London's elections - The Snow In The Summer or So-So

The Legend of Cockney Arthur

Here's something we've not looked at before: London's assembly. We're not going to touch the mayoral election: rightly, that is about personality far more than party.

The first thing to note is last time's result:

C   31.4% - 9 seats
Lab 24.8% - 8 seats
LD  18.6% - 4 seats
Oth 25.2% - 4 seats (G 2, UIP 2)

Mayor: Labour

LAB Gain from IND

This time, the poll doesn't coincide with European elections. This means that the Europhobes are likely stay at home in slightly greater numbers. There are also a plethora of new parties to fragment the mixture.

The constituency vote

The Conservatives defend 9 seats, Labour defend 5. The constituency seats are formed out of combinations of entire boroughs, and leads to more marginal seats than one might expect. It's possible for six seats to change hands on two-party transfers of less than 5%:

Clearly, not all of these will fall, and it's entirely possible that a C gain in Enfield & Haringey could be offset by a LD gain in South West.

Realistically, Labour will secure at least 2 constituency seats, at most 7. The Tories will hold at least 6 seats, but are unlikely to advance past 10. The Lib Dems have never won a constituency seat, and may win one or two, but no more.

The Lists

Here's where the fragmentation comes in. The Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Greens, and Christian People's Alliance all contest the ballot for the third time. The anti-Europe candidates have eaten themselves over the past four years - the two members elected under the UIP banner left for The Veritas Party Leader Robert Kilroy Silk, and have subsequently left to form the new One London Party Leader Damien Hockney party. The Unitedkingdom Independence Party will be contesting the seats, as will the English Democrats. There's been some equally amusing silliness in the other side of the political spectrum: the RESPECT party has split into the Respect Leader George Galloway party and the United Party of Socialism, and there's also the Left List covering similar ground. Finally, the British Nationalist Party stand again.

Last time, almost 25% of the list vote went to these minor parties, allowing the Greens and UIP to take two seats, and both RESPECT and the BNP to be denied a place in City Hall only by the 5% cutoff - if a party doesn't win 5% of the list vote, it can't claim 4% of the seats. Us neither.

Mercifully, the plethora of minor parties means that they'll all be squabbling for very small shares of the vote, well below the 5% cut. This time around, we propose to discount the three parties on the left, the ED, and OLPLDH, with the proviso that while we predict for UIP, this can be read as UIP or OLPLDH. We will assume that the Greens and CPA retain their proportion of the minor-party vote, that the UIP retains 60% of its minor-party share, and the BNP retains 2/3 of its minor-party share. (The minor-party share is, simply, the share of votes amongst the parties excluding C/Lab/LD - the Greens had about 29% of the minor-party vote last time, we reckon they'll take 29% of the cake this time, no matter how large that cake is.)

We reckon the minor-party vote will not drop below 20%, and Greens will therefore be assured of representation on the Assembly. Indeed, we reckon that the minor-party vote could fall as low as 12% and the Greens could still retain enough support. In our model, the UIP will fall below the threshold for representation if the Other vote falls significantly below 25%, while the BNP (and other minor parties) don't gain representation until Others make up at least a third of the votes.

Putting it all together

Our final assumption, and perhaps the weakest one, is that changes in preference for the constituency will be exactly reflected in changes for the top-up voting. This is unlikely to be completely accurate, though there will be a very high correlation between the two polls.

The model is both sensitive to small changes, and disregards them completely. For instance, suppose that the three main parties poll according to their national standings: C 40, Lab 30, LD 18. That gives the C a constituency gain in Enfield. However, if the result is C 39, Lab 31, LD 18, the constituency gain doesn't happen, but the Conservatives pick up a top-up seat from Labour. On the other hand, if the result is a 1% difference to the Lib Dems - C40, Lab 29, LD 19, the Lib Dems pick up a top-up seat from Labour.

For what it's worth, yesterday's Indytab Poll of Polls - C 41 Lab 30 LD 18 - gives the Conservatives 10 constituency seats plus 2 topups; Labour 4+4; the LD 0+3; and the Greens 0+2. All of this will be for naught unless the Conservatives can take the mayor's job.

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