Lies, damned lies, and election statistics
When it comes to election time, we’re all used to some pretty dodgy statistics being bandied about to confuse the unwary voter. But using figures from an election four years ago, as the Greens are doing in their election literature, and suggesting this reflects current support for the various parties contesting the Worthing Pier division in this year’s County Council elections, is wilfully misleading.
In the absence of a current local opinion poll, which we obviously don’t have, results from last year’s local elections in same area have got to be a much more reliable indicator of the current standing of the parties.
The larger Worthing Pier division used in the County Council election is made up of most of the two Worthing Borough Council wards Central and Heene. In both wards Labour were just pipped at the post by the Tories – by 34 votes in Central and 70 votes in Heene. The Greens were a poor fourth across the two wards on just 13% of the vote.
This is the actual share of the vote for each party last year (2016) in the Worthing Pier area:
Conservative 32%
Labour 30%
UKIP 17%
Green 13%
Lib Dem 8%
So the suggestion made by the Greens in their election leaflet that they are in second place is just absurd.
And if we look at the trend in local elections in the Pier area over the last four years, it’s even clearer that the story is all about a Labour surge with support for all the other parties falling away. None, including the Greens, are now even close to being contenders to win in this area.
Share of the vote in the Worthing Pier area in the last four year’s local elections 
Our results from doorstep conversations with voters across the Pier Division this year are confirming just what the graph shows. Labour is neck and neck with the Tories … and the Greens, Lib Dems and UKIP are just not in the picture.
In this County Council election, Worthing Pier is definitely a two-horse race which Labour is well placed to win.
