Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent, 12 Oct 1999
By A Customer
This book is a must for every election enthusiast, describing in detail the political characteristics of every single parliamentary seat in the UK, and giving valuable insights into the prospects for each at the next general election. A highly absorbing read.
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1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
excellent in general but new edition disappointing, 24 Feb 2002
The British Political Almanac is well established as the most authoritative guide to Britain's parliamentary constituencies on the market at the moment. The 4th edition in 1995 was much more comprehensive than its predecessor, however this (5th edition 1999) is disappointing, in that with some exceptions, in general its revisions are limited to only a few words, or even less in most of the constituencies. With such a seismic general election result in 1997, one would have expected more comment and analysis. Nevertheless, it's still a very useful resource, and I look forward to the next edition which will probably be delayed until the new boundaries are fully redrawn.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
This seventh edition was a good guide to the situation in 2002, 6 April 2007
This is the seventh edition, describing the political situation in British constituencies during the 2001 to 2005 parliament.
Of the three guides which I read at the time (I am comparing it to the Times Guide to the House of Commons, and "The political map of Britain" for the same parliament) this was the most informative and helpful.
This book also proved a more reliable guide to the likely outcomes in 2005 than "The political map of Britain." Robert Waller and his co-author Byron Criddle who wrote this book were much less likely than Henig and Baston, and authors of other rival predictions, to make the mistake of assuming that the 1997 and 2001 patterns of results would simply be repeated.
With this sort of book, the quality of the analysis depends on the detailed consideration of individual seats. The best way to explain why this book performed better than its rivals is to illustrate the point with reference to a specific constituency I know well, which this book called correctly and rival books got wrong.
The electoral history of St Albans up to 2001 was largely given accurately in most, though not all accounts. However, a surprising number of psethological experts failed to spot trends which should have been fairly obvious.
The Conservatives in St Albans and surrounding areas suffered two hammer blows in the early 1990's with Black Wednesday and the closure of A&E and Maternity at the local hospital, and suffered very badly indeed in elections between 1993 and 1997. However, since 1998 the Conservatives have been on a very steady recovering trend, always in terms of vote share, and sometimes in terms of council seats.
The recovery in the Conservative vote was often masked in terms of council seats, partly because much of it came in safe Tory wards, and partly because the ongoing collapse of the Labour vote often benefitted the Lib/Dems slightly more that the Conservatives, especially in Tory/Liberal marginal wards. Ironically the result of First Past The Post in St Albans council elections in recent years has been a significant bias towards the Liberal Democrats and against the Tories, to such an extent that the Lib/Dems currently (May 07) control the council on the Mayor's casting vote despite having polled fewer votes than the Conservatives at the last three elections.
Meanwhile Labour have been slowly losing first the extra council seats which they won at the height of Tony Blair's popularity, and then some of their previous "core" support.
The only astonishing thing about Labour's loss of the St Albans parliamentary seat in 2005 to Anne Main and the Conservatives was the fact that it took some political commentators by surprise. Other books, which had not done the detailed analysis well enough, had made comments suggesting that the Conservatives "have a real problem in St Albans" and inferring that Labour could hang on, which now look very silly.
The Almanac of British Politics, by contrast, predicted that Labour would be very vulnerable in St Albans if their broad appeal in 1997 and 2001 should contract, and they were proved right in 2005.
I've given one example but there were others. Obviously the 7th edition is now dated but it was the best constituency analysis of the last parliament. I'm looking forward with interest to the 8th edition.
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