An initial glance at the results for Birmingham shows the Labour vote fragmenting.
For example they lost the Moseley and Kings Heath seat to the Lib Dems. Labour had only 31% of the vote. However, the opposition to Labour was fragmented and we had about 33% of the vote - enough to win, however.
Because of the boundary changes comparisons need to be made to the all up elections, but that is relatively difficult because sometimes parties (eg UKIP, Green, BNP) only put up 1 candidate in those situations.
There are two comparison techniques the largest vote technique and the percentage of overall vote technique. Both of these have their problems.
For example they lost the Moseley and Kings Heath seat to the Lib Dems. Labour had only 31% of the vote. However, the opposition to Labour was fragmented and we had about 33% of the vote - enough to win, however.
Because of the boundary changes comparisons need to be made to the all up elections, but that is relatively difficult because sometimes parties (eg UKIP, Green, BNP) only put up 1 candidate in those situations.
There are two comparison techniques the largest vote technique and the percentage of overall vote technique. Both of these have their problems.
Comments
In Springfield Labour's majority over Lib Dem was about 500 and Respect got about 1700 votes.
Sparkbrook is more complex.
In Aston the Respect Intervention did not have the same effect, however.
The nature of Inner City politics, however, is that party allegiences are only a part of the story.
John's assessment of early yesterday evening that 'this is a very good night for the Alden family' looks a more honest summary.
In terms of the gap between third and fourth place in those wards in 2004, yes. Given the solidity of the Labour vote elsewhere you might have expected them to be closer this time. But I'm not interested in talking up the Lib Dems, just pointing out that their results weren't uniformly poor.
Hodge Hill remains a good target seat as do others, but the opposition to Labour was fragmented.