Ed, London seats and the media narrative

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

An interesting undercurrent to the media narrative surrounding the leadership result has been the allusion from some journalists that Ed Miliband’s support is not as strong as it might be – particularly in London. Paul Waugh made an interesting observation yesterday that “David Miliband came first in every single one of the capital’s 73 seats” but unfortunately that’s only a fraction of the full story.

Given that the Labour leadership race was conducted under the Alternative Vote rather then First Past the Post this headline statement may have shock value but adds little to our understanding of the Labour leadership race. Had the contest not been conducted under AV, doubtless all campaigns would have approached matters differently – but it is the aim of a campaign to win within the existing rules and systems. Ed’s team were very clearly running an AV campaign, treating second preferences as something of real value.

Of course, if we are going to play “pick your own election system”, then we could consider the first round result on First Past the Post within a One Member One Vote context in which MPs and affiliates votes both had equal weight with the votes of party members. In this case – Ed Miiband won first preferences with 125,649 to David’s 114,205.