A bit of psephology

Here's the result with percentages:

Labour 1575 (69.3%)
Lib Dem 277 (12.2%)
Green 177 (7.8%)
TUSC 76 (3.4%)
Con 74 (3.3%)
UKIP 64 (2.8%)
Ind 20 (0.9%)
Soc 11 (0.5%)

Turnout: 20%.

Everyone knew that this was a one-horse race, but nobody predicted (see yesterday's blog) a landslide Labour victory of this proportion. It's the sort of percentage that Labour used to get in the mining valleys of South Wales when the pits were still open. It looks as if inner London is becoming a Tory no-go ahead like the Northern cities.

Although everybody was expecting Labour to win, there were other contests going on -- LibDems v Greens for second place; UKIP v the Tories, even us v TUSC) -- and it can be seen who won these. Whether we like it or not (and we don't), in the public perception where there are two candidates describing themselves as "socialist" they are seen as rivals for the votes of those who consider themselves socialist. But not just in the public perception, but also amongst those who consider themselves socialist. Although we don't attach all that importance to the number of votes we get, it is undoubtedly true that we get more when there is not another candidate calling themselves socialist. In fact the combined vote for TUSC and us is about the same here (3.9%) as it was in the Brixton Hill by-election in January (4.1%). That would seem to be the measure of the "anticapitalist" audience.

In any event, TUSC must be pleased with the result. Finishing ahead of both UKIP and the Tories, they have shown that they can consistently get about 3% in elections with their "anti-cuts" campaign. This will be a protest vote against the cuts rather than for Trotsky's transitional programme or for Militant's strategy for combatting them and, as such, will have some significance. But 3% is not enough to launch a general strike over the issue.

UKIP will also be disappointed. This time (compared with Brixton Hill) they ran a much more professional campaign (expensively produced glossy leaflets, etc) specifically aimed at winning over Labour voters. They got nowhere. It looks as if they really are just an external faction of the Tories in rural and seaside areas, especially those with a noticeable presence of migrants from East Europe. They are not going to make a breakthrough in the big cities. It is difficult to understand why they thought that their appeal to old-fashioned Britishness was going to have an impact in a ward where, in the 2011 census, only 5116 out of a population of 15,771 (a little over 32%) put themselves down as "White British" (see here). Parties such as the BNP and them are no threat in places like this despite the fuss made about them by "anti-fascists".

One of our reasons for contesting these by-elections (apart from the wards being in walking distance of our Head Office) was to get us known more locally in preparation for next year's full borough council elections in May next year (which are going to be held on the same day as the Euroelections, which should increase the turnout a bit). We will almost definitely be contesting the Larkhall and Ferndale wards as we did last time. Ferndale ward is also in Brixton (bordered by Brixton High Street and Acre Lane). In the meantime we'll be continuing leafletting them and adding the nearby parts of Brixton Hill and Tulse Hill wards.

The result last time

The result in the ward at the local elections in May 2010 can be found here.

In other words:

Labour 43%
Liberals 29%
Greens 15%
Tories 13%

Brixton Hill council by-election

Following the move up the greasy pole from Local Councillor to Member of Parliament by Steve Reed, the Leader of Lambeth Council, he has resigned as a councillor and a by-election will be held in the ward he represented. This happens to be Brixton Hill, which is within 10-15 minutes walking distance from our office at 52 Clapham High Street and also one of the wards where in the Greater London Assembly elecions in May we got 3 percent or more of the vote. It is just outside the parliamentary constituency of Vauxhall which we normally contest.

We will be contesting this by-election whih will take place on Thursday 17 January. Nomination papers have to be in by Tuesday 18 December, so next week we'll be going round collecting to 10 signatories by electors in the ward needed to stand.

As there was no chance of Steve Reed not being elected as Labour MP for North Croydon we had anticipated the by-election and have already leafletted the ward. On the basis of this we reckon that 3000 leaflets can cover this. With this relatively small number we should be able to leaflet it twice before the election.

You'll be able to follow our campaign on this blog.

More analysis

This time Lambeth and Southwark.

In Lambeth we got 1700 (2.1%) and in Southwark 1238 (1.6%).

In three wards in Lambeth (Coldharbour, Larkhall and Brixton Hill) we got over a hundred votes, respectively 111, 102 and 101, or 3.4%, 3.3% and 3.0%. What this means in practical terms (assuming only about a third of electors voted) is that if you are walking town the street in these areas 1 out of every 100 people you pass are likely to have voted Socialist. I think that means that we should have a regular literature stall in Brixton High Road (which these three wards plus Ferndale where we got 2.9% surround). It also suggests that we should consider contesting the proposed new Brixton constituency (which will include all these wards) rather than the proposed Battersea & Vauxhall constituency -- if these and the other proposed boundary changes ever come in and are not dropped in exchange for not reforming the House of Lords.

In 9 of the 21 of the wards our candidate got more votes than the UKIP, or rather "The Fresh Choice for London", candidate. Not really surprising, as their main campaign slogan was "Save the City" and who wants to do that except the likes of the City bankers and lawyers who figured on their list?

In the 8 wards making up the parliamentary constituency of Vauxhall, the vote (not including postal votes) was 593 (or 2.5%). This contrasts with the 143 (or 0,3%) we got there in the 2010 General Election and the 240 (0.6%) in the 2005 General Election. In the 2008 GLA elections the figure was 351 (or 1.6%). An analysis of how we did in all the 10 parliamentary constituencies the GLA constituency covers follows separately.

In Southwark the best ward was Nunhead (which we did happen to leaflet) with 76 (or 2.7%) and we beat UKIP in 2 wards.

The higher vote in Lambeth than Southwark is no doubt to be explained by the fact that we have put a lot of work into Vauxhall, having contested 3 General Elections and 3 Council elections there as well as the last GLA elections and the European Parliament. We have also been leafletting regularly Larkhall and Ferndale wards (chosen because that's where we did best last time). This doesn't explain why we did better in Streatham (the other Lambeth parliamentary constituency) than in any part of Southwark.