East or West Southend, which is more winnable?

Here are the votes for the last seven general elections in the two Southend-on-Sea constituencies.

Southend West

	Conservative	Labour	Liberal Democrat	UKIP	Green	others
1992	27319	6139	15417		451	622
1997	18029	10600	15414	636		1835
2001	17313	9372	9319	1371
2005	18408	9072	9449	1349		1552
2010	20086	5850	12816	1714	644	2496
2015	22175	8154	4129	7803	2083	165
2017	26046	16046	2110	1666	831	492

Rochford and Southend East

	Conservative	Labour	Liberal Democrat	UKIP	Green	others
1992	24591	11480	5107			673
1997	22683	18458	4387			1007
2001	20058	13024	2780		990	600
2005	17874	12384	5967	1913	1328
2010	19509	8459	8084	2405	707	2467
2015	20241	10765	1459	8948	2195
2017	23013	17465	1265	1777	804	2924

It is received wisdom in the Labour Party in Southend-on-Sea that our prospects are much better in the east of the borough than they are in the west. This is based on a number of factors:

·         It is wisdom passed down through the years

·         The 1980 Southend East by-election when the Conservative majority was reduced to 430

·         Conservative majorities in the east have usually been smaller than those in the west

·         There are more Labour councillors in the east (currently six in the east, as opposed to three in the west)

·         The traditional second party in the west is the Liberal Democrats

These factors make sense, and you can see why the east has soaked up the majority of Southend Labour's resources over the years. It may be true going forwards too, but we should not ignore  the facts, particularly if they indicate that the west may hold possibilities.

Winnability sometimes comes down to self-fulfilling prophecy; keep saying we cannot win, or not putting in any significant effort, and the electorate will agree and not bother voting for you.

Looking at the chart below, which indicates the Conservative vote share for the last seven general elections, one can see that there have been occasions when the vote share in the west was lower than in the east. Now, if only we could manage the trick of getting all the non-Tory vote to back us ....

 

Tory vote share % in the two Southend constituencies, 1992 - 2017

So, which is more winnable for Labour? Well, it looks like it still is the eastern constituency, but.