Posters galore in the streets of Ealing

From John Cartwright (OMRLP)
13th July - Today I was interviewed by an American work experience journalist from the New Statesman outside Ealing Town Hall, only to be interrupted by Charles Kennedy, Lord Rennard and a gaggle of Lib Dem activists displaying large yellow placards in their traditional psephological mating-ritual with the cameras.

This was followed by more placarding, this time through Ealing Common and Northfields, as well as more in Southall Green.

There were a few Lib Dem posters in residential houses, balanced by Conservative supporters in the streets, several posters in Southall for the independent candidate Jasdev S. Rai, alongside the usual Labour and Respect posters.

The afternoon was rounded off by a delicious sampling of chicken salad and chapatis in a Somali cafe.

It is still rather difficult to guess what the result might be, other than to say that there is unlikely to be a tactical third-party squeeze. Substantial apparent support for Tony Lit (and Respect, and Rai) in the shop windows and streets is balanced by a subtle and not-very-obvious predominance of Lib Dem posters in the windows of ordinary houses. ("Predominace" meaning about 4 or 5, not loads).

There will be five sessions of postal votes being opened from today onwards (I didn't watch any today), but it should be noted that as of the new legislation

(Section 66(2A) of the Representation of the People Act 1983, as amended by the Electoral Administration Act 2006), No person attending at the verification of the ballot paper accounts shall express to any person an opinion based on information obtained at that verification as to the likely result of the election.

Therefore it would not be right for me to make any predictions publicly or on the internet about what the result might be at any time after seeing the opening of postal votes.

Therefore, just in case I watch some of the postal votes being checked on Monday or later, I will stick my neck out and make a prediction now while I am still unpolluted with privileged information:

Lab.............. 35%
LD............... 30%
Con.............. 21%
Respect.......... 6%
Green............. 2.7%
Rai (Ind)........ 2.4%
UKIP............. 1.0%
ED................. 0.7%
OMRLP.......... 0.5%
Chr P. (PCL)... 0.3%
G.Singh (Ind).. 0.2%
Grewal (Ind)... 0.2%
Loony candidate