There are 56 constituencies in Yorkshire, Humberside and the North East. In January I made the following predictions…
Conservative 20
Labour 60
LibDem 2
I have only one change to make to those predictions.
Great Grimsby
Conservative: 10063 (30.5%)
Labour: 10777 (32.7%)
Lib Dem: 7388 (22.4%)
BNP: 1517 (4.6%)
UKIP: 2043 (6.2%)
Independent: 835 (2.5%)
Others: 331 (1%)
MAJORITY: 714 (2.2%)
Sitting MP: Austin Mitchell (Lab)
Prediction: Labour hold
Revised Prediction: UKIP gain
A formerly very safe Labour seat this nearly went to the Tories in 2010. Ordinarily they might make a push this time, but there’s the UKIP fly in the ointment. Their candidate, Victoria Ayling, stood here for the Tories last time and is quite high profile. However, I just can’t see them taking this seat or coming anywhere near it to be frank. All I can see here is an increased Labour majority. UPDATE: I think I might have to eat those words. UKIP are putting in a huge effort here. An Ashcroft poll puts them only one per cent behind Labour. Austin Mitchell’s persistent undermining of the Labour candidate and his all female shortlist successor may just tip the balance away from Labour.
So that means the predictions for this region change to…
Conservative 20
Labour 59
LibDem 2
UKIP 1
Which changes the countrywide seat predictions to…
Conservative 276
Labour 275
LibDem 24
UKIP 8
SNP 42
Plaid Cymru 4
DUP 9
Respect 1
Green 1
Sinn Fein 5
SDLP 3
Others 2
