Thinking about Norwich North

I kept quiet about it, as I was quite nervous, but I have just done my first live TV interview on News 24. It was certainly an experience. At one stage, it looked like it was going to degenerate into a complete farce, as there was a torrential rainstorm which started about half an hour before we were due to do it.

The clouds roll in a few minutes before I was interviewed

This was a particular problem was that the BBC had decided to do the broadcast outside, from a hill with a view of the whole city. For the past few hours, they had interviewed all the candidates, one a every hour. I was going to be the academic voice at the end, to put it all into context. It was a great idea, but they hadn’t counted on the British weather, and had been dodging showers all day. When it came to my interview, it looked like their luck had run out and we were going to get drenched.

But then, in the space of about three minutes, it all clearer up. We were good to go.

It all went pretty well, I think, but I wanted to recount what I said, partially to offer explanations that were beyond the scope of a short TV interview, and partially because we got cut a little short by them needing to fit in an extra link in London.

The first question related to whether there would be a rebellion against mainstream parties. Certainly, there is a question whether people will vote for minor parties or abstain from voting for the major parties, especially after the expenses scandal. So far, so predictable.

But then things got a bit more interesting. Norwich is Green Party country. After Brighton, it might be the area of the country where the party is strongest, being the third party on the city county council and second on the city council. They also have high hopes because of the one opinion poll published since Ian Gibson’s resignation, which put them on 14 per cent. However, in the interview, I may have sounded sceptical about the Green’s chances, suggesting a result of 7 or 8 per cent would be a huge achievement for them. To be clear and fair, however, I actually don’t think that is sceptical. Some of the more excitable people in Norwich are talking about the Greens winning the election or getting their best ever Westminster election result (which would mean more than the 22 per cent they got in Brighton Pavillion in 2005).

It is worth pointing out that, in the past at least, Norwich North has been a far weaker area for the Greens than the adjoining Norwich South (where the UEA is). In 2005, the Greens polled 7.6 per cent in the South and 2.7 per cent in the North. While conditions in a by-election may lend themselves to the Greens doing rather better (the extreme focus on a specific location, the post-expenses scandal environment, the ability to focus campaigning resources on a single fight, and the likely lower turnout than in a general election), it is important that perspective is maintained. If the Greens were to achieve parity with their Norwich South vote, that would be a great result for them, being a 300 per cent increase. Anything more than that would be an exceptional performance (and although there has been one poll pubished giving them 14 per cent, the figures are very soft – it was done before the by-election candidates had all declared themselves and only had a sample size of 500, of whom only 294 actually answered the question). One problem the Greens may have is that commentators are constructing unrealistic expectations for them and, because of this, a very good result for them may be seen as disappointing.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to make my last point. I had chatted with the reporter in advance, and we agreed I wasn’t going to make a prediction (regular readers of my blog will know that I have a horrendous track record on that kind of thing), but I would say that Labour have a huge fight on their hands to remain competative and that the Conservatives would hope to win the constituency, and would probably be quite disappointed if they didn’t take it. The reason? In order to win, the Tories need a swing of somewhere around 5.8 per cent. That would put it at the upper end of the Conservative’s top 100 target seats. In a general election, Norwich North and seats like it would probably be required to take David Cameron from leading the largest party to winning an outright majority in the Commons. For that reason, it is kind of must win.