Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Those 50 Labour-held target seats in full

Nick Clegg's summer message (video here; full text here) tells us he has:
instructed our campaigns chief Chris Rennard to step up our campaigns in the 50 seats where we’re best placed to beat Labour.
Jonathan Isaby has a list of the 50 Labour-held seats in the order in which they would fall to the Lib Dems, assuming a uniform anti-Labour swing. It is based on the projection of the new boundaries done by Profs Rallings and Thrasher of Plymouth University. As he admits, they may not be the precise 50 Nick Clegg and Chris Rennard have in mind. In particular, the Lib Dems are in third place in some of them.

Anway here is the top 10 - see Jonathan's Daily Telegraph blog for the full list - with the swing required to win:
1 - Rochdale (0.17 per cent)
2 - Oxford East (0.37 per cent)
3 - Edinburgh South (0.47 per cent)
4 - Hampstead & Kilburn (0.57 per cent)
5 - Islington South & Finsbury (0.78 per cent)
6 - Watford (1.17 per cent)
7 - Ealing Central & Acton (1.37 per cent)
8 - Aberdeen South (1.62 per cent)
9 - Edinburgh North & Leith (2.52 per cent)
10 - City of Durham (3.69 per cent)
Rochdale is in the list because it is (just) a notional Labour seat under the new boundaries.

2 comments:

Blognor Regis said...

Bring back Cyril Smith

Anonymous said...

Given the result in Glasgow East I've no doubt we'll pick up a good number of Labour marginals. I'd worry more about seats in which the Tories are second. The perception that call-me-Dave is heading for Downing seat might draw some voters towards us. From the look of the sheer scale of the Labour protest vote, the seats we're contesting with Labour can quite probably take care of themselves.

P.S. - On the subject of call-me-Dave, if the Indy can be trusted (lovely folk; running a regular feature now showcasing Tory policy compared with Labour with nary a word on us despite polls indicating the majority of their readership votes liberal), he's now making firm promises regarding who'll get what cabinet post. Git. No man ever deserved to lose an election more.