How Labour could have come third
FIGURES which may provide some clues to what lies behind the drama that played out in Hampstead and Kilburn last week have been sent my way. The spreadsheet, I’m told, DOES NOT show the votes collected by the parliamentary candidates, but instead reveals how people voted at the local elections held on the same day in council wards within the boundaries of this fiercely-fought seat.
And what does it show? Labour clearly wins in Kilburn (Brent) and Kilburn (Camden) where council seats were gains. But elsewhere in the local elections, people marked their cross elsewhere. So much so in fact that if the local election vote in the north of the borough and those extra wards in Brent had been completely replicated in the Jackson-Philp-Fordham battle, the suggestion is that Labour would actually have lost.
The alternative 1-2-3 would give Lib Dem Ed Fordham victory, Chris Philp would still be second and Glenda Jackson would slip to third. Trouble for Glenda’s opponents is, they didn’t mirror their votes in this way in the General Election poll.
So what happened? Some people may have only bothered to vote in the General Election despite having the council ballot papers thrust in their hands at the polling stations. That would be a particularly determined effort to take part democracy nationally, but not locally.
Alternatively, Glenda – for all the leaflet accusations and tabloid headlines about her being lazy and never seen in the constituency – appears to have retained a high personal vote. The Oscar winner on the doorstep enjoyed a certain amount of loyalty and so it appears a game-changing number of people voted for Glenda to be their MP on the same day that they voted for Lib Dems – and in some places Conservatives – to take seats on the council.
Richard Osley 
Owch that hurts!
It seems to me that people bought Glenda & Chris’ ‘LibDems can’t win here’ line – based on a regional election.
I must say, this makes me slightly more pleased that labour are now on the other side of the chamber.
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These figures are slightly erroneous. What is given is not the aggregate vote across the slate of candidates in each ward. That’s what you need for the correct view of things, although I doubt that would show much difference in the final outcome.
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Shouldnt Ed Fordham apologise to Glenda for attacking her for being ‘lazy’?
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So Lib Dems won the most votes and yet lost not just the parliamentary election but also the council elections in both Brent and Camden?
Seems like another anomaly – looks like we need electoral reform for local elections too.
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Thanks Nathan. In terms of local elections, Labour won the biggest share of the vote across Camden as a whole (as they did in 2006). If PR had been in play, they would have the most seats on the council still but not a majority.
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That is a very interesting table! Here is my response.
My view is that people voted in a polarised way to keep the Tories out in the general election. The Lib Dems lost out because of this. I still can’t believe Glenda has a great personal vote.
Locally it was much the same in terms of polarised voting but it is important to look at what happened ward by ward. We expected the Labour vote to be strong south of Euston Road….mental note – must work out the swing factor ward by ward. A couple of Labour paper candidates I know did suprisingly well with little work so I stand by my polarised voting arguement.
We worked bloody hard in Swiss Cottage and gained an 11% swing from the Tories (Labour gained a 1% swing from the Tories – and we barely saw two of them in the ward) and this was despite the other Labour candidate bad mouthing me personally on the estates saying I live in a posh leafy suburb of St Johns Wood and didn’t know the ward, (I live in Kilburn Camden on an estate backing onto Swiss Cottage) – you could see the results in 2-300 of the split votes. The Tories worked hard and may have been rattled by us – we caught them on the hop a few times. Well done to them though. Despite all this we are now second placed party here from four years ago.
In Kilburn the estates weren’t happy at housing sell offs and caretaking changes. Now Labour have a monumental task to fulfill all their promises, and I am going through back issues of all the papers to compile a list of what they have promised, to hold them to account.
All in all we have lost some fantastic hard working high calibre councillors, I am glad we have kept some too.
It was hard work and exhausting but I would do it all again in a shot. Not having general and local elections on the same day would have made a huge difference here in Camden. I don’t think anyone was expecting the result we got though. I’m still dreaming of walking round the tables counting those rows of 500 votes.
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Well, that didn’t take too long did it? I dare say even as I type the yellow printing presses are rolling with “It’s so close round here” and “Only the LDs can beat Labour/the Tories round here” (delete depending on which ward you are in)
Haven’t they tried a little too hard though, “proving” that they won? Yunno, considering they actually came third? Maybe these figures just show that people are more willing to vote for, say, well liked, local, hard working and respected Flick Rea, and less willing to vote for LD campaign manager Mr Ed “winning round here” Fordham?
Why oh why could that be I wonder?
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Bit harsh ‘Local Tory’,
I’ve been involved (because I care) with my community for years now. I stood because I felt passionate about the issues Camden faces and deal with them daily on my estate. I can accept we lost. I don’t think I am trying to ‘prove’ I won….We did gain ground on the Tories – FACT! I will stand again if I can. I hope that I am already respected by those that know me, I’m definately hard working and one day hope to be elected myself. I felt we had a great team of people who had their heart in the right place we fought on local issues here and yes the long standing personalities got re-elected out of the carnage of election night. Cynically it has to be said… it was bloody close on election night!…I think we have nothing to be ashamed of in coming third when it was so close and locally both the Tories and Lib Dems have ten councillors apiece so are level pegging at present. I am sure most of the candidates who stood wanted to win and many, including Tories are disappointed now. Accept it! Oh and by the way the Tories repeated the same messages on all there leaflets…are you now printing Philps (substitue name as you wish) lives here, got married here, runs on the heath here, went through the state school system and got a first from Oxford, ran his own business blah blah blah…oh and I forgot the vote Fordham get Brown crap you guys sent continually….
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Flo Cubbin is ungracious and wrong on the facts. In Swiss Cottage, for a start, if you measure the change in votes in the standard way and not some funky Lib Dem bar chart advanced maths, the shares were Con -5.4, Lab +3.9, LD +9.4 which makes swings of 4.6% to Lab and 7.4% to LD. I’m a bit insulted by the throwaway reference to me as being barely seen in the ward – Ms Cubbin was perfectly civil and pleasant when we bumped into each other in Greencroft Gardens, and it disappoints me that the cliche about Lib Dems practising snide and negative politics even when they don’t have to turns out to be true in this case.
I have no doubt that next time because the Lib Dems slipped into second, the Swiss Cottage local elections will feature dodgy Lib Dem bar charts and the tedious tactical messaging about ‘Labour can’t win here’. But I’m sure Labour will campaign well in Swiss Cottage next time, and that nobody will be fooled into voting Lib Dem for tactical reasons – why should any Labour supporter want to support the back (Lib Dem) half of the pantomime horse to unseat the front end? Particularly as the local Tories in Swiss Cottage are moderate, decent people rather than right-wing ideologues.
On the big issue of the local and national votes, I’ve done my own number-crunching and I suspect that ‘Local Tory’ is right- that well-established and hard working Lib Dem councillors won votes that went nationally to Jackson or Philp. But the big factor I think was probably people who voted Green locally choosing Jackson at the national level (plus any differences in preferences among people who could vote in the local but not national elections, i.e. citizens of other EU countries, of whom there are a lot in H&K).
Anyway, congratulations in Swiss Cottage terms to Andrew Marshall, Roger Freeman and Don Williams (who seemed remarkably unruffled and not ‘on the hop’ when I bumped into them on a lovely sunny day in Swiss Cottage). They are hard working and caring councillors, and I wish them well in serving the interests of the people of the ward.
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andrew , don and roger have been ‘abused’ for a long time by the FIB DUMS…
Flo Cubbin lives in Dim Dum Land , NOT Camden.
The most joyous moments of the elections were when we were informed,
Stupid and Idiot – James King was OUT – as was his partner in crime – Janet Grauberg.
All these FIB Dims have attacked our cllr’s in swiss cottage, as has Ed ForDum-
A Large majority in Camden are disgusted with the Liars – FIB DIMs and so,
OUT they went….
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“I forgot the vote Fordham get Brown crap you guys sent continually….”
Ha ! Seriously, how does Mr “Anyone but the Conservatives” Fordham feel about the coalition?
Because what I feel is that it is a good thing that Nick Clegg was grown up enough to do what he thought was best for the country, and its a good thing LD MPs and Conservative MPs were grown up enough to go with it. Maybe they don’t like it, but they know the punters do like it, and I call that a new politics all right. You know, if they carry through on it, maybe the LDs will look like a real political party, and not just a collection of self satisfied north London middle class ****s who reckon they are too good to vote Tory.
And yes, its a good thing that we didn’t elect someone whose politics haven’t developed beyond the level of Stoke Polytechnic student union.
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474 to win ……
Flo you lost – get over it and enjoy the sun
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Can we play a game? It’s called ‘Favourite Example of Lib Dem Hubris in the 2010 Campaign.’
Mine was Vince Cable coming to Camden Town on the eve of poll and claiming Frank Dobson’s seat would fall to the Liberals.
Frank doubled his majority, in the event.
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woah…what a lot of hate. David I lost this time – I am over it! just thought I’d respond in a momentary break from sunbathing because that’s obviousy what we ex candidates do don’t we?
Lewis Baston… I am sorry to have slurred your good name. You were very charming when we met. I only saw you once in the ward during the campaign. I never saw Katherine Purcell. I saw Katherine Bligh reasonably frequently and she was unpleasant and certainly slanderous of me. I distinctly remember her hijacking a conversation I was having on the street and pointing out to the people I was in conversation with, how she lives in the ward and that I didn’t and how could I know the issues (you don’t live in the ward either do you Lewis, the other Katherine doesn’t, neither does Glenda….humm…neither do Freeman or Marshall for that matter!). I must go and check your figures on the swing. Where were you and Purcell at the count by the way? As for your comments on tedious messaging – I was going through the pile of leaflets on my desk at home from you lot – ‘Clegg on your face’…couldn’t even be bothered to think of your own headline eh?…seem to remember that one being used by the Sun for a headline other than estates decent homes! (where is the £483K eh?)…oh and there are so many more of them slurring negative campaigns I could go through.
Regarding, election material: well all parties used bar charts, figures, claims of action, cv of candidates. If our figures were so out of wack how come all the major TV channels, newspapers, media were using them.
As for the Tories well certainly they were caught on the hop on the HS2 issue, but recovered ground by taking email addresses from a circulation list (including my email address) intended for a cross party, cross ward approach post election meeting on the HS2 issue and hijacked the list to organise and recover their position during the campaign, cunningly galvanising residents on the route through the ward. A very morally wrong approach – which they would have known if they had been at the Primrose Hill meeting where the concensus was to work together on the issues after the election. What can I say about the Crossfield Day Centre Polling station where next door was a Tory committee room – private property it might have been but the excessive tory propaganda had the complaints by and to the presiding officer taken all the way to Moira Gibb. Very moral???- Private property or not! Opportunistic maybe! Good luck to Marshall, Freeman and Williams and well done.
I reckon many of you are too scared to put yourself up as candidates, far easier to take a pop at someone whose political views differ from your own. I am glad I stood for the first time this time round. I’ve worked for years on community issues, fighting for what is right…I didn’t study politics or at Stoke poly, I just wanted to be involved from the other side of the table as a rational human who cares. How many of you can say the same? Have you forgotten about the issues? – as for inde pendants comments, trying to become my friend on facebook and sending cryptic messages to me only to come out as a lib dem hater, well all I have to say is carry on with your lib dem hating crap hiding behind your pseudonym…indumpendant (oh it took me ages to work out how to fit that one in – Not…What dim dum planet are you on?)
I am in agreement with Local Torys views on the coalition – other than his / her sentiment of hate. …”maybe the LDs will look like a real political party, and not just a collection of self satisfied north London middle class ****s who reckon they are too good to vote Tory.”…which I personally find offensive and couldn’t be further from my own political background!
There is the opportunity for new politics. The Lib Dems have helped Cameron achieve a strong government, and now have key well respected MPs in cabinet and ministerial roles which I am hopeful will bring about the change in politics that this country needs.
ok back to sunbathing for a bit!
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