Ceredigion is a previously safe LibDem seat, with a 21% majority for an MP sitting since 2005 and standing again.
A large constituency it is part rural and contains two Universities: Aberystwyth and Lampeter.
It is this 9,000 strong student presence (mostly English students) that has tilted the seat libdem, despite the rural and large welsh speaking influence elsewhere in the constituency
It is the PC number one target and an interesting battle.
For those 9,000 students, after the Libdem tuition fee controversy in the formation of the 2010 coalition can the party rely on the bloc vote as it did in the last two elections? Might this outweigh the anecdotal trend that the LD vote is holding better in their own seats than national polling suggests, the incumbency effect?
So in 2010 the LibDems polled 19,000+ and Plaid Cymru 10,000+. Some forecasters anticipate a drop in the LD vote to around 13-14,000.
If so this is by no means an impossible target for Plaid Cymru, needing to add at least 3,000 to their 2010 total Their candidate Mike Parker was born in Birmingham and is a television presenter. Might he appeal outside the Welsh speaking community?
Ceredigion could be very close indeed.
Now the really interesting thing
Nick Clegg has not visited the constituency in this campaign.
you what?
its not safe, and its LD winnable. why has he not visited?
his answer "i don't have time to visit every seat"
well they have 57, expected to lose 30. 20 of those 30 are lost for sure. surely Ceredigion should be visited?
i think in a month Clegg could visit all 57
what does not going to Ceredigion suggest?
a) he thinks he doesn't need to visit it, they'll win
or
b) he thinks there's no point visiting it, its lost
or
c) with 9,000 students his visit would be counter-productive....implying they'll lose most of these votes
6/4 PC to win the seat.
all aboard
http://www.oddschecker.com/politics/british-politics/ceredigion/winning-partyas a cross-check
PC have three seats, odds on to hold all three
generally they are shorter than 6/4 over 3.5 seats
http://www.oddschecker.com/politics/british-politics/next-uk-general-election/total-seats-plaid-cymruanother crosscheck the journalist Iain Dale has forecast each constituency over the past couple of years
last week he wrote (after i first wrote most of the above)
"Ceredigion
2010 Result:
Conservative: 4421 (11.6%)
Labour: 2210 (5.8%)
Lib Dem: 19139 (50%)
Plaid Cymru: 10815 (28.3%)
Green: 696 (1.8%)
UKIP: 977 (2.6%)
MAJORITY: 8324 (21.8%)
Sittting MP: Mark Williams (LibDem)
Prediction: LibDem hold
Revised Prediction: Plaid Cymru gain
Plaid Cymru seem to be very confident they can take back this seat, which they unexpectedly lost in 2005. The LibDems will be badly affected by the loss of the student vote in Aberystwyth and Lampeter, but it’s difficult to work out how badly. I still think it’s a big call to predict anything other than a narrowish LibDem hold here, but I may well be proved wrong. UPDATE: I had a flood of correspondence suggesting I have got this wrong. Looking at some of the Welsh blogs and academic websites I’m tempted to agree."
http://www.iaindale.com/posts/2015/03/17/revised-general-election-predictions-for-walesThis is incredible work. I´ve never felt sorry for a bookie before and I´m confident(ish) that I never will again but how can they compete with this? It´s one of my sayings that to get ahead in gambling (and life) you need to work harder or apply more intelligence than the competition. Seems to me like Tighty has done both here. Thank you sharing this, it´s very impressive. They´ll probably only let me have a tenner each now, the b******s! ;-)