Five new seats invite candidate applications

Five more seat selections have just been announced by CCHQ:

1. Dagenham and Rainham
2. Darlington
3. Ealing North
4. Poplar and Limehouse
5. Sedgefield

The closing date for applications to these seats is 2pm on 2nd April.

Comments

[Justin Hinchcliffe]

Sedgefield??????????????????????????????????

[John]

Presumably Sedgefield is there in case there's a by-election if Blair resigns from Parliament as well as PM. Sounds sensible logic to me.

Dagenham, Ealing N and Poplar & Limeshouse are all good London seats that we can win with a large national swing and a good local campaign.

[Don J]

Darlington and Sedgefield are now covered by the same local association - South Durham Conservatives. Looks like we're going to be busy up here in April.

Seems that CCHQ place some credence in the rumours that Blair will leave the House soon after leaving No 10.

High profile by-election, might tempt a few A-listers to travel North of St John's Wood...we saw Danny Kruger last time (albeit only briefly).

Darlington's MP Alan Milburn can't be relishing another term (certainly on a back bench, probably on an opposition bench) under Brown's leadership either, so more to play for than one might first imagine.

[xenon]

Sedgefield is also probably there so that even if Blair remains an MP you can try to create headline headaches for Brown.

[Peter Coe]

I agree about the first two, but there's no way in hell that the Tories win Poplar & Limehouse.

The Tories were over 10% behind Labour here in last year's council elections: and that in an election when Labour's vote in Tower Hamlets was splintered and they only polled 33%.

If you want to make a case that the Tories have a shot at winning over half of the 22% who voted Respect in the wards in this seat last year go for it - but in reality these are ex Labour and Lib Dem voters, not second-choice Tories.

No doubt the Tories now have an established base in this constituency, but just keep it in perspective: the council seats they hold here are the first they've ever won in the borough: you just don't go from there to having a shot at the parliamentary seat - even in a landslide...yet.

[Blue Rosette]

Darlington along with Stockton South are seats we should be actively pushing to overcome if we are to draw back the north south divide and show signs of some Nothern resurgence. It is a tough seat, but with the right candidate and support it should be manageable

[Matt Davis]

Dagenham will be a hard one for us since the anti Labour protest vote, in this traditionally safe Labour seat, is going wholesale to the BNP who did alarmingly well at the locals last year. This is as much as anything because we are so very thin on the ground there and there are only the bare bones of an association at present but there is also no way on earth that the Cameroonian message will play well there, it isn't what the voters of Dagenham, the dispossesed white working classes, are looking for.

[Patricia Clark]

Dagenham? It isn't "Dagenham" any more, it's "Dagenham and Rainham" and any candidate who omits the "and Rainham" bit at interview will be shown the door before he/she can say "Cruddas".

Patricia Clark, DC Finance, D&R

[Sean Fear]

Poplar & Limehouse. If Respect remain strong, there is an outside chance of taking this one. The Tory vote in 2005 was only 3% down on the figure for 1992, and if we do as well as opinion polls suggest, we should be polling close to 30% here next time.

Dagenham & Rainham. In fact, the BNP only have one councillor here, compared to six or seven for the Tories. It will probably be held by Labour, with us in second, and the BNP third, next time, but again, it gives an outside chance.

[Reagan Fan]

Didn't Douglas Carswell make his name with a very active and high profile campaign in Sedgefield?

[Matt Davis]

Sean Fear, fyi the BNP are organised along the Borough boundary, which is the LB of Barking and Dagenham and so are a lot stronger than you believe I'm afraid. If they had stood 3 candidates in all of the wards where they only stood 2 last May they would be the biggest group on that Council which currently has only 1 Tory Councillor. The other Tories that you mention are Havering Councillors from Rainham but the Parliamentary seat will be won or lost in Dagenham where the BNP are growing all the time and look likely to achieve far better than a third place showing unfortunately.

[Paul Kennedy]

With regards to Sedgefield, remember it is always easier to win a seat where the long time incumbent will not be standing again. ;)

Interestingly if there were to be a by-election, the L/Ds could win it, not because they are any good but because it would be a final snub to Mr Blair. As I recall in 2005 an Independent who lost his son in the Iraq war got quite a decent vote there.

[Andrew Allison]

Darlington was a Conservative seat from 1983 - 1992.

[scottish conservative]

good to see sedgefield on the list - even if blair doesnt stand down theres clearly a chance he will and its only sensible to get a candidate in asap. maybe enuf good stuff in and around sedgefield itself to poll respectably here ina by-election - might actually be a good place for a by-election for us as there wouldnt be much expectation on us in Blairs own seat.

An interesting list of seats none of which really shout Tory at you but whcih are maybe better for us than they look. Reckon we r too far behind in darlington. there are wards coming into poplar from bethnal green and bow - does anyone know how these vote? if they were respect last time they may revert to labour post-Galloway and put this seat beyond us.

Would it not be better for us to be speeding up the number of selections so as to maximise our spending in marginals before new rules restrciting constituency spending are introduced to our detriment?

[Chris Buckwell]

Poplar & Limehouse. Having been moved into the new West Ham, by vesting on 1 Jan, our campaigners back in P&L should never be underestimated. Removing all Newham voters (of the old Poplar & Canning Town) will favour us significantly. Our activists have worked over the last few years to build a fantastic grassroots Conservatism which has allowed us to achieve councillors in three Tower Hamlets wards. The Lib Dems are on their way out, too. Where Respect votes might go, if deserting "the Galloway party", could be the key. Do we not need to win this seat for an overall majority?

[Annabel Herriott]

At the very least, they would be an excellent seat for a young candidate to "cut their teeth on" Who knows, in this climate, they could either pull it off, or get near enough to win it next time, when our policies in Government are bearing fruit.

[Peter Coe]

Matt, I think you need to be a little careful in using the 2006 council results as a basis for projecting general election performance, simply because the Tories (and Lib Dems - to a much larger extent) got squeezed out in the Labour/BNP battle.

Do you think ex-Tories went BNP in similar proportion to ex-Labour voters; or did Tories switch to Labour to try to stop the BNP?

You also (rightly) note how weak the local Tory association is - but that works both ways: because you stood so few candidates you don't really get a true picture of Conservative strength.

It should, in theory at least, be far easier for you to communicate that the only party capable of beating Labour in this new seat is the Conservatives.

On the other hand, as well as the Cameron effect not applying here, there are some major challenges which you didn't touch on. Whatever you think of him, I think Jon Cruddas is a good fit for this constituency and the high profile he's getting (and will continue to get during the Deputy Leadership contest) can only help him.

The Hornchurch parts of this constituency are also the best Labour parts of that seat: although they only hold one seat, in the absence of the Residents Asssociation it could reasonably be assumed that Labour would have a full slate of these seats.

In response to Sean on Poplar & Limehouse: sorry but I just don't buy the scenario you present. In last year's elections Respect actually fared better in the wards that comprise P&L than Bethnal Green & Bow; hence Labour will be able to make a compelling case to every voter who doesn't want to end up represented by that vile little party that the only way to stop Respect is to vote for them.

Sure, they tried that in BG&B last time and it didn't really work, but this time Tory voters in particular have hard evidence that if they're not careful they will end up represented by a Respect MP. As such, even if the base Tory share is at or around 30%, it's a massive challenge for any candidate in this circumstance to poll that figure - and given that I don't think Respect will poll as well in the GE as they did in the locals (and any slippage should be to Lab or LD, not Tory) there's no credible scenario in which the Conservatives win here.

That said, a great seat to cut one's teeth in.

[Peter Coe]

Paul; the Lib Dems are nowhere in Sedgefield - if they come second it will be a calamity for the Tories because not only do the Lib Dems have no local government base in the constituency at all (to the extent that they didn't even manage to field candidates for any of the county council seats within the Sedgefield district in 2005, bar one) but the Tories are clear local government challengers in several parts of the seat, especially the Darlington suburban parts.

Famous last words perhaps, but this is one of the very few seats I don't think Labour would lose in a by-election; every single county council seat is substantially Labour; even on a very low turnout any other party would be doing very well to poll more than 30% of the vote here.

And actually, they don't dislike the Prime Minister here, either - his majority technically increased at the 2005 election (though his vote was markedly down), so your claim that they'd want to snub him after he's gone, when they've clearly backed him by landslides when he's been their candidate, doesn't really make sense.

[Sean Fear]

Matt Davis, I think the Dagenham & Rainham constituency offers good prospects for the BNP in the future; indeed, I think most of Havering (and quite a bit of Redbridge) is likely to be very fertile for them. But my guess is they'll throw everything they can at Barking next time. I wouldn't be surprised to see them winning c.15% in this seat, but I think they'll still be in third place.

Peter Coe, although the three new wards were probably Labour's best area in the old Hornchurch, I doubt if Labour had more than a small lead here in 2005 (and that must have been down to a big personal vote for John Cryer). The Conservatives led in the three wards in the London Assembly, and have four councillors to one for Labour (it's hard to guess how people would vote if Residents and Third Way didn't stand).

[Matt Davis]

Peter Coe, to answer your question I believe that the ex Tory voters went with the BNP I'm afraid.

Whilst you are right to urge caution on extrapolating Council election results into General election ones, the locals did show up the particular local factors operating in both Barking and Dagenham & Rainham. Hopefully the so far pathetic record of the BNP Councillors who were elected will work against that party, but we can't count on it.Never forget that both Barking and Dagenham have a long history of flirting with the far right, the National Front were strong there in the 1970s.

[Claire Palmer]

I'm not sure I agree with Peter Coe on the 3 wards being Labour's best in D&R. As someone who campaigned heavily in these 3 wards in the locals last year, we saw that James Brokenshire had made huge inroads in these areas, alongwith the support of the local council candidates who worked very hard and the Conservatives won 3 out of 3 seats in Elm Park (as compared to 1 or 2 in other supposedly more Conservative wards)! Rather than people wanting to support Labour, the BNP were the bigger issue.

Don't forget that pre-Cameron the Hornchurch constituency returned a Conservative MP in a situation where John Cryer was a popular Labour MP who challenged the Government in many areas.

Whilst they may have that view in the local elections, I am sure the residents of Dagenham and Rainham will (like the rest of us) be focussing on seeing the end of the Blair-Brown disaster! They know that will not happen with voting in the BNP.

[Neil King]

Peter Coe: on P&L, you're right about the local election shares, but two words; differential turnout; the wards with the lowest turnouts were the ones with largest populations; Conservative Millwall, Blackwall and Wapping. These areas have large populations of wealthy voters and second home owners, who don't vote in local elections but will in General Elections

[Patricia Clark]

Potential candidates for Dagenham and Rainham might find it useful to know that the interviews will be held on 14 & 15 April and it is intended to hold the Open Primary on Friday 20 April.

Patricia Clark, Deputy Chairman D&R

[Andrew Bradley]

Are we predicting a 'dog fight' in Barking? No one wants to bite off more than they can chew or is their bark worse than their bite?

[Dave Finney]

Does anyone know the selection timetable for Darlington?