London jitters for Labour
By politics.co.uk staff
A third of Labour’s seats in London could be under threat at the next general election, research has shown.
Work carried out by the Evening Standard on the last four months of Populus polls suggested with a uniform swing of 9.5 per cent away from Labour the party faces a major collapse in the capital.
In addition to marginal seats like Battersea, much safer constituencies like Jon Cruddas’ Dagenham could find themselves under threat.
The extent of Labour’s vulnerability in London will alarm the party as it prepares for its autumn conference in Brighton.
But with some MPs fighting to buck the trend and prevent the uniform swing from hitting their seats, the impact could be substantially reduced.
Populus founder Andrew Cooper told the Standard: “It is very much a worst case scenario because many sitting Labour MPs have a personal vote that would make a uniform swing unlikely.
“But it implies a massive shift in support from Labour to the Conservatives, not all that far short of the biggest national swing in post-war history, which was the 10.5 per cent swing to Labour in 1997.”
