Students could decide election

The redrawing of electoral boundaries will give Warwick students increased influence in the next general election.

The population of Warwickshire has increased more than most of the country so it is now entitled to six rather than five Westminster constituencies. The change will take effect at the next general election, which will be in 2010.

Due to the boundary changes the part of campus west of Gibbet Hill road (it includes Hurst, Redfern, Cryfield, Lakeside, Heronbank), which was part of Rugby and Kenilworth (a Lab-Con marginal held by the Conservatives), is now part of the new Kenilworth and Southam constituency.

According to Electoral Calculus the notional 2005 result for this seat are Con: 51 percent, Lab: 26 percent, Lib: 21 percent, a conservative majority of 25 percent. According to the same website the Tories should win 58 percent of the votes and have a majority of 40 percent.

The part of campus which is east of Gibbet Hill road is part of the Coventry South constituency. In 2005 Labour won with a 15.4 percent majority. There have only been minor changes in the boundaries since 2005. The website Electoral Calculus predicts that the Tories would win with a 1.31 percent majority, which corresponds to about 600 votes.

There are over 6,000 students on campus and a large proportion of them live in that constituency. Also most of Earlsdon lies in Coventry South, meaning it is likely Warwick students will have a large impact on the result in this seat.

In 2005 Labour won the Warwick and Leamington seat with a majority of 266 votes but the change in the boundaries, mainly removing some rural fringes, means that Labour would have won with a majority of over 5,500 votes (13 percent).

However, Electoral Calculus predicts that the Tories will win with a majority of 3.78 percent (about 1,700 votes). Given the amount of students living in Leamington Spa it is likely that they may have a strong impact on the results.

All the above predictions are based on opinion poll from 11 Sep ‘09 to 02 Oct ‘09, sampling 5,587 people. These polls would give the Tories an overall majority of 44 seats out of 650.

In contrast with Warwick where the Lib-Dems have no realistic chance of winning, Oxford and Cambridge are both Lib-Lab marginals.