Ever since that love-in in the Number Ten Rose Garden back in May 2010, the Liberal Democrats have been wildly unpopular in the North of England. Many Northerners have long felt a strong tribal hostility to the Tory Party, which from that moment was transferred to the LibDems. It doesn't help matters for them that leader Nick Clegg looks and sounds like a posh Southerner (which to be fair, he is). Subsequently, broken promises on university tuition fees have helped to turn Clegg into something approaching a hate figure in Northern university towns like Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Sheffield or at any rate, so goes conventional wisdom
All this has given rise to speculation that the Liberal Democrats may be on course for a total wipe-out in the North in the upcoming General Election of 2015, a little like the wipeout the Conservatives suffered in Scotland in 1997, when they won none at all of the 72 seats on offer there (they have since recovered slightly, and now hold one seat in Scotland). Such an outcome is eagerly anticipated by many Labour grassroots activists, who have never shared the friendship towards the LibDems expressed by some of the Party's intellectuals and media backers, largely owing to local rivalries between the two parties based on council politics.
So, the conventional wisdom suggests some questions:
- Is a Northern LibDem wipeout in 2015 a likely outcome?
- Would this be a desirable outcome from a Labour point of view?
- If desirable, how highly should Labour prioritise its pursuit?
To answer the first question, we must first look at the 2010 General Election result. The North returned 154 MPs to Parliament at that election: 101 for Labour, 42 for the Conservatives and 11 for the LibDems. The 11 LibDem seats can be divided into two categories (the figures in brackets are the LibDem majorities):
Seats where the Tories finished second in 2010
- Berwick upon Tweed (2,690)
- Cheadle (3,272)
- Hazel Grove (6,371)
- Leeds North West (9,103)
- Sheffield Hallam (15,284)
- Southport (6,024)
- Westmorland and Lonsdale (12,264)
Seats where Labour finished second in 2010
- Bradford East (365)
- Burnley (1,818)
- Manchester Withington (1,894)
- Redcar (5,214)
What is interesting is that, although Labour finished second in only 4 out of the 11 seats in 2010, these 4 seats include the 3 most marginal; whereas the 7 seats where the Tories came second include the 5 safest. Given the strength of the backlash against the LibDems in areas where Labour are strong (as evidenced for instance in local council election results from 2011 and 2012) Labour can surely expect to gain at least Manchester Withington. Bradford East and Burnley are also realistic targets for Labour, although in both these seats there are complicating factors (of which more later). Taking Redcar looks like a tougher proposition (ditto) but is probably something the party would hope to do, given that Redcar before 2010 had a long tradition of electing Labour MPs.
But whilst it is just about conceivable that Labour could pull off a clean sweep of these 4 seats, it looks much harder for the Conservatives to take all 7 of their potential targets. This is not only because the LibDems defend larger majorities in those seats, but also because the way coalition politics has turned out means that the LibDems should not face any angry backlash from Tory voters, and indeed may be well-placed to actually pick up votes from the Tories. I can think of three reasons why Tory voters in Tory/LibDem marginals might be inclined to defect to the LibDems. First, kudos: the LibDems can now be taken seriously as a party of government at national level, in a way that was hard to imagine before 2010. Second, sympathy: the generally loyal attitude of the LibDems to the government may well earn them credit amongst Tory supporters. Third, liberal views: many Tory voters are pro-European and socially liberal, and for them keeping a LibDem in parliament may be the best defence against the eurosceptic, illiberal right-wing of the Tory Party. As against this, the LibDems are sure to lose some voters to Labour; but in all but one of these 7 seats (Leeds North West, which was Labour-held between 1997 and 2005), Labour has no real chance of winning, so tactical voting directed against the Conservatives may limit the extent of any such defection. Furthermore, 5 of the 7 (Cheadle, Hazel Grove, Leeds North West, Sheffield Hallam and Southport) are affluent metropolitan seats where the views of Tory voters could be expected to be relatively liberal, making it highly likely that there will be at least as many defections to the LibDems from Tories as there will be from them to Labour (or others).
So, we can now answer the initial question: "Is a Northern LibDem wipeout in 2015 a likely outcome?" Answer: no, it is pretty unlikely, although the LibDems do look set to lose between 1 and 4 seats to Labour and, more doubtfully, Berwick upon Tweed looks vulnerable to the Conservatives. The answer to the second question: "Would this be a desirable outcome from a Labour point of view?" is also clear: of course it would be desirable for Labour to take the 4 seats that they have a realistic chance of winning from the LibDems, and even more desirable to also take Leeds North West, as the Party would then be in landslide territory. But equally, it would not be at all desirable to see Liberal Democrats replaced by Conservatives, as, where that to happen, it would only make a Conservative majority government more likely at the expense of the likelihood of a hung parliament. I am sure most Labour supporters (that is, those that don't want to cut off the nose to spite the face) would rather take their chances with a hung parliament than with outright Tory rule.
That being the case, the third question needs to be re-worded to still be worth asking: "What priority should Labour give to campaigning in the 11 LibDem-held seats?" The best answer to this is to take them on a seat-by-seat basis.
Bradford East
With LibDem David Ward enjoying a majority of just 365 in 2010, it might be tempting to think that Labour are favourites to take this seat in 2015. However, local election results between 2010 and 2012 tell a different story. The left-wing Respect Party achieved a spectacular breakthrough in the 2012 council elections, following George Galloway's shock win in the parliamentary by-election in neighbouring Bradford West. Of the six council wards that make up Bradford East, two were safely Labour in 2010 - but while both saw increased Labour majorities in 2011, they were both lost to Respect in 2012. Of the three wards that elected a LibDem councillor in 2010, two continued to elect LibDems in both subsequent years, whereas the other (Ecclesfield) went Labour in 2011, but went back to the LibDems in 2012. The only ward Labour held in 2012 (Bowling and Bakerend) had been Tory in 2010, but saw the Conservative share of the vote collapse from 37% to just 11% during the first two years of the Coalition.
These results suggest a significant (but not overwhelming) backlash against the LibDems in 2011, which had largely faded by 2012. The more striking trend was the loss of Conservative vote share across the two years, from an average of 24% in 2010 to an average of just 8% in 2012. Bradford East seems to have rejected the Conservatives, but to be unsure who it wants to take their place out of the Labour, the LibDems and Respect. Therefore Labour will need a highly visible campaign here in 2015, with the result very much up for grabs.
Burnley
Before 2010, Burnley had been Labour ever since 1935, with Labour winning big majorities here even in years they did badly nationally (e.g. over 7,500 in 1987). But in 2010 Labour suffered from the expenses scandal, which implicated outgoing MP Kitty Usher, and lost the seat on an unusually big swing to the LibDems. Since then, the LibDems have fared poorly in elections to the local council (which has the same boundaries as the parliamentary constituency), losing 1 of the 6 seats they defended in 2011, and 7 of the 9 seats they defended in 2012. This pattern suggests that the LibDems may have been given some protection in 2011 by the memory of the expenses scandal; and that as this memory has faded they are becoming more exposed.
An additional complicating factor here is the history of popular support for the far right in Burnley. There was still (in 2012) a residue of support for the BNP, just short of 6% of the vote across the borough (down from 9% in the 2010 parliamentary election). There is, however, now no BNP representation on Burnley Council for the first time since 2002. This may well encourage erstwhile BNP supporters to switch their allegiance to the now up-and-coming UKIP. The BNP actually came first in terms of vote share in the 2003 local elections before losing ground steadily over subsequent years as their councillors gained a reputation for ineffectiveness. This history is likely to give UKIP the hope that, if it can get up a head of steam here, it could finish first, winning one of the party's first parliamentary seats.
Labour clearly need a strong campaign here, aimed at winning back trust; and should probably regard UKIP as the main threat if the LibDems continue to fade at the 2014 local elections.
Manchester Withington
This seat has a significant student population, who would have been attracted in 2010 by the LibDem pledge not to increase university tuition fees. Although John Leech personally kept his pledge to vote against the increase in the House of Commons, it seems unlikely that he will escape the backlash against his party over the trebling of fees. Local election results make grim reading for the LibDems: in 2010 6 of the 7 wards that make up this seat elected LibDem councillors; in both 2011 and 2012 all 7 wards elected Labour councillors. If that trend continues in the next local elections due in 2014, then the LibDems will have lost all 17 of their 2010 contingent of councillors from this seat. Even allowing for the propensity of voters to use mid-term local elections to punish the government of the day, this represents an unusually strong reaction. It also suggests that the putative LibDem strategy of treating the next General Election as a series of independent local campaigns is unlikely to work here, as Withington's voters are seemingly putting national issues ahead of local issues even in elections to the local Council. Another problem for the LibDems is the widespread perception that the Coalition Government has handed out disproportionately harsh financial settlements to the City of Manchester in local government spending rounds. In short, the LibDems look truly doomed here.
Redcar
The Redcar constituency is something of a special case, owing to the saga surrounding the town's (former) major employers, the Corus steelworks. The steelworks closed its doors due to the recession just weeks before the last General Election with the loss of a thousand jobs, and voters responded by electing Ian Swales with the highest swing against Labour in any seat nationwide. Swales now defends a solid majority of over 5,000 - and what is more, some work has returned to the former Corus (now SSI) steelworks, making his position even stronger. Moreover, local council election results do not suggest any post-2010 backlash against the LibDems is taking place here. The Redcar constituency is made up of 14 wards who between them send 38 councillors to the Redcar and Cleveland Unitary Authority Council, all 38 being elected once every 4 years. The party balance amongst those elected in 2007 was: Labour 19, LibDem 13, Conservative 3, Independent 3. In 2011 the balance was: Labour 20, LibDem 15, Conservative 1, Independent 2. This suggests that the LibDems have gained slightly at the Tories' expense whilst Labour have flatlined. I suspect Labour will have their work cut out to win this seat, and if they do pull it off it won't be by cashing in cheaply on rage against the LibDems. Nevertheless a strong campaign here is surely essential, given the seat's rock-solid Labour heritage.
Leeds North West
And here we have yet another peculiar case! MP Greg Mulholland is apparently invulnerable with a 9,000+ majority, and yet as recently as 2001 Labour held this seat with a majority of 5,000 whilst the Tories beat the LibDems into third place. Local council results show some evidence of an anti-Clegg backlash in 2011, but probably not strong enough to carry the seat to Labour. In any case the backlash effect appeared to fade a little in the 2012 elections. Headingly ward, where the effect appears strongest, produced a 1,927 majority for the LibDems over Labour in May 2010. At the height of Clegg's notoriety in May 2011, this became a majority of 438 for Labour; but in May 2012 Labour's majority in the ward fell to just 32. The other three wards that make up the constituency have remained in the same hands (2 LibDem, 1 Conservative) across all three years. So, although LibDem strategists are fond of repeating the mantra that "there is no such thing as a safe LibDem seat", Leeds North West looks pretty safe for 2015. Realistically, for Labour are unlikely to take this seat barring a national landslide that no-one (in 2013) expects, so there is no point in making it a high-priority target.
Berwick upon Tweed, Cheadle, Hazel Grove, Southport, and Westmorland and Lonsdale
These 5 seats can be lumped together for our purposes, as Labour has never held any of them. They also share the characteristic that their Labour candidates came third in 2010, with a maximum of 13.2% of the vote. These seats can be written off as hopeless from Labour's point of view.
Sheffield Hallam
If it was just down to the electoral arithmetic then Sheffield Hallam should be classified along with the 5 hopeless seats above. Just like them, Labour has never won this seat. The LibDem majority in 2010 was a whopping 15,284 - the LibDem's highest in the region; meanwhile Labour came third, trailing 3,812 votes behind the Conservatives. However, there is one factor that might seem to make the seat a special case: it will be defended by none other than Nick Clegg himself. This naturally gives rise to the thought that Labour should mount a strong campaign, mobilising all the students in the area to achieve the big (huge, actually) swing needed to get Clegg out of industrial Sheffield and send him on his way back whence he hailed from (Chalfont St Giles in Buckinghamshire, in case you were wondering). There is, however, just one small problem with this project - namely, that judging by local election results, the LibDems remain popular in this constituency.
Sheffield Hallam contains 5 council wards, all of which elected a LibDem in 2010. In the 2011 local elections, only one of these wards (Crookes) went Labour. The other 4 remained LibDem; Stannington ward with a wafer thin majority of just 5; the other 3 with decent majorities. In 2012, all 5 wards again elected LibDem councillors; Stannington with a majority over Labour of 284, Crookes with a majority of 540, and the others each having a margin over Labour of at least 889 votes. This picture is consistent with there having been a significant backlash against the LibDems post-2010, which has faded somewhat as time has gone on, and which was in any case never strong enough to put the parliamentary seat seriously at risk.
If it seems a little hard to believe that the still-deeply-controversial Nick Clegg should hold an effectively unchallengeable position in a city with Sheffield's proudly working class heritage, then it helps to explain it that the borders of the City of Sheffield are drawn in such a way as to include a lot of the surrounding countryside as well as the affluent outer suburbs, actually extending a long way into the Peak District National Park. For instance, stand at the triangulation pillar on the top of High Neb, at 458 metres above seal level and surrounded by grouse moors, and you are (rather weirdly) at the boundary of the City of Sheffield (and, by the way, Clegg's constituency). Other urban districts in England, such as Manchester and Birmingham, have not been drawn up this way - in those cases it is only the recognisably inner-city parts of the area that are classified as part of the official "City" and thus get parliamentary constituency names incorporating the city's name. Indeed, on a number of measures, the Hallam constituency is actually one of most privileged in the country (perhaps this is an under-appreciated factor in explaining why Clegg appears more at ease with the Conservatives than with Labour, but that is a topic for another post).
So, given that Labour can pretty much forget about any dreams featuring an enraged mob wielding pitchforks chasing the Deputy Prime Minister out of his his seat, what should it do? In any campaign, resources are limited - and especially so for Labour, who have recently struggled to match the Tories financially. Time and money spent campaigning in a seat you can't win means time and money not spent somewhere else where you could. So, whatever Labour activists feel about Clegg (and I personally think that, however badly he has let some voters down, he also has some very good personal qualities) the needs of the Labour Party will dictate that resources are not unduly wasted on Sheffield Hallam. This post has already identified Bradford East, Burnley and Redcar as being (for different reasons) in greater need of campaign priority. Besides these, the North also has much larger numbers (up to two dozen) of Tory-held marginals that could fall to Labour, and it will be the outcome in seats like these that will play the largest part in determining the identity of the next government.
Conclusion
I have answered the first of my three questions by concluding that the Liberal Democrats are highly unlikely to be wiped out in the North of England at the 2015 General Election. Indeed, they are quite likely to hang on to the majority of the 11 seats they currently hold in the region. My approach to the second and third questions, about the desirability of such a wipeout from Labour's point of view, and the priority (if any) that should be given to it, has been to argue from the local conditions in each seat to the need for a pragmatic response to variations in those conditions.
In any case, there is a sense in which it is meaningless for any party to adopt a "wipeout" strategy in relation to any other party. All three big mainstream parties in Britain field candidates in every mainland British seat, and there isn't a single seat they wouldn't prefer to win than lose, so in some sense they are all trying to wipe each other out at every election. Questions about strategy only become meaningful in the context of the need to allocate limited campaign resources between competing objectives, and any party that really wants to win (and isn't stupid) will always settle these questions by reference to local conditions in each parliamentary constituency, rather than some generalised desire to penalise some other party. Once the specific questions about tactics are posed which make the notion of a "wipeout strategy" meaningful, it becomes immediately obvious that any such strategy would be self-defeating.
On the way I have touched on some interesting questions concerning the direction of the Liberal Democrats political evolution under Nick Clegg, towards the centre-right ground that is increasingly disdained by the Conservatives, despite its being home to a large number of voters. The causes of this shift, and what it means for the future of British politics, are subjects I hope to explore at proper length in future posts.
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