OTL Election maps resources thread

[Thande]

And here's the last North East council, Redcar & Cleveland.

Very weird goings-on this election. Before the election we discussed the fact that not only had the Lib Dems won the parliamentary seat of Redcar in 2010 off the incumbent Labour MP making herself very unpopular, but this wasn't a flash in the pan and they won a load of council seats in 2011 against the national trend. The local Labour Party became notorious for infighting, and people even discussed the idea that the Lib Dems could hold the seat despite Ian Swales standing down. Well, that didn't happen, but the Lib Dems still held together here better than elsewhere: they kept second place in the parliamentary contest, albeit 25% behind Labour, and won 11 councillors compared to 16 in 2011. Two of those were actually gains off Labour. The Lib Dems appear to have lost some of their 2011 councillors to going independent, even though they were elected after the coalition formed.

Speaking of independents, like neighbouring Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland appears to have a slightly unnerving adoration for them. I follow what I believe is Andrew Teale's convention in only counting the vote for the top independent, but if I counted them separately the map would look a bit different, as many wards had far more independent candidates than there were seats available to win. And that's without mentioning the various formalised independent alliances. It's actually got more intense with the general election turnout, counter-intuitively. As for other parties, UKIP managed to win one seat despite not having all that many candidates; the Tories almost got back up to their 2007 score; and Labour's local disunity was reflected in a consolidated popular vote decline of 5% despite their general success. This was not reflected in the parliamentary vote; for the Redcar constituency Anna Turley ran over 10% ahead of her party in the corresponding council wards. As usual, the Tories did better in the parliamentary contest and the Lib Dems did worse compared to the council. I believe this means this is still now the Lib Dems' best area in the urban North East though.

As it happens, I have access to A HIGH LEVEL CONTACT from the campaign and I may ask him to weigh in...

 

[Thande]

And with the North East DONE AND DUSTED, here is the compilation map. Compare to 2011. As with that one, I have cropped the map down due to the vast unitary authorities of Northumberland and Durham not voting till 2017.

Broad trends: Labour does a bit better on Tyneside against both Lib Dems and Tories in terms of seats won, but with smaller majorities (probably cut by a combination of UKIP, the Greens and there just being more Tory candidates plus the general election turnout); a noticeable swing against Labour in Teesside, but not necessarily reflected in seat numbers (and hard to compare anyway due to boundary changes); Tories doing considerably better and Lib Dems worse in Teesside; independents bonfired by Labour in Tyneside but actually doing better than 2011 in Teesside; impact of UKIP not immediately apparent as they didn't actually top the polls in a single ward, despite winning sizeable voteshares in plenty of them.

 

[Arsonist]

Back with the final Greater Manchester maps after a week's leave in which my laptop's dropbox played funny buggers and didn't sync properly.

Bolton - UKIP win one ward on a knife-edge (39 votes) and put in a strong performance with a good handful of plus 30% wards around the south and east of Bolton, mainly hollowing out the massive Labour majorities in these wards in 2011-12. Might do a popular vote version of Bolton.

Bury has Conservative gains and the Lib Dems winning a ward on 46 votes while UKIP are polling 14.4% across the council but unlike Bolton there are no areas where this is concentrated. There is a shift downwards in Labour majorities in the wards Labour held but nothing groundshaking.

 

[Geordie]

I did end up doing this, though I had a power cut halfway through and had to start again... Labelled map from Andrew Teale for ward names

Right then.

Let's crunch some stuff.

Disclaimer, I've not analysed numbers too much here. Thande and Alex Richards may well decide I'm talking guff.

Turnout

Firstly, one of the repeated truisms of this campaign is that Labour failed to get the vote out. Now, obviously, Labour won everything here, so is that relevant? In my opinion, yes. The highest turnout by far was in Cleadon & East Boldon. This is the place that still has a Tory councillor, and the votes the losing Tory candidate got here would have won half of the other wards up for grabs. Obviously, Labour still won it, so they were clearly motivated enough to get the vote out where it mattered. At the same time, we all know nothing makes a party suffer like government, and the voters in Cleadon and the Boldons know Stephen Hepburn's getting in as MP. The real place they can kick the hated Tories is at council level. Whether it was a motivated Labour party, or the Tories getting a kicking for being in Number 10, I can't say. Either way, it looks like both parties managed to muster their supporters here.

By contrast, the lowest turnout is the... netty*... that is Biddick. This is proper low on any socio-economic scale you can find. Pretty much all social housing. I mean, we're probably not talking Tower Hamlets, but it's not exactly a salubrious area. In an election where there's no TUSC, or an equivalent, this is Labour territory. Especially a Labour who are talking about Bedroom Taxes ("it's the Community Ch... I mean Spare Room Subsidy!") and Zero Hours. The good news is that they didn't vote against Labour. The bad news is that they just didn't vote. Now, it's not an issue here, either in Council or General Elections, but a similar area in the South (excluding London) is the sort of place they should have been mobilising, but obviously didn't. My own ward in Farnborough springs to mind. It's the sort of places they need if they're going to take Chuka's Swindon. But they stayed home. Seeing as the Council break down turnouts to individual polling stations, this phenomenon can be seen in individual words too. Fellgate and Hedworth is made up of two council estates (Hedworth and Calf Close), one fairly large private estate (Fellgate), and a couple of hundred other houses in streets of one or two. Turnouts in Fellgate are noticeably higher, and Hedworth, the estate mentioned by the Rowntree Foundation, is rather lower than the others. If I can be bothered to look at a couple of other wards later, I reckon there'll be a similar story...

Parties

All non-Labour areas of strength, are of course, relative to the others in the battle for second, rather than relative to the red menace.

The Kipper areas... Fellgate & Hedworth, as I said previously, is a combination of social housing and one or two more prosperous areas. The Kippers who were there got in as independents, specifically as Independents running on a 'Labour don't give a toss about you'/'sod the lot of them' platform. As far as I can tell (I've not lived there since 2010), the move to Kipper hurt them ,as they then looked like 'just another party', rather than Independents in alliance. Ironic, seeing as such a platform got them a lot of the four million votes picked up in the general election. The other three areas (Primrose, West Park & Harton) where they did okay are a bit more mixed in make-up. Probably a step further up the alphabet soup used to describe voters' circumstances, but unlikely to be more than two. The latter two of these places used to elect the Progressive Party quite a lot. In a revelation that will no doubt shock Huff Po leftists, they were actually Conservatives by another name. It would seem the Tories are still toxic here, so UKIP are now the go to guys.

The Tories, other than the already mentioned Cleadon, did best in Westoe (pretty nice area), and Boldon Colliery (which includes West Boldon, which is the original one, but not important enough to get mentioned). Even here, their total added to the third party isn't enough to unseat the winner, so it's not great.

For both these parties, I'd look to move into the areas where the Lib Dems were building up after 2000 or so. They'd started turning Hebburn North into a little stronghold, and had started creeping into other wards. Now, they're gone. Literally non existent. Then again, I suspect that part of this was a tactical consideration. Gateshead and Newcastle - more the former - were the places they desperately needed to defend, so I reckon there was a conscious decision to pool all resources possible into keeping their people in seats they already had, rather than trying to fight back. I suspect ex Lib Dem voters provided the bulk of the votes that went for the independent in Hebburn North.

As for the Greens, I'm not entirely sure what their appeal is in the areas where they did quite well. Beacon & Bents has possible environmental issues, seeing as they've got the beaches, and the seafront parks, including one which has been restored to its Victorian splendour. I know the last one well, seeing as I used to work there! However, it's more likely to be a combination of worthy lefty, ex Lib Dems, people who would still vote Lib Dem if they stood, anti Labour but can't vote Tory, and Sod 'em All voters. These three wards notably didn't have UKIP splitting the last two demographics, seeing as they weren't standing.


Right then, I hope this isn't too much, folks!

EDIT: That's a lot of independent Smoggies up there!

*Look up 'Westoe Netty' in google. It's SFW, just Geordie slang.

 

[Thande]

Back with the final Greater Manchester maps after a week's leave in which my laptop's dropbox played funny buggers and didn't sync properly.

Glad to see you back at it, I shall have to get updating my NW compilation map again. I seem to remember Bolton is or was Mr Teale's own haunt, so a popular vote version of that one would certainly be interesting.

Right then.

Let's crunch some stuff.

Thanks again for the detailed analysis. One thing our numbers-based maps don't show of course is the personal factor. I looked into it and the independent in Hebburn North, Joe Abbott, won it for the Lib Dems in 2008 before leaving the party, standing as an independent in 2012 and then losing it to Labour. Abbott has stood again as an independent in 2014 and this time, doing well both times. Curiously, the Labour winner of the ward in 2011 also left his party and stood as an independent in 2015, but he got about a tenth as many votes as Abbott - which I think says something about how much more of a personal vote Lib Dem councillors tend to have compared to Labour ones (reflecting how the parties are organised on the local level). I think of all the 'deselected/left the party and re-standing as independents' Labour councillors - and there have been quite a few this time - we've only seen a couple of councils where they received anything approaching a substantial personal vote as opposed to a party one.

 

[Alex Richards]

Very interesting there Thande.

And finishing off Nottinghamshire, a pair of interestingly divergent councils.

Nottingham: Very nearly a red-wash, though it's only Lab+2 from 2011 despite Labour putting in a very concerted effort to top the polls in Wollaton West (the next candidate was substantially behind the three Conservatives). Apart from Clifton (where there was a flutter earlier on this year about a potential Tory challenge), the rest of the city is pretty uniform in terms of Labour majorities.

Rushcliffe: Almost as good for the Tories as Nottingham was for Labour. The perennial Greens of Lady Bay kept their seats on the redrawn boundaries and the Lib Dems held on in Munsters, but with the very different ward boundaries outside of West Bridgeford they've been basically annihilated, not contesting many wards and dropping below UKIP (who failed to even get any second places). Labour actually picked up on seat off the tories in Lutterwell, but it was outweighed by a strong swing against them in West Bridgeford.

 

[Thande]

Very interesting there Thande.

And finishing off Nottinghamshire, a pair of interestingly divergent councils.

Nottingham: Very nearly a red-wash, though it's only Lab+2 from 2011 despite Labour putting in a very concerted effort to top the polls in Wollaton West (the next candidate was substantially behind the three Conservatives). Apart from Clifton (where there was a flutter earlier on this year about a potential Tory challenge), the rest of the city is pretty uniform in terms of Labour majorities.

Rushcliffe: Almost as good for the Tories as Nottingham was for Labour. The perennial Greens of Lady Bay kept their seats on the redrawn boundaries and the Lib Dems held on in Munsters, but with the very different ward boundaries outside of West Bridgeford they've been basically annihilated, not contesting many wards and dropping below UKIP (who failed to even get any second places). Labour actually picked up on seat off the tories in Lutterwell, but it was outweighed by a strong swing against them in West Bridgeford.

Nice work Alex, that fills in some gaps on the compilation map. I think now it's only Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire (except Boston which I already did)?

I don't understand why, but the Rushcliffe constituency saw a noticeable spike in turnout at the general election, which I imagine was also reflected on the council level.

 

[Alex Richards]

Doing a separate post for this as it's rather a large file, but as Nottingham had a lot of variation in second places, I've done a popular vote map. The Greens did very well in the Studenty areas of Dunkirk, Lenton and Arboretum, UKIP pushing in from the edges and the Tories showing some signs of targeting. Surprisingly the only evidence of that from the Lib Dems might be not standing in their weaker seats, while TUSC have just gone for a rather slapdash approach of just throwing candidates at the place- I'm surprised they didn't try and stand in St. Ann's as it's quite a socially deprived, lefty sort of place. The higher turnout in Wollaton and Dunkirk/Lenton stands out particularly- between the Conservatives in Wollaton, a strong Green campaign and Wollaton East and Lenton Abbey having a full slate and some residual Lib Dem strength (they nearly topped 10% here as well as in Leem Valley) there was clearly a lot of GOTV work being put in to that pocket of the city.

 

[Thande]

Doing a separate post for this as it's rather a large file, but as Nottingham had a lot of variation in second places, I've done a popular vote map. The Greens did very well in the Studenty areas of Dunkirk, Lenton and Arboretum, UKIP pushing in from the edges and the Tories showing some signs of targeting. Surprisingly the only evidence of that from the Lib Dems might be not standing in their weaker seats, while TUSC have just gone for a rather slapdash approach of just throwing candidates at the place- I'm surprised they didn't try and stand in St. Ann's as it's quite a socially deprived, lefty sort of place. The higher turnout in Wollaton and Dunkirk/Lenton stands out particularly- between the Conservatives in Wollaton, a strong Green campaign and Wollaton East and Lenton Abbey having a full slate and some residual Lib Dem strength (they nearly topped 10% here as well as in Leem Valley) there was clearly a lot of GOTV work being put in to that pocket of the city.

Good use of the format there. (Do you need the disclaimer about the council website, I only put that on for IIRC Newcastle because they clearly hadn't calculated the double vacancy ones correctly). A lot of sharp variation in turnout.

TUSC's "throw random candidates at map" approach seems to be universal, they hardly ever target effectively. It doesn't matter though because they never get many votes even when they do run a somewhat effective campaign (as Doncaster showed), I actually find it quite curious.

 

[Alex Richards]

Nice work Alex, that fills in some gaps on the compilation map. I think now it's only Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire (except Boston which I already did)?

I don't understand why, but the Rushcliffe constituency saw a noticeable spike in turnout at the general election, which I imagine was also reflected on the council level.

Yep, I'll be doing Lincs next, but as I'm at least going to try and get the full results for the East Midlands typed up for Andrew I'll need to add Boston to my spreadsheets as well.

And handily Rushcliffe council recorded turnout- the lowest was in Cotgrave with... 63.48%? Most were in the 70s and a couple topped 80.

Christ I haven't seen turnout that consistently high in a local election since the postwar ones in Long Eaton Urban District Council. Post-WWI that is.

For turnout on Nottingham, the council just gave total votes cast in multimember wards rather than ballot papers issued/returned so it might be a bit off.

 

[Thande]

Yep, I'll be doing Lincs next, but as I'm at least going to try and get the full results for the East Midlands typed up for Andrew I'll need to add Boston to my spreadsheets as well.

And handily Rushcliffe council recorded turnout- the lowest was in Cotgrave with... 63.48%? Most were in the 70s and a couple topped 80.

Christ I haven't seen turnout that consistently high in a local election since the postwar ones in Long Eaton Urban District Council. Post-WWI that is.

For turnout on Nottingham, the council just gave total votes cast in multimember wards rather than ballot papers issued/returned so it might be a bit off.

Wow, certainly fits in.

I can't figure out why. Longstanding pretty popular MP in Ken Clarke, other parties nowhere near, council ditto safe Tory...OK I know I always argue that people aren't always aware of all this and vote based on national behaviour, but just what was it that encouraged so many more people to turn out specifically here and not so much the surrounding Tory constituencies? (See maps here - http://wiki.alternatehistory.com/do...eral_election_maps_for_1997-2015#turnout_maps )

 

[Geordie]

Thanks again for the detailed analysis. One thing our numbers-based maps don't show of course is the personal factor. I looked into it and the independent in Hebburn North, Joe Abbott, won it for the Lib Dems in 2008 before leaving the party, standing as an independent in 2012 and then losing it to Labour. Abbott has stood again as an independent in 2014 and this time, doing well both times.

Ah. I didn't bother looking him up. In that case:

I suspect ex Lib Dem voters provided the bulk of the votes that went for the independent in Hebburn North.

Is very likely true. There'll be next to no Labour councillors with a personal vote in the tens in a place like South Tyneside. The combination of mostly safe seats, overwhelming control over the council and tribal voters mean most councillors are pretty anonymous to most voters.

 

[Thande]

Is very likely true. There'll be next to no Labour councillors with a personal vote in the tens in a place like South Tyneside. The combination of mostly safe seats, overwhelming control over the council and tribal voters mean most councillors are pretty anonymous to most voters.

Indeed, as that's true to some extent in Donny too I sometimes forget it's not true everywhere!

Anyway, on to the East of England now. We will begin with an update of Cambridge. Now I don't need to call on any experts here (though Geordie and others can weigh in if they want) because I am one myself, on account of having lived there for seven years. Popular vote plot below; this time only 5 parties contested the wards, full slates for the Tories, Labour, Lib Dems and Greens, and just over a half slate from UKIP. Cambridge is not fertile territory for UKIP (although it does have more 'left behind' people and poor areas than many people probably realise) and none of these candidates did very well; Patrick O'Flynn was their parliamentary candidate and he did well to save his deposit. Cambridge is however very good territory for the Greens. This election was dominated by whether Julian Huppert would keep his seat or be replaced by Daniel Zeichner. Although Labour did well in the council elections in 2012 and 2014 (but not particularly in 2011, the reverse of the usual pattern in many other places), Huppert's popular and Zeichner isn't, so this would be close. In the end it was heartbreak for the Lib Dems as they missed out on a ninth parliamentary seat by just 600-odd votes.

This contest squeezed the other parties on the parliamentary level; the Tories unusually did better on the council than they did for Parliament, though that might also be because their parliamentary candidate was rather gaffe-prone. About half of the Green council voters appear to have tactically voted for Huppert on the parliamentary level, almost enough to save him.

On the council, on the other hand, there were a LOT of 'AndyC' style results; no party got more than 45% in any ward, and several were won on sub-30% pluralities. To which the people of Cambridge would probably say: don't blame us, we voted for AV. In fact, that might be in part why the Lib Dems had done so well in 2011 compared to later!

This also meant the Lib Dems had more council seats to lose, but in the end Labour didn't manage any further gains over 2011, with the Lib Dems keeping every 2011-won seat except Market. This one was an incredibly AndyC result with the results being Green 1147, Labour 1140, Lib Dem, 1134, Conservative 726. The Greens therefore are back on the council after a year's absence (they lost Abbey, a 2010 gain, to Labour in 2014).

While coattails from the parliamentary contest may have played a role, the key point I note here is that--unlike many, many other places--the Lib Dems are remaining competitive even in the poorer and more diverse parts of Cambridge in the east, only falling below 20% in one ward and that being the poor peripheral area of Cherry Hinton. This means that Cambridge is one place where they have a lot of potential to bounce back, though they will have to cope with the Green Party looking to expand as well. The way the majorities fell certainly suggests the Cambridge Lib Dems are good at targeting, though.

(Oh, and strangely enough this is one of the few councils I've seen so far that doesn't provide any turnout data).

 

[Alex Richards]

Now that is interesting. We'll have to keep an eye on it next year.

 

[prime-minister]

This election was dominated by whether Julian Huppert would keep his seat or be replaced by Daniel Zeichner. Although Labour did well in the council elections in 2012 and 2014 (but not particularly in 2011, the reverse of the usual pattern in many other places), Huppert's popular and Zeichner isn't, so this would be close. In the end it was heartbreak for the Lib Dems as they missed out on a ninth parliamentary seat by just 600-odd votes.

I can only echo Thande's perspective on the race for MP. The result remains a surprise to me, though- at a hustings the college I go to held, Huppert and Zeichner got into a Punch and Judy confrontation (as the Green candidate called it) which Huppert quite clearly won. As far as I can tell, a lot of students I know decided they couldn't bring themselves to vote Lib Dem, which was probably what lost it for Huppert.

On a side note, I can't decide if the fact Labour only squeaked in in Cambridge when the Lib Dems got shunted aside so easily in Manchester Withington, Norwich South, Bristol West, etc. is a reflection on how well-regarded Huppert was or on how badly-regarded Zeichner is...

 

[Thande]

I can only echo Thande's perspective on the race for MP. The result remains a surprise to me, though- at a hustings the college I go to held, Huppert and Zeichner got into a Punch and Judy confrontation (as the Green candidate called it) which Huppert quite clearly won. As far as I can tell, a lot of students I know decided they couldn't bring themselves to vote Lib Dem, which was probably what lost it for Huppert.

On a side note, I can't decide if the fact Labour only squeaked in in Cambridge when the Lib Dems got shunted aside so easily in Manchester Withington, Norwich South, Bristol West, etc. is a reflection on how well-regarded Huppert was or on how badly-regarded Zeichner is...

Thanks for the input, while I have lived in Cambridge before, I was only there for one weekend during the campaign. Zeichner did have something of an advantage in the house sign war from what I could tell.

I also had time to do Norwich so cue fusillade of Alan Partridge memes from Roem. Norwich saw a lot of changes from 2010, such as the Lib Dem incumbent in Norwich South Simon Wright tumbling to fourth place--though remember he'd only won on a sub-30% plurality in 2010, so this is a very AndyC-ish place as well. Wright ended up being replaced by Clive Lewis a.k.a. Evil Dave Lister off of Red Dwarf, and not by the Greens as some (including the exit poll) had guessed. In fact Norwich was easily the biggest disappointment for the Greens of this election I think. Not only did they fail to win the seat, their vote actually went down from 2010 and they were only just ahead of Wright! That was also reflected on the council, where they lost one seat to Labour and came close to losing a second, as well as being beaten by UKIP in several seats (not demographically favourable ones to be fair) despite the Greens pouring loads of effort into Norwich and UKIP only having a half slate and not much local organisation AFAIK.

What happened? Well, the council result may reflect the Norwich Greens being unused to a general election turnout - in 2010 the poll was delayed till September so it wasn't synchronised to the general election. For the wider trend however I'm not sure. The popular vote maps do show the fact that the Lib Dems are holding grimly onto their one ward, are competitive in one or two more in the south but--despite retaining enough organisation to stand a full slate--have fallen to irrelevancy in the rest of the borough. The ability of the Lib Dems' local party to organise a full slate and their ability to win seats in an area do not, I have noticed, necessarily correlate. The Tories also did rather well here but without winning any council seats - perhaps reflecting Chloe Smith's coattails?

 

[prime-minister]

Wright ended up being replaced by Clive Lewis a.k.a. Evil Dave Lister off of Red Dwarf, and not by the Greens as some (including the exit poll) had guessed.

*Red Dwarf fan alarm starts beeping* Wait, what?

 

[Thande]

*Red Dwarf fan alarm starts beeping* Wait, what?

It was my reaction when Alfie posted this picture. Also, as Heavy noted, to continue the sci-fi theme the UKIP candidate was Odo from Deep Space 9.

 

[psephos]

Also, I've done a 1959 basemap. Funny to see places like Norfolk, Kent and Northamptonshire still returning a bunch of Labour MPs in a pretty terrible election for them, and all of Northern Ireland returning Ulster Unionists...

The inset map needs to be improved:

 

[prime-minister]

It was my reaction when Alfie posted this picture. Also, as Heavy noted, to continue the sci-fi theme the UKIP candidate was Odo from Deep Space 9.

Good lord, you're right. We need to make Lister- sorry, Lewis- a write-in leadership nominee.