1. The Voting patterns in Sunderland - an introduction

I’ve been looking at the local election statistics on wikipedia for my area - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunderland_local_elections. I know I haven’t got all of the expensive software that political parties have, but still, a few interesting things can be found out. I’m not so statistically adept that I can generate biases and weightings etc, but let’s have some fun. Data is available on Wikipedia and the Sunderland Council website.

Sunderland has 25 wards, and has a Labour led council, with some Tories, though the LibDems recently lost their last seat on the council. More on that later.

First of all, the data in percentages of the vote:-

	Conservatives	Labour	LibDem	BNP	UKIP	Respect	Green
2004	28.9	55.4	8	6.6
2006	28.4	40.5	15.7	14.6
2007	28.1	43.3	8.7	10.6	0.1	0.3
2008	32	39.6	11.6	10.2	0.1
2010	25.2	49	18.3	3.3			0.3
2011	25.7	60.3	5.1		2		2.4
2012	20.4	62.1	5.5	0.001	4.9		4.7

Generally a battle between Labour and the Conservatives. You can see that Labour’s vote was falling during the Blair regime and rallied slightly for Gordon Brown. However it has greatly improved over the past 2 years. As you might expect from a party which has been in charge of the council forever, they can get quite complacent. I haven’t ever seen my local councillor, although since the Conservative operation improved, there is an occasional newsletter. There is a healthy exchange of views between opposing supporters in the Sunderland Echo.

The Conservatives haven’t seen such a big variation in their support; 28% in 2004, a brief increase in 2008 just after David Cameron became leader to 32%, to a 2012 level of 20%. Not much of a variation due to austerity, but then, they’re very much more active locally than the other parties, and are seen to be taking an interest in local issues. A very slick operation, with glossy newsletters, web chats etc. Their share of the vote dropped slightly in 2012.

My own party, the LibDems generally showed a rise in support until 2011 when the vote dropped considerably. However the apparent drop in 2008 was due to fielding fewer candidates (15/25 wards) rather than anything else.

As you can see, the BNP ran candidates in all 25 Sunderland wards for several years, did best in 2006 but have since tailed off both in the number of candidates (12 in 2010, none after that) and their vote share. They still appear in the area though. Getting stuck under a low bridge shows the quality of their representation. See link.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2194333/Going-British-National-Party-truth-truck-gets-stuck-bridge-way-halal-meat-demonstration.html

Other parties such as UKIP, Respect and the Greens occasionally field a candidate or two, but so far their share of the vote has been negligible, below 5%. However, in 2012, their share of the vote, particularly the Greens, was responsible for the loss of the Millfield ward, as the vote was so close. Ironic that the Greens should be responsible for the election of a less green candidate than if they hadn't run.

My next post will be on Left/right support in Sunderland