Month: June 2024
Tory cuts to school funding cost Seaton Primary £47k pa
That’s £128 per pupil each year. In the Honiton and Sidmouth constituency as a whole, the cuts amount to £638,000 a year.
Details:
Find out about Government funding cuts to your school. #schoolcuts
— Read on schoolcuts.org.uk/
StoptheTories.vote withdraws its tactical Labour recommendation for Exmouth
StoptheVote.org, a major tactical voting site, has TAKEN DOWN its recommendation of a Labour vote in Exmouth & East Exeter. It now says its tactical advice is ‘COMING SOON: We’re waiting until more polling is released to confirm our advice here.’
It explains: ‘We’ve manually set advice for this constituency because as an Independent was in second place last time, it is not yet clear where those supporters will go’. In other words, the old advice was based on automatically applying national trends without proper local data.
Meanwhile Electoral Calculus, the site which takes into account local information, estimates that the race is incredibly close between the Tory (32.6%), Paul Arnott for the Lib Dems (29.8) and Labour (21.4). It has reduced the chance of the Tory winning to 54%, increased the Lib Dems’ to 34%, and puts Labour’s chance on 10%.
Some facts on this constituency:
- 78 per cent of the old East Devon seat is in it – but some extra Exeter wards have been added.
- In the old East Devon seat, the Lib Dems were always second until 2010 – Labour were never in contention.
- Claire Wright (Independent) took over as the main challenger in 2015, 2017 and 2019, squeezing the Lib Dem, Labour and Green votes down to a very small level.
- In 2019, Claire got 40.4%, Labour 4.5%, Lib Dems 2.8%, Greens 1.1%. Claire is supporting Paul Arnott.
- In local elections in the new constituency in 2023-4, Lib Dems have gained 39.5% of the votes, Labour 13%, Greens 6% – while Tories got 37.5% – confirming that this is a tight Tory:Lib Dem race.
- Labour have just confirmed that the constituency is NOT a battleground seat for them – their members are advised to canvass in the nearest battleground seat in Plymouth.
- Labour’s 2019 candidate has left the party and is standing as an Independent, so their vote will be further split.
Labour confirms neither East Devon seat is ‘battleground’– activists are asked to campaign elsewhere
Although the Labour Party has added eleven more seats to its ‘battleground’ areas, these do NOT include either Exmouth & Exeter East or Honiton & Sidmouth. Members continue to be encouraged to campaign in the nearest battleground-in our case, this is Plymouth MoorView.
Revealed: The 250 seats Labour calls ‘battlegrounds’– full list and map – LabourList
— Read on labourlist.org/2024/06/labour-battleground-areas-full-list-general-election-2024/
Tactical voting: a pollster explains why their models could be getting Exmouth wrong
As a politics academic myself, I have been in touch with a number of pollsters about some perverse-looking projections for the seats in East Devon. Survation even has Labour to win Honiton & Sidmouth – although they got only 3.7 per cent in the by-election and are not even campaigning now! However, most now seem have to recognised that it’s a fight between Richard Foord and the Tory.
The problem is, one pollster admits to me, they are using “national level data for small area estimation”, telling me: “You are certainly correct that there are some surprising estimates in the MRP model, particularly when it comes to idiosyncratic seats.”
The most idiosyncratic seat of all is probably EXMOUTH & EXETER EAST, because most non-Tory voters in the old East Devon seat (which is three quarters of the new one) backed Claire Wright in 2019. She got 41 per cent, while Labour got only 4.5 per cent and the Lib Dems 2.8 per cent – but some pollsters have used these tiny and out-of-date figures to estimate that Labour could be leading the Lib Dems in 2024!
Recognising the problem, Survation tells me that they, YouGov and Electoral Calculus have now agreed to poll more people in both Exmouth & Exeter East and Honiton & Sidmouth, to try to get a more accurate picture.
In the meanwhile, Electoral Calculus are the only pollster to have tried to take into account the unique circumstances of Exmouth & Exeter East – they have the Tories on 33, Lib Dems 29.7 and Labour 23.
New YouGov poll projection has Richard winning by just 1 per cent
Lib Dems 34, Conservatives 33 – too close to call. It just underlines how essential it is that everyone votes for Richard, not Labour or Green. Do we really want another Tory MP? It could be decided by a handful of votes.
New poll shows Richard ahead
A gold standard constituency by constituency poll from Electoral Calculus suggests that Richard Foord has sped ahead of his Conservative challenger in the race to be our next MP. He’s on 45 per cent to the Tory’s 35 per cent, closer than the by-election but a promising lead (bear in mind there is a margin of error in these things).
The same poll shows Paul Arnott, standing for the Lib Dems in Exmouth & Exeter East, only 3 per cent behind the Tory (30 to 33 per cent). Labour is on 23 per cent so if some Labour voters swing behind Paul’s challenge he has an excellent chance of taking the seat. The poll suggests the Lib Dems would be on 59 seats to the Tories’ 66, so with a small further shift, the Lib Dems would be the official opposition to the new Labour government.
Sunak’s Dunkeswell visit mocked
Hilarious! Don’t you just love the folk of Honiton’s reaction to being the “canned audience” for Sunak’s flying visit (down by train shoulder to shoulder with real people but returned by private helicopter)? As before Simon Jupp has a very small walk on part. Blink and you miss it. Maybe he is practising auditioning? -…
— Read on eastdevonwatch.org/2024/06/01/the-room-next-doors-take-on-sunak-and-the-dunkeswell-eye-roller/
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Seaton & Colyton MATTERS 