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Stoke Newington by-election

I see that the Lib Dem candiate, Karelia Scott, is described on the Lib Dem website as an active member of the Institute of Directors. Doubt if that will go down well in Stoke Newington.BarryB
with a resume like that she should join your Labour Party
 
Badger,

Are you sure you're in the ward? I was out there yesterday and there were politicos everywhere, and leaflets pretty much everywhere I went!

If you want to hear from the Green candidate, I can let him know. Just PM me. :)

Cheers,

Matt
 
Werent you supporting Nurset Sen in 2002? Why isnt Hackney Independent standing in this election?

BarryB

Hackney Independent has never stood in Stoke Newington

The LP will probably do okay in this byelection as Hackney is one of the few areas in the country they can actually pull out activists to do doorstep (and telephone) work

Now that they are the party of the professional urban middle classes well - Hackney is one of a London boroughs this social strata is concentrated in.

Out here in the suburbs the LP is completely and utterly finished as any political force - electoral or otherwise.
 
Now that they are the party of the professional urban middle classes well - Hackney is one of a London boroughs this social strata is concentrated in.

Although it is true that Stoke Newington is a part of Hackney which has a large proportion of professional urban middle classes (far higher than, say, Hackney Wick) that does not necessarily translate too well into Labour votes.

The Greens nearly won SNC ward last time round based on attracting this constituency and on polling day I expect their Get Out The Vote to concentrate on the professionals in street-level properties around Church Street while Labour's best chance is likely to be ensuring a high turnout in the council estates, of which there are still a large number even in poncey Stoke Newington.

Actually Labour has the toughest opposition in the areas with highest proportion of professional urban middle classes.
 
Some friends who live in the ward have remarked on the amount of times the greens and libs have been both been round to say they are number 2 / the best chance of winning outside labour etc.
 
Badger,

Are you sure you're in the ward? I was out there yesterday and there were politicos everywhere, and leaflets pretty much everywhere I went!

If you want to hear from the Green candidate, I can let him know. Just PM me. :)

Cheers,

Matt

My council tax bill says Stoke Newington and I live in Hackney, 8 minutes walk from Clissold Park.

:(

Unfrotunately I am n/a now to be canvassed as I am at work during the week.
 
that is the only reason I didn't vote for the greens at the last council election, they didn't canvass my area, the socialist party did, they got my votes (although I still gave 1 to the greens rather than the AGS who were on the SP ticket)

hope they get it together and start properly canvassing working class areas, otherwise they'll just stay with the middle class support theyve got
 
My council tax bill says Stoke Newington and I live in Hackney, 8 minutes walk from Clissold Park.

:(

Unfrotunately I am n/a now to be canvassed as I am at work during the week.

There are several wards in Stoke Newington - you may be in Clissold Ward for example. The election is Stoke Newington Central Ward only.
 
Some friends who live in the ward have remarked on the amount of times the greens and libs have been both been round to say they are number 2 / the best chance of winning outside labour etc.

The LibDems say that in every by-election - even when they were fourth last time! It's in their manual of dirty tricks and hard-wired into every LibDem canvasser to always claim it's a "two horse race", "the only chance of defeating X is to vote LibDem", preferably with a dodgy bar chart too.

This time what the Greens are saying happens to be true - they are in second place
http://www.hackney.gov.uk/election-results-stoke-newington-central.htm
- and your friends should vote for them.
 
Election is a week away.

There was a hustings meeting last night with all the candidates, which unfortunately I couldn't make.
 
appropriately timed bumpage this week:)

good luck to Matt Hanley (and the others)

any predictions/projections/speculations?
 
I was just about to bump this.

My understanding from Labour's internal polling is that it was looking like a relatively comfortable hold at the start of the campaign but that things have shifted noticeably since the third runway announcement. It's on a knife edge.

The Lib Dem leaflet ("we're the only party who can beat Labour here") comes with the usual dodgy graph which is based (if you read the VERY small print) on vote share in the last General Election for the entire constituency. Needless to say, they're a distant third in this ward, but their leaflet will undoubtedly help Labour by taking Green votes.
 
The Lib Dem leaflet ("we're the only party who can beat Labour here") comes with the usual dodgy graph which is based (if you read the VERY small print) on vote share in the last General Election for the entire constituency. Needless to say, they're a distant third in this ward, but their leaflet will undoubtedly help Labour by taking Green votes.

hmm, I really don't like the way the LibDems do that, they'll use the parliamentary results when it suits them and the council results when they suit them, and talk about being the only party that can challenge Labour in the North and the Tories in the south, when in reality they're losing ground to the tories and barely gaining any against labour. It is a shame that they are taking more of a hit from the Greens than Labour and the Tories, but they have been really stagnant since the departure of Kennedy and only have themselves to blame
 
Just back from telling and knocking up for this campaign. Apparently it's looking very close at the count.

And the Lib Dems have definitely had an effect, alas. I had a number of people asking me about their leaflets today, and expressing the view that they didn't know who to believe. They are deliberately spoiling the Green challenge, as they are worried that we will rapidly displace them as the 'left of Labour' alternative for voters in Hackney.

Which is a fair enough worry on their part cos I think that is exactly what will happen, it's just that using dishonesty and lies to prevent it is sad and more than a bit pathetic.... :(

Matt
 
And indeed, latest report from the count indicates that Labour have held on.

Matt

Addendum:

Eeek - much bigger gap than I had expected.

Full result

Lab 1162
Grn 783
Lib 269
Con 169
Comi 20

Brief analysis: The Green vote went up by over 3% on 2006 levels. Problem is, the Labour vote went up by almost exactly the same percentage. Meanwhile the Lib Dem vote went down by about 5.5%, and the Tories by about 2%.
 
Although the Lib Dems did clearly help Labour by sowing confusion, the Labour vote is a fair bit bigger than both Green and Lib Dem put together so it wasn't decisive.

Interesting result this, and doesn't bode well for the Greens in Hackney. It's the most middleclass-organic food market-double buggy-young professional ward in the constituency (a constituency which was their second best in the country on GE votes not so long ago and which has seen further gentrification since then), they had dozens of activists from all over London swarming around the ward and yet Labour romped home despite the low turnout which normally favours non-mainstream parties. Where now for the Hackney Green Party? Still only one councillor in Hackney.
 
Although the Lib Dems did clearly help Labour by sowing confusion, the Labour vote is a fair bit bigger than both Green and Lib Dem put together so it wasn't decisive.

Interesting result this, and doesn't bode well for the Greens in Hackney. It's the most middleclass-organic food market-double buggy-young professional ward in the constituency (a constituency which was their second best in the country on GE votes not so long ago and which has seen further gentrification since then), they had dozens of activists from all over London swarming around the ward and yet Labour romped home despite the low turnout which normally favours non-mainstream parties. Where now for the Hackney Green Party? Still only one councillor in Hackney.

i'd say that the greens are the recipients of a lot of anti-labour protest votes in hackney, more so that the lib dems, so I don't think it's the end of them in hackney, there are other wards they could possibly do well in, I'm not sure of the names of the wards, but clissold park, victoria park spring to mind
 
Clissold Ward is where they have their only Hackney councillor at the moment. Interestingly in 2006 their three candidates came 1st, 4th and 6th in the poll.

In Victoria Ward they only fielded one candidate, who finished a long long way back in fourth.

Given that the wealthier wards are sown up between Tories and Lib Dems and most of the poorer wards are solidly Labour, it's places like SNC where the Greens have to be looking to make their breakthrough.
 
Clissold Ward is where they have their only Hackney councillor at the moment. Interestingly in 2006 their three candidates came 1st, 4th and 6th in the poll.

In Victoria Ward they only fielded one candidate, who finished a long long way back in fourth.

Given that the wealthier wards are sown up between Tories and Lib Dems and most of the poorer wards are solidly Labour, it's places like SNC where the Greens have to be looking to make their breakthrough.

i agree, but i still think they can be optimistic about the showing in SNC, what was the turnout btw? am i right in thinking the turnout for the council wide election is generally higher ?
 
Turnout in 2006 full elections: 37%
Turnout in 2009 byelection: 38%

I can't emphasis enough how important this election was to the Greens and how many resources they poured into it. You couldn't move for Green canvassers on the High St for the last few weekends. I barely saw any Lib Dems though.
 
glen,

As opposed to the paucity of Labour people on the day?

Sure, we wanted to win, but I don't think you can paint this as a horde of Greens being defeated by a few brave Labour souls. As you would expect from an isolated by-election, there were loads of Labour activists on the streets, and they certainly weren't all from Hackney (I know, as I noticed at least two Labour people from Lewisham and two from Tower Hamlets).

By-elections are really dificult for small parties, because we have less people. In contrast, all out elections are easier, because we can target and larger parties are spread thinner. So we'll see what happens in 2010. :)

Best wishes,

Matt
 
Of course there wasn't a paucity of Labour people out there on the day, but the vast majority of people there throughout the several weeks of the campaign were from Hackney North & SN Labour Party with a few from Hackney South and a few outsiders on election day.

Anyway, that is slightly irrelevant, as it goes without saying that Labour will have more local people available.

My point was just that the Green Party really threw everything into this election and it's the sort of demographic where they should be seriously challengers. We will indeed see what happens in 2010.
 
In 2010, all three councillors are up for re-election, and it's no surprise that many labour voters will vote for two labour councillors and the leading green candidate. That's how greens got elected in a number of London wards in 2006. The practical effect of having 3 votes at once is a very, very limited form of proportionality creeping in.

I think Hackney greens will be disappointed not to win the byelection, but we've strengthened our case in 15 months time. You can bet there will be a few more Lib Dems in the ward who perhaps feel a bit let down or misled, who will also be voting green next time.
 
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