17:11 Tuesday 30th April 2013
Drive
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire
[C]HRIS MANN: Put your prediction hat on. Give us a bit of analysis Andrew. How bad could things be for the Tories, on Thursday, here in Cambridgeshire?
ANDREW SINCLAIR: Well, they will lose seats. And they expect to lose seats, because last time round when these seats were up for grabs it was 2009, Gordon Brown was Prime Minister and very unpopular, David Cameron was very popular. Things are now very different. But the big question, not just here in Cambridgeshire I think but across the country, will be how many seats will the Conservatives lose. If they lose a handful, everyone will say, well, that’s just the way these things go. If they lose them in significant numbers, there’ll be big questions asked about why are the Conservatives so unpopular. Is it a problem with the Prime Minister? Has the Government got completely the wrong set of policies? I think, across the country, if the Tories lose more than 300, that will be considered a bad result. If they lose more than 500 seats across the country, expect a lot of questions about the Prime Minister’s leadership. The big unknown in this election is UKIP, which is fighting very hard at the moment, particularly in Cambridgeshire. They could well pick up some seats in Cambridgeshire. They will certainly split the Tory vote. That will have a big impact on how well or how badly the Tories do. And also the Liberal Democrats, and the conventional wisdom is that the Liberal Democrats are doing badly in the opinion polls, and therefore will get wiped out in these local elections. Remember the Liberal Democrats are the main opposition on Cambridgeshire County Council, and they’re telling me that actually their vote is holding up quite strongly, and they might even pick up seats.
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