Friday, May 14, 2010

Local Election Numbers

The average increase in the Cambridge Conservative local election vote between 2005 (the last time local and General elections were held on the same day) and 2010 was 2.9%... this figure hides some wide variations with Coleridge storming ahead on nearly an 8% increase and West Chesterton actually falling by more than one percent.

Of course, there have been some boundary changes, so we are not comparing entirely like with like, but it gives a good picture of the city-wide variations. I would be interested in others views on why the ward results varied so much.


Ward and Tory Vote % change since 2005

COLERIDGE +7.9
NEWNHAM +6.0
ROMSEY +4.4
MARKET +3.9
TRUMPINGTON +3.7
CHERRY HINTON +3.2
EAST CHESTERTON +2.9
KING'S HEDGES +2.0
ABBEY +2.2
ARBURY +1.2
CASTLE +1.2
PETERSFIELD +0.6
WEST CHESTERTON -1.3

Average: 2.9%
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1 comments:

  1. Interesting. Nationally your vote was up 3.8% from 2005, so these numbers should be seen in that context. Coleridge has clearly had a lot more Conservative activity in the last few years than it did before, so that's not very surprising. You did a bit better in two of the three student wards; perhaps students are slightly less anti-Tory now than they were last time. The exception was Castle ward, where your candidate was a student; some voters seem less inclined to support student candidates. On the other hand he probably did benefit from being called Clegg - during the count I noticed a number of ballot papers where inattentive Lib Dem voters had voted for him, then crossed the vote out and voted for the Lib Dem candidate, Simon Kightley. There must have been others that didn't spot the party name.

    You also tended to do worse in the three wards where there was a double election, Petersfield and E & W Chesterton. There was a lot of vote-splitting going on in these, with voters going for all sorts of combinations of parties, so that was probably a factor. Of these three, you did least badly in East Chesterton, perhaps because Kevin Francis has stood several times before and is better known. In Romsey I think the Conservative vote was probably squeezed in 2005 by the Lib Dem efforts to defeat longstanding Labour councillor Joe Gluza; this time the Lib Dem campaign focused almost entirely on the parliamentary vote, so this was less of a factor.

    That leaves lower-scoring Abbey, Arbury and Kings Hedges, where I think there are simply fewer Conservative voters, and Cherry Hinton and Trumpington, which were pretty much in line with the national swing.

    It will be interesting (to say the least) to see what effect the coalition government has on the local elections next year. The Lib Dems are defending 10 seats, Labour are defending four, and the Conservatives & Greens none. Time will tell!

    Phil Rodgers (Lib Dem activist)
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