From: gdb15@grebe.cl.cam.ac.uk (Guy Barry)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: The vagaries of electoral politics (was Re: Rule Britannia)
Date: 16 Nov 92 11:58:17 GMT
Reply-To: gdb15@cl.cam.ac.uk (Guy Barry)
Organization: U of Cambridge Computer Lab, UK

In article <1992Nov16.103006.3086@dcs.qmw.ac.uk> mmh@cs.qmw.ac.uk (Matthew Huntbach) writes:
>From: gdb15@grebe.cl.cam.ac.uk (Guy Barry)
>>4% nationally, but with regional variations).  This may be partly
>>explained by former SDP supporters returning to Labour.
>
>The idea that there ever was a significant bunch of people who
>swung from Labour to the SDP and back is laughable, though once
>again understandable if you read the rubbish printed about
>third party politics in papers like the Guardian. 

I'm just looking at the figures.  I can't remember how the vote split
at the 1979 election, but it was something like Tories 40%, Labour
35%, Liberals 15% (correct me if I'm wrong).  In 1983 it was (roughly)
Tories 43%, Labour 27%, Alliance 25% ; in 1987, Tories 43%, Labour
31%, Alliance 21% ; in 1992, Tories 42%, Labour 35%, LibDems 17% .
The figures do suggest rather strongly that Tory support has been
pretty loyal throughout, whereas there has been a significant movement
of voters from Labour to the Alliance and then gradually back to
Labour again.  Of course, I'm sure this isn't the whole story, but
I suspect it's an important factor.

>The SDP were
>a bunch of yuppies who had no idea how to talk to Labour
>voters. It was the Liberals who managed to win across Labour
>votes in places like Bermondsey, Tower Hamlets, Liverpool and
>Rochdale. The sigificant thing about all these Labour-Liberal
>marginal areas is that there were no interfering SDPers to mess
>up the third party appeal.

Indeed, but there just aren't that many Labour-Liberal marginal
areas, so they don't affect the outcome of the election very
much.  (In 1992 there were 9 Lab-Lib marginals and 4 Lib-Lab ones.)
The seats where the split of votes between Labour and the LibDems
is crucial is in Tory-Labour marginals -- there are the seats on
which the outcome of the election depends.  After doing an informal
comparison of the 1987 and 1992 results in key constituencies
some time ago (I haven't got the 1987 results on-line, so I haven't
done a thorough analysis) I came to the conclusion that it was
mainly the movement from the LibDems to Labour that lost the Tories
seats.  This came as a surprise to me, and I'm not sure whether
most people are aware of it.

This isn't a party political point, by the way; if anything it's a
further indictment of the electoral system (are you reading this,
Jon?).  The SDP's effort to "break the mould" was almost certainly
doomed from the start because they were up against the electoral
system.  The Alliance did well to get 25% in 1983, but it was nowhere
near enough to make a significant breakthrough in terms of seats
(according to Vernon Bogdanor they would have needed at least 38%).
Since then I think there's been a slow dawning realization amongst
opponents of the Tories that they can only be defeated under FPTP if
we return to a two-party system.  Whether the movement against the
LibDems and towards Labour will continue any further I don't know; we
may be reaching the bedrock of LibDem support, in which case it seems
that the only hope of defeating the Tories under the present system is
to wait for them to become *so* incompetent that even their
traditional supporters start deserting them.  (This may already be
happening!)

>>This is bad news for the LibDems, by the way; it means that if
>>voters want to defeat the Tories at the next election then in
>>most cases they'll have to vote Labour.
>
>Unfortunately Labour will use (and did use in 1992) this
>argument to persuade people to vote for them in places where
>they're third and will remain third. I remember an acquaintance
>telling me in the last election "well I really like what the
>LibDems say, and I'd like to vote for them, but I can't
>because that might mean letting the Tories in". In fact she
>lived in one of those Conservative-LibDem marginal seats where
>Labour were a distant third, and it was Labour voters who were
>letting the Tories in. Of course, Labour would far rather
>lose than admit that we now have a multi-party system.

Yes, Labour do have some pretty stupid election tactics, but
fortunately the voters are usually more intelligent; if they want to
get rid of a Tory MP and see that the LibDems have a chance of
defeating him/her, then they'll vote LibDem (as happened in Bath, for
instance).  However, there just aren't that many seats in which the
LibDems are a close enough second for this to happen very often.  Most
seats where the LibDems are second are rock-solid true-blue Tory
heartlands, and quite honestly it doesn't matter whether you vote for
the LibDems, Labour or the Monster Raving Loony Party.  I would still
argue in favour of voting LibDem in those seats, so that next time
round the seat will be *slightly* more marginal than it was last time,
but at an election most people aren't that concerned with what's going
to happen at the next election, or the one after.  ("Vote LibDem and
get rid of the Tories in ten years' time!" -- I can't see that
catching on as a campaign slogan somehow...)
--
Guy Barry, University of Cambridge | Phone: +44 (0)223 334757 
Computer Laboratory                | Fax: +44 (0)223 334678
New Museums Site, Pembroke Street  | JANET: Guy.Barry@uk.ac.cam.cl 
Cambridge CB2 3QG, England, UK     | Internet: Guy.Barry@cl.cam.ac.uk