I was interested in Sean Fear’s analysis on Political Betting of how the London Borough elections will pan out next May.  His predictions (bear in mind he is a Tory activist) give the political map of London Government becoming:

  • Conservative  16  (he calls Ealing, Kingston, Merton and Sutton as Tory in what will be close contests)
  • Labour  8 (he calls Islington as a Labour gain from the LibDems)
  • LibDems  1
  • No Overall Control  6
  • Too close to call  1 (Haringey – between Labour and the LibDems)

I’ve not done my own calculations yet.  However, his analysis looks reasonably plausible, although I would want more information from a number of places before taking a firm view.

In July 2005, I was asked by John McTiernan, then Political Secretary to the then Prime Minister, for my assessment of what would happen in May 2006 in the London elections.  I gave my view Borough by Borough (which subsequently turned out to be almost exactly correct).  This was dismissed as “much too pessimistic” and was told “what you are forgetting is that by next Spring the situation in Iraq will have really improved and we will have got the ID cards legislation through and that’s going to be seriously popular”.  I make no comment on the political judgement expressed ……