Oxford East
Notional 2005 Results:
Liberal Democrat: 16271 (36%)
Labour: 16066 (35.6%)
Conservative: 7632 (16.9%)
Other: 5197 (11.5%)
Majority: 205 (0.5%)
Actual 2005 result
Conservative: 6992 (16.7%)
Labour: 15405 (36.9%)
Liberal Democrat: 14442 (34.6%)
Green: 1813 (4.3%)
UKIP: 715 (1.7%)
Other: 2423 (5.8%)
Majority: 963 (2.3%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 7446 (18.7%)
Labour: 19681 (49.4%)
Liberal Democrat: 9337 (23.4%)
UKIP: 570 (1.4%)
Green: 1501 (3.8%)
Other: 1313 (3.3%)
Majority: 10344 (26%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 10540 (22%)
Labour: 27205 (56.8%)
Liberal Democrat: 7038 (14.7%)
Referendum: 1391 (2.9%)
Other: 1703 (3.6%)
Majority: 16665 (34.8%)
Boundary changes: Gains most of Carfax and Holywell wards and a small part of St Marys, covering the centre of Oxford and the University colleges.
Profile: Unlike Oxford West, which is largely rural and now contains relatively little of Oxford, this is an urban seat and contains the vast majority of Oxford itself.
The seat covers the centre of Oxford, and now includes the majority of the Oxford Colleges – the two city centre wards Holywell and Carfax are overwhelmingly made up of students. To the east the suburb of Headington also contains Oxford Brookes University and the teaching hospitals. Just under a quarter of residents are students and as might be expected it is a strong area for the Liberal Democrats and Green party.
It would be wrong however to characterise this seat as being made up of academic quadrangles, ivory towers and Guardian reading students – most people here are not students. Away from the city centre there a mixed residential suburbs including the industrial Cowley, home to BMW`s Mini production, and the large council estate of Blackbird Leys, with an unfortunate reputation for unemployment, crime and joyriding. A minor party, the Independent Working Class Association, has some strength on the council estates here and returns several councillors, however they have a negligible effect at the last election.
Note that Rallings & Thrasher`s notional figures have Oxford East as a Labour seat, so the mainstream media will treat this as a Labour held seat at the next election.
Current MP: Andrew Smith(Labour) born 1952, Reading. Formerly worked for the Co-op. Former Oxford councillor. First elected as MP for Oxford East in 1987. Minister for Employment 1997-1999, Chief Secretary of the Treasury 1999-2002 and Secretary of State for Work and Pensions 2002-2004, when he left the frontbench (more information at They work for you)
Candidates: Ed Argar (Conservative) born 1977, Ashford, Kent. Educated Harvey GS, Folkestone, and Oriel College, Oxford. Currently management consultant, previously Political Adviser to Michael Ancram. Westminster City Councillor since 2006.
Steve Goddard (Liberal Democrat) born 1969, Taunton. Educated at Oxford University. University lecturer in Oxford. Oxford City Councillor from 1996-2002. Contested Oxford East in 2001 and 2005. Main policy interests are the environment, Europe and foreign affairs, civil liberties and constitutional reform.
Peter Tatchell (Green) born 1952, Melborne, Australia. Educated at Mount Waverley High School and North London Polytechnic. A high profile gay rights and human rights activist, Tatchell was the Labour candidate in the notorious 1983 Bermondsey by-election, which he lost to the Liberal candidate Simon Hughes. Following the by-election Tatchell worked as an author and in 1990 was a founder member of Outrage!, a radical gay-rights group. Tatchell most famously disrupted the then Archbishop of Canterbury`s Easter Sermon to denounce the church`s stance on homosexuality from the pulpit. Tatchell has also been active in demonstrating against the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe and in 2001 unsuccessfully attempted a citizen`s arrest upon Mugabe in Belgium. Contested Bermondsey by-election 2003 as a Labour candidate, contested London Assembly elections 2000 as an Independent.
2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 105623
Male: 49.3%
Female: 50.7%
Under 18: 18.3%
Over 60: 16.4%
Born outside UK: 17.6%
White: 86.6%
Black: 2.9%
Asian: 5.3%
Mixed: 2.4%
Other: 2.8%
Christian: 61.4%
Hindu: 0.8%
Jewish: 0.6%
Muslim: 4.3%
Full time students: 23%
Graduates 16-74: 31.7%
No Qualifications 16-74: 21.1%
Owner-Occupied: 55.1%
Social Housing: 24% (Council: 18%, Housing Ass.: 6%)
Privately Rented: 15.5%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 8.1%
A lot will depend here upon volatile student attitudes when it comes to voting. It will depend not a little on how effective the student Parties are at recruiting in the next few weeks!
I agree that Labour would hold here with the LibDems concentrating on holding Oxford West & Abingdon. As for Peter Tatchell IMO he would be best suited as an MEP.
CC – the Lib Dems remain opposed to Tuition Fees.
Joseph – the Lib Dems will be fighting hard to hold Oxford West AND to gain Oxford East.
The Lib-Dems do want tuition fees and Nick Clegg said so. You can’t pull the wool over the eyes of clever people. I think the Lib-Dems will suffer here as a result. Lab hold.
I’d like to stress that amongst young people and students, Labour is seriously unpopular because, of course, it is the establishment. This is the generation that cannot remember anything other than Labour rule, and so rebel against it. That vote might not go to the Liberal Democrats – it’s in fact more likely than ever to go to the Tories or Greens – but don’t think that there will be a rebound from Lib Dems to Labour amongst that particular group. Iraq has been replaced by a general feeling of malaise as a specific bone of contention.
As for tuition fees… abolition of tuition fees remains party policy. Whether it will make it to the manifesto is a different matter. The smart money is on a promise along the lines of ‘IF we have enough money by the end of the parliament, we will abolish student tuition fees’, i.e. a compromise. I don’t think withdrawal of the commitment would be that damaging to the Lib Dems. True, it was a USP. But neither of the other mainstream parties has a promise to abolish tuition fees (I don’t know about the Greens, but I’m guessing that they do), and so they can’t use it as a stick to beat them with. Anyway, students are far from single issue voters! The economy matters as much to them as anyone – if not more, as they bear a disproportionately large part of the unemployment burden. The environment, too, is an important issue.
Of course, the tuition fees issue is a classic Lib Dem fudge isn’t it. Knowing that dropping the committment to abolish them would be both unpopular and alienate a lot of Lib Dem voters and activists, they all seem to have agreed a compromise.
Basically, the new policy is that it remains the policy of the party but that the party has absolutely no intention of doing it if they get power.
In which case what’s the point?
Oh, it’s a fudge alright (the importance of tuition fees within the Lib Dems is more as a symbol than anything – they don’t call it totemic for nothing). But the psephological impact is my main point, and it’s hard to assess – Labour can’t use it as a stick to beat the Lib Dems with because of their current policy and the introduction of top-up fees, and neither can the Tories, but the resulting confusion amongst activists in university towns like Oxford means that it is likely to be less prominent in campaigning than in 2005. The result will probably be slightly net negative for the Lib Dems, but less than some commentators (including party activists) have supposed.
Electoral Calculus is currently listing this seat as one of just three predicted Liberal Democrat gains (discounting adjusted figures which notionally make this a LibDem seat already), along with Islington South and Finsbury and Aberdeen South, albeit in Aberdeen South they suggest that three parties are within 2%, i.e. the election is too close to predict.
The Electtoral Calculus prediction hre is:-
Lib Dem 30.30%
Cons 25.72%
Lab 25.30%
Other 18.68%.
It is particularly interesting that Electoral Calculus actually puts the Tories ahead of Labour, albeit obviously the difference will not be statistically significant.
I can think of three reasons why Electoral Calculus may be underestimating the Tory vote here:-
1. Recent LibDem difficulties with their Unique Selling Point of abolishing university fees may cost them votes.
2. The high turnover of student voters may now help the Conservatives. It is likely that many new voters, particulalry in an establishment university like Oxford, may follow the bandwagon of the party currently on a roll, i.e. the Tories.
3. Whereas in 2005 Labour had the Oxford educated leader, Blair, now it is the Tories’ Cameron who is well known to have been at Oxford.
I am prepared to think that adjustments to the Electoral Calculus prediction for these three factors is such that the Tories may well be winning this seat if national voting intentions stay as at present.
One difficulty for the Tories is that their candidate is one of the large number, as “The Times” has recently pointed out, who has not had a “proper job”, but has only been a management consultant and a political advisor. It remains to be seen if such criticisms will actually hurt such candidates’ chances.
I suspect that (unusually) Electoral Calculus may be overestimating the Other, and specifially the Green vote. One reason is that there are indications that the Greens may not ne on top campaigning form here. In addition, Tatchell is the only declared candidate, according to the profiles, who has neither been Oxford educated not been a local councillor, and historically Oxford consistently sends to parliament people with either gown or town, or both, backgrounds. I suspect that electors here may not care about any other personal factors providing the candidate is able, conscientious and Oxford-connected.
I actually think that as things stand the third (or second, given the unpredicatabilty of Aberdeen South) best LibDem prospect is City of Durham, where Electoral Calculus currenty show a Labour lead of 0.90%, but where there is a high student vote and the LibDems are the only realistic challenger.
See the Liverpool Wavertree thread for further discussion of possible LibDem gains from Labour.