Whats annoying is not just the prediction, but the ridiculous statement 'Only The LD or Cons can win here'. They have some cheek, saying who can win, especially after how close it was in 2005, the Tories only just beat Lab then. Rather than tell people who can win I prefer to leave it to voters, it is there one chance to make the decisions; the politicians have to accept this.
I can see why the LD would like this way of looking at things, it lets them pretend they are front runners with the Tories. But if that technique was used elsewhere that would predict some great results for the Greens in several constituencies, but somehow I doubt the Lib Dems are doing it on those areas, only where it suits them. When they talk about fairness they don't think it applies to them.
If we were all to use the best result for our prediction, then Greens would use the Euro Election, which saw the Greens get 2nd place! For Reading East – Cons 6,051; Green 3,504; Lab 3,057; LD 3,040; UKIP 2,169. (These numbers are from the RBC part of the constituency, which is most of it.) Now I don't think thats a fair prediction, people don't vote in Euro elections as they do in General Elections, but then the same is true of local council elections.
Reading East is Lib Dem target number 39, Labour target 20. So Labour may well be trying harder here than the LD. In 2005 is was very close between the Tories and Labour, the LD were not even close, as you can see below. Rumours are that big Labour money is getting behind Naz in Reading West in an attempt to hold on to that seat though.
2005 General Election Results
Here is the latest Poll Prediction from political betting, I've added the Greens and Ukip based on previous results.
As you can see the LD are a long way behind, actually they may do worse even than this, squeezed by the even bigger parties.
3 comments:
I doubt that Labour will hold Reading West........their choice of an outsider candidate will not help for a start!
This post is about Reading East.
In Reading West the favourite has always been Alok, but it will be close.
I don't think having a more local person would help them, imagine Richard Mckenzie repeating his Henley performance, coming 5th!
Martin has for years had good media coverage, that has handed him some previous success.
I don;t think that even the basher MacKenzie could manage 5th in Reading West!
But overall local candidate with local knollege has to be a better bet than someone who is not local.
I don't expect Labour to hold Reading West with any candidate and I don't think Martin Salter did either!
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