Well, that was one hell of a race for one reason: the Red Bull duel that left Vettel out of the race, Webber relegated to third and Hamilton leading home a McLaren 1-2 finish.
Betting-wise, my Button tip at 2.7 came off, but it was pure luck on my part (not that I’m complaining). I misjudged how serious the dirty side of the track is in Turkey, with Vettel passing Hamilton initially and Schumacher passing Button. Something to try and remember for next year.
Before I come to the important part of the race and its implications, a word on the also-rans. It seems to me that Mercedes is now a step ahead of Ferrari, who are not doing anywhere near as well as they should be. In addition, Renault are doing very well indeed.
Also worth mentioning that nobody saw rain coming, and whilst there were a few (inconsequential) spots, it does show that unpredictable events live up to their name.
On lap 41, Webber was leading Vettel, Hamilton and Button. The top 4 were miles clear of 5th-placed Schumacher. Vettel had been gaining on his team mate for several laps, and tried overtaking. I think the move itself was sound, until he was slightly ahead and seemed to suddenly turn right. Webber was, I think, moving gradually in Vettel’s direction, but the German moved suddenly. They collided, Vettel’s race was over and Webber’s car was damaged, necessitating a pit stop that let the McLarens through and put Webber back to 3rd.
In my view, Vettel deserves most of the blame, but Webber was very, very close to him and could have perhaps been a little further off. Still, Vettel’s fault.
In addition, Vettel was quicker than Webber during the race, and (but for reliability failure) would have probably gotten the pole. Given Webber’s had three poles in a row and two victories from the last three races it’s worth remembering Vettel is very quick indeed.
Later we saw the Englishmen show Johnny Foreigner just how to do serious racing. Having been told to conserve fuel, Button decided the best way to do this was to reach the finishing line as quickly as possible. He surprised Hamilton with an excellent pass, but to his great credit the 2008 champion very quickly took top spot back. From then on it was formation flying.
So, Turkey marks the first weekend I got both qualifying and race day right (admittedly due to a huge slice of luck). Hurrah!
Even more importantly, it marks McLaren really getting parity with Red Bull. Ferrari are a bit rubbish and Mercedes are far back, but the Red Bulls and McLarens are in a real tussle for supremacy.
Before I have a go at guessing how the season will pan out, here are the stats on the two title races:
Constructors: McLaren 172 Red Bull 171 Ferrari 146 Mercedes 100
Drivers: Webber 93 Button 88 Hamilton 84 Alonso 79 Vettel 78
Worth recalling that the excellent new scoring system gives 25, 18, 15 for the three podium spots, and gives points all the way down to 10th.
Last season we saw just how much development McLaren can achieve over the course of a season. They went from having a dog of a car to a race-winning machine, with Hamilton being the top points scorer in the latter half of the 2009 season. Given the drivers and the state of the teams now, I can only see Red Bull or McLaren, at this stage, picking up titles.
Hamilton is much shorter than Button (3.85 to 9.8). He shouldn’t be. Here’s my thinking: in raw pace terms, Hamilton has a serious challenge from the Red Bull, but when tactics and brain power is required, Button has beaten him both times (the tyre calls which gave Button a pair of victories). If you haven’t backed Button yet, 9 or over are good odds. Hamilton is perhaps a shade short, certainly not value in my book. I wonder if this is a hangover from the pre-season consensus (which I bought into) that Hamilton would just destroy Button.
Webber is 3.65. Not short enough for me to lay him, as yet, but if you backed him at 10 (or thereabouts) as suggested a few races ago you could consider laying him. Vettel’s at 4. I’d back him now, except that the next race, Canada, looks like it might be a McLaren playground. If that is the case, it’d be best to wait until after Canada and then backing Vettel (depending on the state of play, obviously).
I think Button stands a real chance of retaining his title, though it’s by no means certain. I also think the Constructors’ is too close to call (presently Red Bull are favourite, with McLaren 2.5).
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the race and didn’t keel over with the shock of being green for both qualifying and race day. The race in Canada takes place in a fortnight.
A combination of good fortune (Vettel cocking up his last lap) and good sense paid off, with Webber getting yet another pole position. [For those laying, I got 1.5 matched for Webber, and 2.5 for my silly Hamilton bet which meant I finished all square for Hamilton and ahead overall].
Turkey typically sees the pole sitter getting the win, with the notable exception of last year. It will be interesting to see if the McLarens can pass the Red Bulls on the straights during the race.
Also worth mentioning that Alonso is continuing his mission to lose his reputation for consistent excellence by failing to reach Q3 and starting 12th. After the Monaco practice crash and Chinese false start the grumpy Spaniard isn’t looking quite as good as he ought to be.
Forecast for tomorrow is sunny, so no rainy interludes. However, it does raise an interesting point. During either practice or qualifying, I forget which, the commentators suggested that Red Bull’s problems with reliability tend to come up in hotter weather. Turkey’s warm but not crazily hot, and we’ve already seen problems with both cars. A sunny day may exacerbate the Red Bull’s reliability issues, and is something to keep an eye out for.
The even side of the track (ie the side cars starting 2nd, 4th, 6th etc line up on) is dirtier than the odd side. Hard to say how significant that will prove, but may give a slight edge to the odd-numbered cars.
So, all that considered, I’m backing Button at 2.7 for a podium. There are a number of ways this could occur, through passing a Red Bull on a straight, Red Bull exploding or a Red Bull driver making an error. Button never challenged for pole, but he has also made fewer mistakes than his title rivals over the course of the weekend.
I also looked at the winner’s market, but did not see any value. Webber’s on a roll, he did well at Turkey last time and after Vettel’s shenanigans off the line earlier this season he shouldn’t be caught napping.
So, a single tip to back Button for a podium at 2.7. [Unlike a pole position or winner type bet I don’t lay this kind of bet, unless at veeeery low odds].
Turkey is a new track, and weird because it’s one of the few (along with awesome Interlagos) that goes anti-clockwise.
Last year Vettel did less well at Turkey, with Button winning and Webber coming second. In earlier years, the Ferrari team had a good run.
I said on the main site that I thought it could be a good race. Ferrari have had a good history there, the McLaren should be nicely suited to the track but Red Bull are so dominant they must be in the mix.
P1 saw McLaren get a 1-2 (Hamilton first) followed by the Mercedes (Schumacher first), then Vettel, Kubica and Petrov, Webber, Alonso and Sutil.
P2 had Button fastest, ahead of Webber, Vettel, Hamilton, Alonso, Rosberg, Schumacher, Kubica, Petrov and Massa. However, it was more notable for the fact that both Red Bulls had problems, with Vettel losing water pressure and Webber’s engine dying.
In P3 Vettel came top with a stonking lap, followed by Rosberg, then Hamilton, Kubica, Alonso, Schumacher, Button, Massa, Petrov.
The session was remarkable for a number of spins and errors, from the likes of Hamilton, Vettel, and Webber, the favourites for pole. Webber could’ve been higher but he stuffed up an otherwise promising lap.
Vettel’s evens for pole, Webber 3.75, Hamilton between 9 and 10. Hard to say whether Hamilton or Webber represents better value, and, of course, Vettel’s seriously fast.
Having taken a little while to consider, I think Webber represents better value. His odds may be overstated because he had a great lap wrecked due to an error (something that happened to his rivals also, but earlier in the session) and he outpaced Vettel here last year. [I did also back Hamilton, but that was speculative and before P3. Vettel was about 0.3s faster than Hamilton in the session, a very large gap to overcome, I feel].
So, I’m tipping Webber at 3.75. I’ve also set up some in-game lays (as per Kubica at Monaco) and would advocate doing the same here.
Now that the excitement has subsided and the debris has been brushed away, it's time to look to look at having fun together:
- Plot with all sides of the political spectrum!
- Lie, deceive and stab each other in the back and all have a laugh about it afterwards!
- Band together and stamp on me before I even get out of my own peninsula! Again ...
- Play against a former World Champion! (Nick, you said you'd play :) )
Yes - time for PB Diplomacy Game #7. If you're interested, comment below. We'll use the www.playdiplomacy.com site again (it's free; alternative address for the same site is www.playdip.com) and if there's enough interest, I'll get the game set up and post the password here. If anyone's got any preferences other than the default of random country selection and deadlines of 48 hours for moves and 24 hours for retreats and 24 hours for builds, shout out.
Summary
Yep - summary up front. This post has grown hugely 'cause I wanted to cover the details of what I'm summarising, which are:
- UNS performed slightly worse (for Tory seat share) than in 2005 and 2001 but better than 1997.
- Regional effects were minimal (about 2 seats difference to the totals)
- "Unwind" occurred to about 50% and was dented by a surprisingly high incumbency boost
- Demographic and ethnic differences between seats had a large effect
- UNS calculators beforehand all predicted heavily hung Parliament, no minority governments feasible, both Con/LD and Lab/LD coalitions possible
- Alternative calculators varied greatly but almost all had Tories over 300 but short of 326 - Tory minority or Con/LD coalitions as the realistic alternatives. Lab/LD total close but overpredicted LD at Lab expense.
- My spreadsheet had more inputs that had to be estimated (a weakness); with the suggested figures I gave just before the poll of 66% unwind, sd's of 4, 4.5, 4, it gave Con 312 (+/-6), Lab 235 (+/-6), LD 70 (+/-4). LD underperformance in hitting possible/probable targets and defending possible/probable holds and strong Labour defences (incumbency) are suggested.
- "Electoral geography" has improved the Tory vs Labour position - the gap between them at level polling has reduced from 89 seats to 54. Labour majority threshold has moved from 0.2% Con lead to 2.5% Labour lead, equal seats from 6.8% Con lead to 3.9% Con lead. The Tory majority threshold hasn't twitched, though, due to a low density of seats between the current point and 2% swing - 10 seats per point against the 20 seats/point reached to here. Accordingly, the hung parliament zone has widened from 10 points to 13 points.
- Without the Clegg surge, the Tories would have achieved more than 320 seats on the 7 point lead they got and the Lib Dems been heavily squeezed.
Review
So, how did the forecast models do?One additional headache has always been the reliability of the input data – if the polls over- or under-represent any party, there’s a problem even if the model is right.So we’ve got to look at what the outcome should have been with perfect knowledge.
Sleazy broken UNS on the slide?
The simplest model is to use additive UNS – add the national swing to every constituency and count which ones change hands.It’s invariably carried out without provisos by the media and has been subject to considerable questioning here on pb.Before this election, we were well aware that the errors could, for the first time since 1992, result in a wrong prediction for the overall result: in 1997, 2001 and 2005, the only error would have been in misjudging the size of the Labour majority.However, virtually every poll in the week or so before the election, put through UNS, resulted in a hugely hung Parliament, with the Tories around the 280 mark and Labour plus the Lib Dems together with a comfortable majority – if they so chose to ally themselves.Mitchell Stirling had an excellent series of posts comparing the UNS predictions to the “alternative” predictions. The final table was here.
Interestingly, the final averaged UNS prediction (based on the polls) had Labour spot on, but the Tories under by 25 seats and the Lib Dems over by a similar amount. Lib Dem kingmakers, who could go almost equally easily with the Tories or Labour.
The final averaged alternative predictions had the Tories over by 8, Labour well under at 40 below and the Lib Dems over by about 25 seats.Either a Tory minority Government, or Lib Dem/Tory Coalition.
Why the surprise, then?
So why were we on pb.com so surprised at the result? The UNS calculators were pointing at a far worse Tory result, the non-UNS ones were pretty close to the mark for the Tory seat total (and were correctly pointing to a hung parliament with potential of Tory minority or Con/LD coalition). We were really knocked off target because we expected both that the UNS calculators would fall short and that the polls would noticeably understate the Conservative lead. To be fair, the Golden Rule had worked for so long that it did appear to be exposing a suspected methodological flaw in British opinion polling. As it turned out, the best triumph of the night (to my mind) was the long-delayed vindication by Nick Sparrow of his method of estimating the "spiral of silence". In 1997, it was inconclusive, in 2001 and 2005 it didn't change the final scores - but this time around it did, and seems to have exposed a very real tendency of voters to be attracted to their last voting choice.
The above table glosses over the variability between the non-standard predictors, ranging from 292 to 363 Tory seats (but with 15 of 18 predicting Tories short and one of the other 3 a razor thin majority prediction of 0).Labour, on the other hand, were clustered in a far lower range, from 199-235 seats.The Lib Dems ranged from 57 seats to 114.To be fair to all methods, if you put in the wrong inputs, you cannot expect to get the right outputs, and the polls failed with respect to the Labour/Lib Dem vote split.In computer programming they call it "GIGO": Garbage In, Garbage Out.
What should the models have predicted?
Many people (including journalists) went straight to Anthony Wells’s excellent UKPollingReport site, which included a weighted poll average and UNS calculation.Now Wells highlighted that UNS is an estimate, not a rule of law, but the final estimate was Con 274, Lab 264, LD 81 with vote shares of Con 35, Lab 28, LD 27 (Con 7 point lead).Almost a dead heat (Conservatives 52 short), with Lib Dem kingmakers (Con/LD majority of 50; Lab/LD majority of 40) – a minority government would be definitely impractical on these figures.
With correct data in (GB shares of Con 36.9%, Lab 29.7%, LD 23.6%, giving Lab-Con swing of 5.1%, Lab-LD of 3.7%, LD-Con of 1.4%) UNS would predict that:
- The Tories would (on the Wells figures) pick up 66 Labour seats (Overtaking Labour in Edinburgh South, but losing to the Lib Dems), 7 Lib Dem seats and maybe the IKHH seat (up by 74 seats from 214).
- The Lib Dems should pick up 6 seats from Labour and lose 7 to the Tories (down one from 63).
- Labour should lose 66 seats to the Tories and 6 to the Lib Dems, down by 72 from 344.
So final scores of Con 288, Lab 272, LD 62.
Conservatives 38 short, Con/LD majority 50 or Lab/LD majority 18.
Lib Dem kingmakers again, with Labour not too far behind the Tories.Con minority government not really feasible.Errors of 19 seats underpredicted for the Conservatives, 14 overpredicted for Labour and 8 overpredicted for the Lib Dems.
Regional UNS wouldn’t do much better – Conservatives would have won 71 seats from Labour, and 5 from the Lib Dems, with the Lib Dems exactly making up their losses from Labour: ending with Con 290, Lab 268, LD 63.So the effects of the regional swing variations pretty much cancelled out - the source of error wasn't the non-uniformity regionally.
How close could that 7% lead have taken them to a majority?
While we’re on UNS and the “11% lead needed for a majority” question, Peter Kellner wrote a piece on the election recently.He pointed out that although Lib Dems were disappointed that the Clegg surge hadn’t fully materialised, their position was far better than it had been before the surge, and estimated that the House of Commons would have been (on 19% Lib Dem score) 321 Con, 264 Lab, 37 Lib Dems.Looking at the YouGov polls of 9th-15th April, the Lib Dems are on an average of 19.7%, with Con and Lab on 38.9 and 31.9 respectively – so it seems as though the surge that did occur damaged both parties relatively equally and a 7 point Con lead before the Clegg surge would have put the Tories right on the very edge of an effective majority.Arguably, the Clegg surge did end up putting the Lib Dems into Government, as it turned out.
"A rule of thumb, not a rule of law"
Overall, UNS didn’t do much better or worse than recently. I've had a glance back and it seems that antifrank was the first to put it in these words “It’s a rule of thumb, not a rule of law” in reply to my series of articles on UNS and how it can err (saving about 3,130 words from how I put it ...).It was worse than in 2005 or 2001, but better than 1997.The Labour “seat advantage” (their lead in seats on level pegging in the polls with Lib Dems unchanged) continued to drop.The 2001 peak was 144 seats.In 2005 it was 89 seats (so UNS claimed that a dead heat would see a narrow Labour majority, 89 seats ahead of the Tories).Today it’s 54 seats (so after seeing how things changed during the election, we can say that a dead heat would have been a hung Parliament with the Tories 54 seats behind Labour – not the 89 that UNS from 2005 would have predicted).The Tory damage since 1997 continues to unwind – in 97 they fell behind UNS by 41 seats and in 2001 by a further 15, being 56 seats behind UNS (measured from 1992) at the peak.In 2005 they pulled back by 13 seats and this time by a further 19-20, so pulling back about 32 seats of their disadvantage.Still behind the 1992 relative position, but with the distortion unwinding considerably.
Running it backwards - a 25 seat advantage
It’s also sometimes educational to run an election in reverse – what should the 2005 notional figures have been if created by UNS from the current position?Feed 33.2, 36.2, 22.6 into the (commendably swiftly) updated.additive UNS calculator on Anthony’s site:Con 239, Lab 330, LD 55.So zero swing from the 2005 position would have obtained quite a difference, illustrating how the electoral landscape shifted (again) during the election.
Alternative calculators
On the “what would the answer be with the right question” front, the only alternative calculator I can easily use is my own.This adds another level of challenge with the input parameters – it allows the adjustment of the level of “unwind” of the accumulated tactical voting/marginal boost that progressively damaged the Conservatives from 1992 to 2001, pushing them way below the levels that UNS would expect.Some partial unwind occurred in 2005, but much was still locked up in the electoral landscape.
One way to estimate it would be to try to measure the relative unpopularity (the straight poll figures give us popularity; unpopularity is governed by who the electorate would most like to deny).Through 2009, the second choice of Lib Dem voters was preferentially Conservative.This advantage declined as 2009 slid into 2010 and became about level by February.From then, Labour built up an advantage, although never to the degree of their advantage in 2005.I’d estimate then that the unwind would have been greater than 100% through most of 2009 (giving the Conservatives an advantage to the extent that the political landscape would have possibly looked biased towards them), declining to about 100% around February and lower as the election neared.Had Labour built up their advantage to an equivalent level of 2005, they’d have reduced the unwind to 0%.An even greater advantage would actually produce a negative unwind.As it was, it appears to have been about 50%.On the eve of election, I estimated 66%. I also stated that I reckoned there would be a higher than normal variability (giving higher standard deviations of swing) of 4, 4.5 and 4.These input variables with the correct poll shares gave:
Con 312 (+/-6), Lab 235 (+/-6), LD 70 (+/-4).So Tory minority or Con/LD coalition.
Errors
The Tory share was within the error margins (5 seats off), but the Labour and Lib Dem shares were out by 23 and 16 seats respectively (although the total of them was within a few seats).The Lib Dems were over-forecast with respect to Labour – the anticipated Lib Dem targeting/defensive boost never materialised. Breaking down further, they undershot specifically in England against the forecast – seats that should have turned yellow like the City of Durham, Hampstead & Kilburn, York Outer and Oxford East simply didn’t.
Losses like Newton Abbot, Oxford West and Abingdon, Camborne and Redruth, Richmond, Cornwall South East, Harrogate, Rochdale, and Winchester further damaged the Lib Dem picture.Wins like Redcar and Wells helped, but very few of the “Lib Dem possibles” (like Watford, Guildford, Meon Valley,Ealing Central & Acton, Derby North, Blaydon, Romsey, Birmingham Hall Green and Leicester South were held by or taken by the Lib Dems – they significantly underperformed on the probabilistic front (Lib Dems – what happened?Failure of targeting?Third party squeeze?).
Labour defended well, overperforming slightly in Wales against their poll share – they should have lost three or four more (holding Ynys Mon against the odds and not losing any ofVale of Clwyd, Newport West, Gower, Bridgend, Swansea West, Clwyd South or Delyn.Most of these would have needed above-average swings (in some cases, well above-average), but the high level of variance in swing didn’t materialise in these seats where it would have been very bad for Labour.In England as a whole, they defended very well, getting a noticeable incumbency boost (especially in places like Broxstowe, where the odds of Nick holding on were down around 7% and he very nearly pulled it off, and Birmingham Edgbaston, where the model gave Gisela Stuart only an 11% chance of holding on) as well as an ethnic vote which swung their way.It looks as though there were class based swings as well, with C2s swinging far more to the Tories than ABs (on the whole – with some significant local variations).
I’ve been rather down on my model for the Lab/LD inaccuracies, but I am going to be pleased that the Tory seat share was far closer than most other models and – unlike UNS – the actual result (Choice between Con minority or Con/LD coalition on my model versus no chance of a minority for either and equal feasibility of Con/LD or Lab/LD coalition) was correct.However, with the “GIGO” problem that we were faced with, the fact that there are additional parameters that need to be estimated (primarily the unwind percentage) is a problem – a way of calculating this factor rather than estimating it was needed.
Actually, what may have happened with the Labour seats might be well explained by Martin Baxter – when the Lib Dem vote share during the middle of the last Parliament was plumbing depths and his model started predicting zero Lib Dem seats, he adjusted his “Transition Model” (based upon Proportional Loss) to allow for core and floating voters – the “Strong Transition Model”.I believe that his predictor did very well – with the correct vote shares, he got 299, 255, 65.Maybe the Additive UNS versus Proportional Loss debate needs to be reopened?Certainly his method of adjusting for “strong” and “weak” voters seems to have done very well.
The Future
Interestingly, the regional swings don’t seem to have had a very large effect, changing the result by two or three seats at most.Definitely demographic swing is more important than regional swing.Ethnic factors and incumbency are also necessary.
So – in order to predict reliably, we need:
- Reliable poll data to input
- A way of judging whether or not to adjust for incumbency
- Reliable ethnic breakdowns and a way of highlighting affected constituencies
- Reliable class-based breakdowns and a way of highlighting effective constituencies
Unfortunately, with extra inputs we have the problem of judging what they should be – one significant issue with my model.My estimate of 66% unwind with those particular swing standard deviations was pretty good for Tory seats and the overall outcome, but having to estimate the inputs like that is a weakness.Unfortunately, UNS again had significant problems (the area of hung parliament predicted being rather different to the reality, with Tory minority closed off and Lab/LD coalition very much on the cards).However, as a rule of thumb, it’s a general guideline, but we do need to estimate how far it will be out and in which direction.
And all of this may well be redundant - a change to AV with heavily redrawn constituencies to reduce MP numbers will be a total step change.
It's time to get the betting slips out again as another election's in the offing. Where? In Norwich of course!
Today's Sunday Telegraph revelations introduce the tantalising prospect that there'll be elections in Norwich and Exeter City Council areas as a result of the unwinding of the Unitary Council legislation.
So, who's gonna win? Because it's Norwich, it's a lottery but could a Yellow/Blue coalition come up the middle in the first test of The Coalition Government? Read on...
There's a clue in today's Sunday Telegraph scoop on the Queen's Speech, where my eye was caught by the very second piece of legislation planned by the incoming Coalition Government.
Local Government (Revocation of Structural Change) Bill. (Dept for Communities and Local Govt). This will stop the planned creation of single-tier councils serving Exeter and Norwich. Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary, brands the restructuring plans "wasteful and unnecessary" and claims scrapping them will save £40 million.
Now there's a thing! With the country in dire straits and a million problems to sort-out, new SoS 'hungry' Eric Pickles will be slipping-in a quick bit of primary legislation as a first manifesto pledge enacted as a hors d'oeuvre to stop the creation of Unitary Councils in Norwich & Exeter. At least this will stop him from feeling the need to reach for his famed pearl handled revolver.
But why does this piece of legislation mean that there might be an early electoral test of The Coalition?
The answer's hidden away in a Bunnco post from 10th February
As exclusively revealed [on PB] this morning, Labour has cancelled the elections in Norwich this May. Everyone expected the Greens to depose Labour, who were only 2 seats ahead. When the electorate realise that they’ve been cheated of their chance to give a verdict for the shambolic way Labour has run their city, there’ll be hell to pay.
No chance of Charles Clarke holding on. It's the greatest gerrymander since rotten boroughs were abolished in 1832.
Ministerial statement "In particular the draft orders are providing for the 2010 elections to Exeter and Norwich city councils to be cancelled and for subsequent whole council elections to the new unitary councils to take place in 2011."
by bunnco February 10th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
That 'gerrymander' line caught on and was subsequently picked-up by Iain Dale, who scooped the news that the PermSec required written Direction from the Minister to proceed.
Subsequently The House of Lords Statutory Instruments Committee savaged the Unitary plans yet to the chagrin of local Tories, Conservative Lords did not vote down the orders when they came before the House on 'conventional' grounds unlike the LibDem Peers, who were Not Content. The legislation passed.
So you'd have thought it was Game Over. But what's not widely appreciated is that in the days running up to the General Election the Norfolk & Devon County Councils, in a last throw of the dice, had a 2 day hearing on 29/30th April at The Royal Courts of Justice with the aim of finding the entire process unlawful on the grounds that the Ministers changed the rules at the last moment to suit themselves and to 'fix' the result. No wonder Sir Humphrey objected.
The judge presiding over the judicial review of the government's decision to grant unitary status to Exeter and Norwich councils reserved judgment in the case until after the general election. That judgement is now due.
Now that Pickles has said the whole enterprise is to be scrapped, to a certain extent it's a bit academic but if the Judge rules that the Labour's decision to proceed was unlawful, then one option could be to run the cancelled elections for the City Council after all.
Now, what a delicious prospect that would be. The first 'proper' set of elections since The Coalition was formed.
And with the spotlight having been on Norwich for the last 12 months with firstly the Norwich North by-election and then the brutal 4-way fight in Norwich South with the LibDems ultimately successful on 29% of the vote, Norwich politics are likely to play centre stage. And it's by no means certain how a city-wide District election would pan-out.
Let's have a look at the vote shares from May 5th in Norwich South
VOTE SHARE % Liberal Democrat 29.4 Labour 28.7 Conservative 22.9 Green 14.9
Note: We do have to remember that the Norwich South constituency did contain Costessey in the South Norfolk district, which is overwhelmingly LibDem and this Yellow boost would not apply in the Norwich City Council election.
Chloe Smith on Norwich Market
Similarly Chloe Smith's Norwich North result is too contaminated by the presence of Broadland district council to be a useful predictor of a City Council poll apart from showing the LibDems have a limited infrastructure in north of Norwich. Cons 40.6%; Lab 31.4%; LD 18.3%
On the basis that Pickles will not be able to resist poking Labour in the eye and allowing his coalition partners the chance to rebuild their shattered base in Norwich, I'm going to predict that the cancelled elections will be fought again, either by the order of The Judge or by a clause in the Bill.
So if this happens, let's have a look at the runners and riders in more detail.
Norwich City Council is a 39 member council with 13 three-member wards elected on 'Thirds'. It's currently run by a Labour Minority administration and when you look at the Maths, you can see how precarious the Red position is. The seats are split Lab 15; Grn 13; LibDem 6; Cons 5;
And, if the election is to be run in 13 wards, Labour has 6 seats on-risk, the Greens 4, the LibDems 2 and Tories 1. Here are the celebrities
Ward Party Name Group Leader Bowthorpe Conservative Anthony Little Group Leader Crome Labour Jenny Lay Lakenham Labour Mary Cannell Mile Cross Labour Linda Blakeaway Sewell Labour Susan Sands Toen Close Green Janet Bearman Wensum Green Tom Llewellyn Catton Grove Labour Brian Morrey Eaton LibDem Brian Watkins Group Leader Mancroft Green Howard Jago Nelson Green Claire Stephenson Group Leader Thorpe Hamlet LibDem Joyce Divers University Labour Bert' Bremner
Interestingly three of the Group Leaders are up for grabs but bunnco understands that Labour's deputy leader [Catton Grove] is now ineligible to stand having moved into neighbouring South Norfolk district so some changes are inevitable.
Labour's record in the City is mixed, to put it politely. They inherited a bit of a mess from the LibDems but haven't made the progress they should have done having been completely distracted by the Unitary vanity project. They allowed a £8m budget black hole to develop and scandalised the area by evicting old-dears from sheltered accomodation before moving-in the Head of Housing at a cheaper rent. They hoped the Unitary Council would save their bacon. It's actually destroyed them.
And with the ultimate failure of the Unitary dream upon which millions of pounds have been wasted, the recriminations amongst local Labour activists are now breaking out into the open. A verdict of misadventure should surely be recorded with the City Labour party blaming the parliamentary party for the serial foul-ups in the unitary process. And vice-versa. With defeat at a national level and the local party split, they're bound to lose ground.
But to whom?
The Tories have never featured in City Council politics outside the leafy streets of Catton Grove and Bowthorpe so I'll skip over these. Conservative Anthony Little [Bowthorpe] was the defeated Parliamentary candidate in Norwich South but benefits from good name-recognition and he'll hang-on.
The Greens power-base is in Norwich South rather than the northern part of the City. They shrewdly built-up good canvassing records in last year's Norwich North by-election but a lot of water has flown under the bridge since then. The University area is where they are strong on pavement politics. They are only behind The Reds by two seats in total so they only need to take a single seat of Labour to tie. Bert Bremner [a double-hatter] in the University [of East Anglia] ward and Mary Cannell should be favourites to yield to The Greens in which case the Greens could take control in a minority administration.
So, everything is set fair for the Greens to take control by nicking a seat from Labour. Isn't it?
But what's this? Could a resurgent LibDem vote eat the Greens in turn and see Labour hang-on?
The leafy streets in the South which are now held by the Greens used to be LibDem Central until the Greens out-LibDem'd the LibDems with their own brand of pavement politics. But things change.
With Simon Wright installed in Westminster for the LibDems and their Libertarian-Idealist policies being implemented in Government, we might expect the LibDems to push the Greens back in their heartland. The LibDems do well in one-off by-elections and can bus-in supporters from elsewhere. This is an infrastructure the Greens lack. And the 29.4 to 14.8 percent bar-charts from May 5th will see an unflattering 'Greens Can't Win Here' message on Focus leaflets.
Hmmmmm. There's quite a lot of interplay here.
They start at Lab 15; Grn 13; LibDem 6; Cons 5. But with a third of the seats up for grabs if Reds lose to the Greens, who in turn leak to the Yellows, whilst the Blues mark time, then there could be an L11 - G12 - LD11 - C5 split, in which case a Coalition of the Yellows and Blue would trump the lot! Stranger things have happened.
The attitude of The Electorate to the Coalition will be the deciding factor and one which will have repercussions far outside the City boundaries, not least the tactics to be employed in the District Council elections in 2011, where the Tories have 5000 councillors up for election.
Come on Eric! Make it exciting for us. I could do with another election! But as for the betting? It's a lottery. Norwich does it again.
Bunnco - Your Man on the Spot.
PS - The same issues apply in Exeter but I don't have enough local knowledge of that scene.
Apologies for the lateness of this post. My connection was wonky earlier, but appears to be straightened out now.
Bad tip from me. Massa had a pretty good start, but couldn’t make a very slight third place stick. From then on, the race was mostly a procession (notable that 11 cars didn’t finish).
Alonso’s strategy (do a lap on softs, pit whilst last and then do the whole race on hard tyres) worked brilliantly, propelling him all the way from 24th to 6th. Not what he’d hoped for, back when he was blitzing free practice, but a solid result from the worst possible starting position.
Red Bull, annoyingly, went a whole race with neither car exploding even a little bit. Webber did fantastically well and now leads the title race (Vettel is his equal on 78 points but has won a single race to Webber’s two). Following them is Alonso on 73, and Button on 70, whose car had an argument with a crash barrier and burst into flames.
Massa is on 61, with Hamilton and Kubica tied on 59 each. That’s a counter-intuitive tie, but a strong sign of how well (I feel) the new scoring system is working. I also think it’s great that the Red Bull’s early reliability issues mean they’re ahead, but not by a huge margin.
In the Constructor’s race Red Bull are on 156, with Ferrari on 134 and McLaren on 129.
Last time in my post-race piece I suggested Button and Webber (both around 10) were too long. I think it might well be worth laying Webber, if you can get something like 3.
Vettel’s odds are stubbornly short. He is a class act, and a cut above Webber. Now, you may ask, why doesn’t he have more points or wins? Simple. His car kept breaking (denying him a huge tally of points) and Monaco is a track he’s not very good at. For the same reason of differential reliability, Webber was briefly ahead of Vettel in the 2009 season. In the end, Vettel’s class made the difference. I can’t decide whether to back Vettel or not. He’s 3, but I wish his odds were longer.
It seems that, right now, the Red Bull is simply too good for the rest.
Button’s odds have, perhaps obviously, lengthened to 15 or so. May well be worth backing a little, if you haven’t yet. I think he may be the biggest threat to the Red Bull duo. He’s made excellent tyre calls, and won races. Unlike Hamilton he seems to be able to keep a cool head instead of succumbing to stress so easily.
Disappointing to have two tips and neither come off. Still, that’s why I advocate in-race laying, if possible. Hopefully I’ll do better at the non-processional circuits.
The next race is at Turkey in a fortnight. Last season Vettel started on pole but slipped to 3rd, behind Button and Webber.
