Election Prediction Project
www.electionprediction.org
British General Election
Watford

Current Prediction:
Election Profile:

Candidates:
Labour Party:
Claire M. Ward
Conservative Party:
Michael McManus
Liberal Democratic Party:
Duncan J. Hames
Green Party:
Denise Kingsley
Socialist Alliance:
Jonathan Berry

Incumbent:
Ms Claire Ward

97 Result:
Claire Ward
25,01945.3%
Robert Gordon
19,22734.8%
Andy Canning
9,27216.8%
Total Vote Count / Turnout
55,23674.63%

92 Result: (Redistributed)
19,89634.0%
28,15948.1%
9,80716.8%
Total Vote Count / Turnout
58,53581.1%

Demographic Profile:
Age:
< 1619.9%
16-2413.4%
25-3924.5%
40-6525.9%
65 <16.4%

Ethnic Origin:
White91.2%
Black1.8%
Indian/Pakistani4.8%
Other non-white2.1%

Employment:
Full Time67.9%
Part Time14.2%
Self Employed10.5%
Government Schemes0.7%
Unemployed6.8%

Household SEG:
I - Professional8.0%
II - Managerial/Technical34.1%
III - Skilled (non-manual)16.9%
IIIM - Skilled (manual)24.5%
IV - Partly Skilled11.4%
V - Unskilled3.5%

Misc:
Own Residence72.3%
Rent Residence26.1%
Own Car(s)74.5%
Submissions
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01/05/01 mb Email:
Claire Ward has consistently followed the Government line on everything, including conspicuously refusing unequivocably to back the campaign against the threatened closure of the local hospital (the plans are currently on hold). She is not widely respected. At the same time, the Labour-run Borough council (covering about 75% of the constituency) is highly unpopular and if Labour lose one of three pending by-elections they will lose control for the first time since 1974. There has been lots of publicity for a damning report by the District Auditor of poor financial management in the council. The remaining 25% of the constituency is covered by Three Rivers council where the LibDems took control in 1999. However, the Tories have made no impact whatsoever locally and have failed to make any headway in local elections (in fact in several of the Labour wards in the town they have fallen back to third place having been overtaken by the LibDems who are the main opposition to Labour on the Borough council and are clearly the main anti-Labour choice in local elections). The LibDems are active locally (they win most votes in local elections in the Borough and across the constituency in most years) and have a good candidate fighting a strong campaign. Coming from third place they cannot expect to win; but they may well do enough to split the anti-Labour vote allowing Ms Ward to hang on.

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Last Updated 1 May 2001
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