Until 1992, the Lib Dems seemed best placed to challenge the Tories in Hastings and Rye, but swept up in the Labour landslide, it went Labour in 1997. Michael Jabez Foster, a local employment law solicitor and former councillor has been the Labour MP ever since. Much respected by supporters of all parties, Foster has a large personal vote that could just save him at the General Election. That and tactical voting by Lib Dems and Greens.
Against Foster are Amber Rudd (Conservative) and Nick Perry (Lib Dem). Amber is working hard and is gaining some local respect. She is the managing director of a recruitment and consultancy firm and contested Liverpool Garston in 2005. Nick Perry is a social worker and a graduate of Cambridge University.
The 2005 result:
Conservative: 16081 (37.4%)
Labour: 18107 (42.1%)
Liberal Democrat: 6479 (15.1%)
Green: 1032 (2.4%)
UKIP: 1098 (2.6%)
Other: 207 (0.5%)
Majority: 2026 (4.7%)
Boundary changes give a slight advantage to the Conservatives. The UK Polling Report has adjusted the 2005 result to reflect the boundary changes and reports a notional 2005 result as follows:
Labour: 18528 (40.7%)
Conservative: 17323 (38.1%)
Liberal Democrat: 7229 (15.9%)
Other: 2418 (5.3%)
Majority: 1205 (2.6%)
This is definitely a seat that can return a non-Conservative IF Lib Dems and Greens do the sensible thing.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Amber Rudd, Hastings, Michael Foster, Michael Jabez Foster, Nick Perry, Rye, tactical voting |
Brighton Politics Blog 
there you go again …. stating the bleeding obvious.
My adoring public, and you the first of them all!
Of course this is obvious, but not guaranteed that Lib Dems and Green supporters will do what is needed.
Future recommendations won’t be as obvious. Should it be Green or Labour in the two Brighton seats? Lib Dem or Labour in Shoreham and Worthing East? There are some other obvious ones like Eastbourne where tactical votes should go to the Lib Dems.
Your support and expressions of affection are much appreciated!
Well thats all easy, Shoreham Labour are second and all Brighton and Hove seats are Labour – so the tactical voter should vote Labour. You can’t say that a tactical vote is a vote for the Greens when they are in third or fourth places in these constituencies.
You can’t say that the Labour vote from last time will stay firm next time. Tactical votes in 2005 would have been Labour Labour Labour. Not in 2010 and without tactical votes for Greens, Lib Dems and Labour where they have the best chance of beating the Tories we will have 16 Tory MPs in Sussex whereas we could have 8 Tories and 8 others.
Needless to say, I don’t agree! There is everything to play for in Hastings & Rye. My Conservative counterpart has not made the kind of impact that she should have by now. To coin a phrase, she has not sealed the deal.