeds NW to Labour surely?
4:40 pm, January 19, 2007
Luke, glad to see your blog for the first time, very impressive. Good luck with it, and your selection.
It may interest you to know that Martin Baxter http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/index.html?conlist_t_z.html is putting York Outer down as a Labour GAIN. While this is not necessarily solid (none of the notional predictions seem to have too much reliability here), I think it´s clear that this seat could really go to anyone.
8:35 am, August 06, 2007
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