The general election result in Southampton Itchen, which saw Conservative Royston Smith win by a majority of just 31 votes, means the constituency is now first in Labour’s list of ‘top ten target seats’, according to a Guardian report.
• Smith clings on to Southampton Itchen - by 31 votes!
Article continues after this message...
The paper lists what it says are now the top 10 Labour target seats, and suggests that the party’s “hopes of ousting the Tories from power are now within its grasp if a general election is called within the next two years”.
Royston Smith took the Itchen seat, which includes Bitterne Park, apparently after three re-counts, just beating the leader of Southampton City Council Simon Letts, who was standing for Labour.
Interviewed by the BBC (from approx 52 mins in), Smith said: “It’s a different position to when we started, and that is a worse position than when we started, so I think we have to acknowledge that this hasn’t been a great night.”
On his Facebook page, he thanked “every single one of the 21,773 people who voted for me in yesterday's election. I will continue to work on behalf of all of my constituents, and once again thank you.”
The chart below shows how the votes were divided across the parties in Southampton Itchen:
Meanwhile in Southampton Test, which covers St Denys and Portswood, it was a different story, with Labour’s Alan Whitehead, right, increasing his majority from 3810 to a whopping 11503.
On the BBC’s Sunday Politics South (56 mins in), Whitehead said he didn’t expect to get such a large majority, and even at the start of the count Labour had thought they’d won only by “low thousands”.
18 - 25 vote 'off the scale'
He put some of his success down to younger people voting.
“It wasn’t just students, it was a whole host of younger people firstly getting registered, and secondly going out to vote. If we look at the percentage of young people traditionally voting in elections, 18 – 25s, and who voted in this election, it was just off the scale. And they were clearly enthused by what Labour had to say...”
The announcement of Alan Whitehead's victory confirmed that there would indeed be a hung parliament.