London election stats: dork-topia

And now we come to London - much happier than the previous two near misses in that Jean Lambert didn't just get in she was elected far higher up the list than previously (although we were a fair way off having the excellent Ute Michel elected). You might also like to check out political animals - who has maps!

There are over thirty polling districts in London in which more than 1.7 million people voted. Over 190,000 of them voted Green, which is nice.

Hackney: the pearl of the capital

Hackney was the best polling area for the Greens with 22.78% (up a massive 6.19%) followed by Islington (20.02%, up 3.41%), Lambeth (18.05%, up 4.1%) then Lewisham (17.79%, up 5.18%). Of course all these areas are far bigger than the Parliamentary constituencies so who knows what hidden delights even these strong figures conceal!

Hackney also has the third highest vote for the Labour Party as well as the highest result in the whole of London for the Socialist Labour Party and fourth highest for No2EU. As one might expect for such a right-on constituency the voters gave short shrift to the BNP, English Democrats and the rest.

It was also the worst result in London for Libertas. What did they ever do to Hackney, eh?

Tories and Lib Dems: nothing mind blowing

The Tories won over 40% in two areas; Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster. Both were particularly poor areas for the far right. In fact the only people who seemed to get above average results in these areas were Libertas and the Socialist Party of Great Britain - glad to see someone is working those hard to reach areas! (NB: we're talking less than one percent of the total so we are still months away from the final abolition of money, etc.).

The lowest Tory (and Lib Dem) result came in BNP stronghold Barking and Dagenham.

The poor old Lib Dems have some very good results in some areas but didn't manage to top the poll in any polling district. Even in Richmond Upon Thames where they achieved an excellent 30.79% they were pipped at post by the Tories. It's a postcode lottery this first past the post business I say.

Labour's night of traditional misery

The top five areas for Labour were Newham, Tower Hamlets, Hackney, Barking and Dagenham and Islington. Of those only Barking and Dagenham is a BNP stronghold, which means the pattern we've seen in other parts of the country where the BNP has fed off Labour does not seem to be repeated in London.

Where Labour are weak it tends to be in areas where one of the other two main parties are strong which, possibly unusually at this election, the London Labour results are following a far more traditional pattern of either beating or getting beaten by the two of main parties (Green strongpoints excepted).

BNP: pockets of hate

The top three areas for the BNP were Barking and Dagenham (19.4%), Bexley (14.8%) and Havering (12.4%).

There is a massive gap between these strongholds and the rest of London, where the BNP has very little support. This really comes home to you when you realise that these three areas on their own provide over 26% of the entire BNP vote in the 32 polling districts.

Smash these areas and the BNP is over in London without even 4% of the vote.

There was only one area where the Green vote slipped back. Can you guess where? Yes, it's our old friend Barking and Dagenham which essentially is behaving like a complete aberration - one that could well become dangerous if left to fester.

Tower Hamlets: where did the Respect vote go?

I was surprised, and pleased, to see Tower Hamlets' Greens doing well considering previous poor performances at council elections. At just over 11% they had one of the largest Green rises from the last Euro-election and let's hope this means that we're turning the party around in the area.

Not sure where the Respect vote went as, aside from the formidable Labour vote, there seems no other place it could have gone (like an above average SLP, SPGB or No2EU vote). Split between Labour and Greens perhaps?

Certainly a little known Respect member being bottom of No2EU's list did nothing to entice the local population, which is frankly unsurprising given that this must be one of the most internationalist demographics in London who are hardly likely to vote for a party whose very name proclaims it has a problem with 'abroad'.

UKIP's declining fortunes

Despite their vote slipping there are some extraordinary UKIP votes in London. In other regions there is no particularly strong correlation between UKIP's vote and the BNP's but in London the top two results for the Purple's were Havering and Bexley, two of the BNP's top three.

At 26.95% and 20.69% respectively UKIP is truly formidable in these areas and their top five areas account for 33.5% of UKIP's London results. To get a good idea of the scale of the problem let's have a look at the total vote for the 'Barking' right in these areas.

		BNP	English Democrats	UKIP	Total
Barking and Dagenham		19.44%	1.98%	14.8%	36.22%
Bexley		12.36%	2.98%	20.69%	36.03%
Havering		14.77%	2.84%	26.95%	44.56%

So that's between 36% and 44% of the vote to parties to the right of the Tories. There's a real problem here, but it's very specifically located in these areas rather than spread across London liberally.

And the rest?

Well the left's results were pretty uniform (and low) across London with no interesting peaks, troughs or tendencies to report. This probably indicates that if there were campaigning activities then they had little impact on the results of the three leftist organisations. I was attacked by a drunk SLP supporter but I don't think this affected their vote, either way.

Jan Jananayagam was a brilliant independent candidate who achieved more than all the other independents put together. Sadly the figures I have lump all the independents together but with results like 3.72% in Lewisham her campaign certainly had an impact.

The really interesting party in 'the others' were the Christians who managed to get their deposit back and had clear strongholds. Their best result was in Newham (at 5.08%) and they also saw over 4% in Lewisham, Croydon and... drum roll... Barking and Dagenham! If I lived there I'd be praying too frankly.