Reality-BasedTM Political Numbers from Nicholas Beaudrot
Electoral Math
Reality-BasedTM Political Numbers from Nicholas Beaudrot
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In the immediate aftermath of the UK election, I claimed that many of the Conservative gains were due to an increased protest vote for the Lib Dems. Was I right? BBC has been kind enough to put up a list of gains and losses for each party. Let's have a closer look at Tory gains to see whether or not my hypothesis turned out to be true. We're mostly concerned with Tory gains from Labour:
| Seat | LAB +/- | CON +/- | LD +/- | Margin of Victory |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Braintree | -4.9 | +3.2 | +2.0 | 7.3 |
| Monmouth | -5.8 | +5.0 | +1.4 | 9.9 |
| Lancaster & Wyre | -8.3 | +0.6 | +5.9 | 8.0 |
| Kettering | -5.0 | +2.1 | +2.2 | 5.9 |
| Northampton South | -7.3 | +2.6 | +2.8 | 8.1 |
| Welwyn Hatfield | -6.9 | +9.2 | 0.0 | 13.3 |
| Shipley | -5.8 | -1.9 | +3.8 | 0.9 |
| Clwyd West | -2.9 | +0.6 | +1.9 | 0.4 |
| Bexleyheath & Crayford | -8.0 | +6.4 | +1.0 | 10.7 |
| Milton Keynes North East | -6.1 | +1.2 | +1.7 | 3.3 |
| Hornchurch | -4.8 | +0.5 | -0.6 | 1.3 |
| Hammersmith & Fulham | -9.1 | +5.6 | +2.6 | 10.2 |
| Forest of Dean | -6.8 | +2.1 | +4.3 | 4.3 |
| Wellingborough | -5.3 | +0.6 | +2.3 | 1.3 |
| Ilford North | -6.0 | +3.2 | +2.0 | 3.8 |
| Rugby & Kenilworth | -6.6 | +1.5 | +4.0 | 2.7 |
| Harwich | -5.3 | +1.9 | +3.2 | +1.8 |
| Peterborough | -9.6 | +4.1 | +2.2 | 6.6 |
| Shrewsbury & Atcham | -10.5 | +0.3 | +10.4 | 3.6 |
| Scarborough & Whitby | -8.8 | +1.4 | +7.6 | 2.7 |
| Preseli Pembrokeshire | -6.3 | +3.3 | +2.3 | 1.7 |
| Putney | -9.0 | +4.0 | +2.7 | 4.8 |
| Hemel Hempstead | -7.3 | +1.8 | +4.4 | 1.1 |
| The Wrekin | -7.2 | +3.5 | +3.3 | 2.1 |
| Croydon Central | -6.6 | +2.3 | +1.8 | 1.5 |
| Wimbledon | -9.8 | +4.6 | +5.1 | 5.3 |
| St Albans | -11.1 | +2.1 | +7.5 | 3.0 |
| Gravesham | -7.7 | +4.9 | +1.5 | 1.4 |
| Domfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale | -4.6 | +11.4 | -1.5 | 3.9 |
| Reading East | -10.5 | +3.4 | +5.7 | 1.1 |
| Endfield Southgate | -11.3 | +6.0 | +4.2 | 4.1 |
Of the 31 Tory gains at the expense of Labour, votes that moved from Labourite candidates to Liberal Democrats represent the margin of victory in 18 seats. In Wimbledon, a first-time Green Party candidate ran; adding his votes to Labour along with the new Lib Dem voters would have been enough to keep the seat in Labour's hands. With 12 additional gains at the expense of Labour, the surge in Lib Dem voting is responsible for 30 of Labour's 47 losses. So I think my initial hypothesis holds, and while a credible Conservative party has allowed the Tories to gain a tiny percentage of the vote, James Forsyth is just wrong; the Lib Dems were clearly the night's big winners.
However, the news is not all rosy for the Liberal Democrats. In particular, their head-to-head contests between Lib Dems and Conservatives were a complete disaster. The Liberal Democrats pursued a "decapitation strategy" against the Tories, hoping to reduce the Conservative party even further, which would force a set of old cranks into the party's leadership that would render the Conservative party unacceptable for an entire generation. Quite simply, this didn't work at all. Of the Lib Dems' top 20 target seats, Conservatives held 14. The Lib Dems won 2 of those seats, reduced the Conservative majority in 3, and lost ground to the Tories in 9 of them. In addition Lib Dems also lost five seats to Conservatives, so while in some areas the party made gains among rural voters, in others they lost ground. Their newfound strength in urban areas, which netted the party two seats in London, one on Manchester, one in Leeds, and Cambridge, has no offset.
Over at BOP, Stirling Newberry has a very effective analysis of the outcome of the British election. The job of Conservatives is to restore its image among the young before the party is literally driven to extinction. The Lib Dems must carefully balance between urban sophisticates, Muslims, and rural areas, and establish themselves as a credible governing party. It still has a ways to go in this department, since at the moment the Lib Dems cannot even credibly threaten enough seats to take control of government. The job of Labour is to restore trust in the party, probably by remaking itself in a way that appears slightly less made-for-television. So far, it appears that Blair's wants the party to address its losses by moving further to the right on crime, school discipline, and make slight nudges towards fixing the asylum system. It's unclear whether or not this sort of thing will honk of the Lib Dem voters, or if all they really want is an end to the perceived untrustworthiness of the Blair government.
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updated by Nicholas Beaudrot on 02:06 07 May 2005
