Friday, May 02, 2008

Increasingly Ridiculous Iains: Two Plus Two Is Twelve


LOL's increasingly ridiculous oppo Iain Dale is streaming what passes loosely for consciousness and gossipy reportage on his blog. Makes it very hard to link Iain, this hours and hours of granular yet viscous content. Anyway, Mr Dale has cumulated the votes in Crewe and Nantwich exclusively to find that Labour and the Tories are neck and neck when it comes to the 22 May by-election there.

4.35 EXCLUSIVE: It's a Two Horse Race! These are the Crewe & Nantwich provisional share of the vote figures...

Cons 31.15%
Labour 31.8%
LD 18.70%
Others: 18.35%

Now if that doesn't make this a tasty by-election, I don't know what does!

This really is a schoolboy error and riding for a fall, hand in hand.

Iain Lindley has done the same thing in comments here with Salford results when it comes to the new Worsley Seat from just two, count 'em, wards and also for Salford as a whole . So perhaps this schoolboy error/riding for a fall thing is a trait of Tory Boy Bloggers named Iain?

Experience shows that turnouts in General Elections and By-Elections are between two and four, say three times higher than Local Elections and often with a quite different profile. It is therefore exceedingly foolish to extrapolate from local elections to parliamentary elections.

7 comments:

lorenzo23 said...

You have an election and as always some clown comes out with some prediction. History and psephology shows they are always wrong.

That Iain Dale was on BBC Tv last night in the Election show. I thought he was an articulate, pompous Tory twat.

Chris Paul said...

"An articulate, pompous Tory twat" Lorenzo23 will no doubt appear on his next mast head. Was he employing the regional Essex farm boy burr, or RP?

Anonymous said...

Of course they are different elections Chris, but that doesn't stop these results from being hugely encouraging - hence the glum look on Barbara Keeley's face on Thursday night (in addition to being exceptionally rude to everyone) and your carping on here.

Incidentally, if the turnout quadrupled here in Walkden South, that would imply a General Election turnout of 161.2% - not even Mugabe could manage that!

Anonymous said...
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Chris Paul said...

Yes Iain, even trebling would require some investigation. But you do know what I mean don't you? In Manchester - and I suspect in Salford the average turn out was in the 20s wasn't it. Of course Labour people were glum in Salford.

Meanwhile in Manchester and Liverpool Lib Dems like John Leech had faces like slapped arses, there were no Tories in Liverpool, and in Mcr the one unelected Tory Councillor and his communalist cronies - who by and large did the best of a bad bunch - must be ruing their handling of Hizb_ut-Tahrir leaflets and their rampant bullying to drive their votes???

And comment on that Iain?? Please.

Chris Paul said...

PS Please also confirm it's true that Adlard is out on his ear now?

Anonymous said...

Turnout by ward in Worsley & Eccles South:

Barton: 28.4%
Boothstown & Ellenbrook: 36.2%
Cadishead: 36.9%
Irlam: 38.4%
Little Hulton: 23.7%
Walkden North: 26.0%
Walkden South: 40.3%
Winton: 30.6%
Worsley: 42.1%

Yes, there is a differential turnout but that will apply just the same at a General Election. The 2005 GE turnout for the current Worsley constituency was a shade over 50% but I know that some polling stations in Worsley ward were turning out at 70%+