Data mining the PLP vote: who are the Ed-ites?
The following is compiled in the spirit of Jeremy Vine on election night, or Statto from Fantasy Football League:
I've been data mining the MP/MEP voting patterns in the Labour leadership election. While it would be wrong to impute motives to indivuduals for the way they voted, you can discern patterns, specifically as to the question whether there is a "centre-left" constituency that would support an Ed+Ed coalition.
There are 85 Labour MPs (out of 256) who voted first preference for the winner, Ed Miliband. Of these, 22 voted for him only - with no preference beyond him - including Emily Thornberry, Joan Ruddock, Maria Eagle, Natascha Engel, Dawn Primarolo and Margaret Beckett. (I do not want to be the person that coins the epithet "Ed's Babes", because this group also includes 11 men. Maybe some tabloid journo will.)
Next, how do you measure the "centre-left" component of that constituency? Those who voted for Balls or Abbott second and not David? Not an easy assumption to make since the centre-left Compass grouping split, some like Jon Cruddas supporting David M as number one, and others like Chukka Umunna, putting Ed M as number one and David as number two.
However, 17 of the new leader's supporters did put Ed Miliband #1 and Ed Balls #2, and they include leftwingers like Lisa Nandy, Frank Dobson, Hywel Francis.
A further 23 put Balls first and Ed Miliband second, including Gordon Brown's former link men, Jon Trickett, Tom Watson and Michael Dugher. Apart from Balls himself, only one other MP voted for Balls alone, not wishing to choose anyone but him, and that was his wife, Yvette Cooper.
So this centre-left, Ed+Ed crossover group numbers about 40.
Of Diane Abbott's 7 supporters only 4 put Ed Miliband second, with Katy Clark putting him third after Andy Burnham and both Abbott and thwarted candidate John McDonnell voting for Abbott alone. But you can add them all to a notional left group, bringing it to a nominal 47.
There are 40 MP/MEPs who voted David #1, Ed Miliband #2, and they roughly define the "centre" of the Labour party - including David Miliband himself, leftish MPs like Stella Creasy and John Mann, through to Brown prodigies like Gloria di Piero and Brown critics like Graham Allen. Centre left figurehead Cruddas himself went for David, Ed Balls #2 and put Ed Miliband third.
Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman do not appear to have voted.
The band of MPs who wanted David #1 but put Ed Miliband fourth or fifth (as in "over my dead body and my ruined career") were small. Only Newport West MP Paul Flynn managed to put Ed Miliband fifth, and six David supporters have him down as fourth (including David Lammy, Mike Gapes).
Finally 56 Labour MPs or MEPs could not bring themselves to vote for the new leader at all, with any of their preferences. Burnham, Abbot and Balls voted only for themselves presumably as matter of etiquette. But a number of prominent Labour cabinet ministers are among those who cast no vote for the new leader: Alan Johnson, Jack Straw, Alistair Darling and David Blunkett; also a number of veteran Blairite backbenchers.
What conclusions can you draw from all this data-mining? Nothing earth-shattering. However...
If, as the newspapers suggest, Labour is about to veer left under Ed Miliband, there is a minority among the MEPs/MPs who fall into middle of a Venn Diagram of those supporting Balls, Abbott or Ed Miliband himself, numbering around 110. There are probably 40 out of the 50+ who failed to vote for him at all, who are outright political opponents, and for the rest there is the centre.
Obviously it would be wrong to impute specific motives to specific MPs' votes - but by aggregating the results you can see the beginnings of groupings within the new PLP, which were not really formed openly before because the power-broking was being done by the remnants of the Brown team. And now it is not.
The raw results are available . Strip them into Excel and use the sort function to do your own datamining. I have not managed to calculate how the new intake of Labour MPs' votes split, but hopefully somebody will. Let me know if there are any mistakes above.
Comment number 1.
At 27th Sep 2010, stanilic wrote:Quite frankly, not being a Labour supporter, I don't really care who voted for whom and why. What I do know is that Ed Milliband is a vast improvement on the former leader whether he be Red Ed or Ed Dead.
I think a lot of the media buzz is really irrelevant. Ed has to set up the Labour stall in a coherent way. This is a big ask for a relative new boy.
However, he will give it his best: so let's wait for his big speech before we start speculating as to where the party may or may not go.
I would like Labour to go back to its roots in localism, mutualism and co-operation. I think this is unlikely as too many Labour supporters are also corporate animals. Is Ed a corporate beast? Interesting thought that?
I fear that in the medium term it will not go well for Ed. What needs to happen in our economy is not what modern Labour wants. This is a pity for both sides.
Labour's future requires that it goes forward to the past and rediscovers what it should have been in the first place.
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Comment number 2.
At 27th Sep 2010, DebtJuggler wrote:Why not try some REAL investigative journalism....and ask Ed what his idea of Socialism is?
He got voted in on the Socialism ticket...did he not? (or his he just another closet Trotskyist?)
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Comment number 3.
At 28th Sep 2010, HM_The_Queen wrote:Here's my datamining, subjects:
Union section of the electoral college, valid ballots, first preference votes cast were as follows:
Miliband, E 87,585 41%
Miliband, D 58,189 28%
Abbott 25,938 12%
Balls 21,618 10%
Burnham 17,904 8%
Total 211,234
Real votes, cast by ordinary union members - not block votes.
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Comment number 4.
At 28th Sep 2010, dinosaur wrote:Here's a radical suggestion:
If Miliband moves the Labour party to the left, we'll notice. At the next general election, we would then be able to choose whether to support that, or not. Which would make quite a pleasant change, compared with the current process of voting for someone or something (Tory, LibDem, Cameron, Clegg), and discovering after the election what they decide we voted for.
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Comment number 5.
At 28th Sep 2010, stevie wrote:so comforting to know that my MP also voted for my choice, Ed as well. She must know something........
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Comment number 6.
At 28th Sep 2010, guy evans wrote:So. To follow his inner convictions and become the rather fluffy ideologically lite "Red Ed"? Or confound his critics and reject the Balls/UNITE leftist agenda?
If the former:
The Labour party will survive, indeed do well when the cuts bite (much like Kinnock did in the mid 80s) but become seen as a rump of discontent by the time of the next General Election once the economy begins to get going. This will be especially true in the South where Labour needs to pick up support. They'll be seen as a bunch of moaners and, according to the Murdoch press "the supporters of a bloated and complacent public sector and dole queue shirkers".
If the latter:
He'll not be able to trust his instincts to cut through the day to day mayhem of a 24 hour rolling news politiciking. Instead he'll be forced to calibrate and maneuver himself into a knot, trying to "listen" to all the lumpy (lumpen?) factions within the party. He needs to remember that, for all the democratic pretensions of the Labour movement, The PLP are suckers for dictators and have NEVER committed regicide.
Solution:
Some VERY VERY deep thinking about the long term direction of progressive politics and economics. He needs to begin to fashion a vision of where the UK can be in 30 years time, not in 3. Just as the neo-libs began their revolution in the mid 20th century but had to wait until the 70s to try their theories out, and the 90s to see their project come to full fruition with the repeal of Glass-Steagal and the turbo-capitalism of a "no boom & bust" ideology spoken by a so-called Red Labour chancellor. That Ed will say it was wrong isn't enough. What though should he offer in its place, more than cuddly fluffy "we care about fairness"? Might as well say "i want nice things to happen". DOH. In other words, or rather your words Paul, what are we going to make in the country? We can't base an economy around house prices and shopping. i don't expect him to outline it today but he needs to begin to think long term and not not only how to get elected.
In some senses he can leave the polls to take care of themselves, and leave his lieutenants to get on with the easy task of bashing the Govt when they bite. He'll have space and time to develop a new radical agenda in opposition. Ignore the press (they'll hate you no matter what u do), and develop a vision which is more than a few warm fuzzy words. Keep it private tho cos wonkery doesn't do much for the GBP.
If the coalition manages to get the economy moving in 3 yrs time they'll be able to say the pain was "worth it", and arguing that it wasn't or it was too painful, though maybe true, will only get Labour so far. They need to set out a route map to a DIFFERENT future to that which the ConDems will offer. Fair Society? Just word play on DC's Big Society. Not a policy, let alone an ideology. Also all very 19th Century. Change the lexicon to something different. We'll be sick of the squishy public school "reasonableness" of NC/DC in 3 years time. Something gutsy, plain-speaking, eloquent, driven. I somehow doubt that though with Mister Ed and his "do dickets do dottingham" plummy voice. Someone please send the poor man some TUNES. Though i'm NOT, repeat NOT advocating the mind-numbing affront to intelligence which is Ed B and his humourless partner in crime, Mrs B.
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