Lothian
should be banned
Jaggy,
Nice link. I see in May 2005 in England the party with the fewest votes (34) was the Telepathic Partnership, <insert own joke here>.
UK: Snap Election, how would you vote?
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Nice link. I see in May 2005 in England the party with the fewest votes (34) was the Telepathic Partnership, <insert own joke here>.
Ian Osborne
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This simply isn't true. For example:
2005 General Election, England
Labour - 286 seats
Conservative - 194 seats
Lib-Dem - 47 seats
Other - 2 seats
2001 General Election, England
Labour - 323 seats
Conservative - 165 seats
Lib-Dem - 40 seats
Other - 1 seat
1997 General Election, England
Labour - 328 seats
Conservative - 165 seats
Lib-Dem - 34 seats
Other - 2 seats
So the last three elections would've been won by Labour, even without Scotland and Wales.
ETA: I need to do my research a little quicker!
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Tom Morris
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I live in a very safe Tory constituency, and would probably vote for the Liberal Democrat candidate. Ideally, I want a pro-civil-liberties, pro-environmentalism, anti-stupid and pro-secularism candidate, who will vote to spend more on libraries, universities and education (my university library is facing a £1m shortfall in funding due to a reduction in government funding).
Jaggy Bunnet
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The SNP did surprisingly well. 17.89% of votes in seats contested. Maybe Berwick wants to move the border again?
Monster Raving Loony. However, I don't think they actually have a candidate here, so I'd just spoil the ballot. The main parties are basically all just a useless bunch of homogenous wankers, while the minority parties are mostly just single, or few, issue parties who can't really give any serious input. If I was still in Wales I might vote Plaid, but otherwise it's the Loonies or nobody. Politics in this country needs a good kicking, and the only way to do that is to refuse to keep voting for the lesser of two (well, two and a half) evils.
We have that the post Thatcher years have represented something of a different picture, following the effective collapse of the Conservative as a credible voice (but, hell, 18 years in government). There can be no doubt that Labour have extensively relied on their Scottish and Welsh heartlands over the years, indeed the cabinet and chorus of Scottish accents is something of a giveaway in this respect.
Jaggy Bunnet
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I think there can be some:
1974 (Oct) England Only
Labour 255, Tory 252, Libs 8, Other 1. Labour largest party but short of majority. UK majority of 3.
1974 (Feb) England Only
Labour 237, Tory 267, Libs 9 Others 3. Labour not largest party - was largest party in UK but without overall majority.
1966 England Only
Labour 285, Tory 216, Libs 6, Others 4. Labour majority of 59.
1964 England Only
Labour 246, Tory 255, Libs 3, Others 7. Labour not largest party, no overall majority. Labour had UK majority of 4.
History says, for Labour to have a stable government, it has to win more MP's in England than any other party. On the two occasions above where it failed to do so, new elections were called within 18 months and 8 months.
Rolfe
Adult human female
Well, that was a remarkably easy poll to decide on!
Actually, that was a very poor result. Surprisingly poor in fact.
Somewhat different outcome probable next time. Check the most recent opinion polls.
Oh, PLEASE...... (don't we have a praying hands smilie?)
I think that's going to be very difficult. The disproportionately large number of SNP votes suggests that there's a disproportionate number of Scots on the forum, and Scottish voting patterns are very divergent from English. But it will be an interesting exercise.
Rolfe.
Actually, that was a very poor result. Surprisingly poor in fact.
Somewhat different outcome probable next time. Check the most recent opinion polls.
Oh, PLEASE...... (don't we have a praying hands smilie?)
I think that's going to be very difficult. The disproportionately large number of SNP votes suggests that there's a disproportionate number of Scots on the forum, and Scottish voting patterns are very divergent from English. But it will be an interesting exercise.
Rolfe.
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Rolfe
Adult human female
England has been more inclined to vote Conservative over the years than Scotland. However, party preferences tend to oscillate, and when Labour are on a roll they can quite often command a majority in England too. Especially since the "New Labour Project", which was to a large extent about turning the Labour party into the Torys Mark II, to capture and hold the middle-class English vote.
The main Scottish phenomenon has been that voters here didn't buy into the Thatcher philosophy at all, and Scotland remained predominantly Labour through all the Thatcher governments. See "feeble fifty".
Beyond that, there is the geographical question of concentration of votes. In Scotland Labour and LibDem have their own fiefdoms, which tends to deliver them seats well in excess of votes cast. In contrast, Conservative and SNP both need a lot more votes to get a seat, as their votes are more evenly spread. SNP support in particular is even, and I recall even as a school child in (I think) 1966 having it pointed out to me in class how many votes the SNP had achieved and yet won no seats.
I'm not sure how it plays out in England, but I have a feeling that there it is the opposite way round. Conservative vote is concentrated in certain seats, while Labour and LibDem is more evenly spread. If Im, right about that, Labour will need more votes per seats in England than the Tories do.
I suppose these "electoral calculus" programmes take all this into account, and apply swings on a seat-by-seat basis to estimate the actual seats predicted from a certain swing.
As someone else pointed out, the poll ignores Wales and Northern Ireland. I don't think NI influences the outcome much, but Wales is certainly capable of delivering a significant number of Labour seats unless PC gets its act togwther.
Rolfe.
By the way, shouldn't this thread be in Politics?
The main Scottish phenomenon has been that voters here didn't buy into the Thatcher philosophy at all, and Scotland remained predominantly Labour through all the Thatcher governments. See "feeble fifty".
Beyond that, there is the geographical question of concentration of votes. In Scotland Labour and LibDem have their own fiefdoms, which tends to deliver them seats well in excess of votes cast. In contrast, Conservative and SNP both need a lot more votes to get a seat, as their votes are more evenly spread. SNP support in particular is even, and I recall even as a school child in (I think) 1966 having it pointed out to me in class how many votes the SNP had achieved and yet won no seats.
I'm not sure how it plays out in England, but I have a feeling that there it is the opposite way round. Conservative vote is concentrated in certain seats, while Labour and LibDem is more evenly spread. If Im, right about that, Labour will need more votes per seats in England than the Tories do.
I suppose these "electoral calculus" programmes take all this into account, and apply swings on a seat-by-seat basis to estimate the actual seats predicted from a certain swing.
As someone else pointed out, the poll ignores Wales and Northern Ireland. I don't think NI influences the outcome much, but Wales is certainly capable of delivering a significant number of Labour seats unless PC gets its act togwther.
Rolfe.
By the way, shouldn't this thread be in Politics?
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And they only recieved 17.66% in all seats contested; so they were more popular South of the border.
The Lib-Dem's won seats slightly in excess of votes cast in the 1997 UK election but since then they have won fewer seats than votes cast. In 2005 the Lib-Dems recieved 23.1% of the Scottish vote but only 18.6% of seats. Only labour got more seats than votes, so to speak.
The votes per seat won in Scotland were
Conservative 369,388
SNP 68,711
Lib-Dem 48,007
Labour 22,498
In England the Tories won 36.7% of seats of 35.7% of votes, so just about even.
The votes per seat won in England were:
Lib-Dem 110,666
Respect 67,422
Conservative 41,835
Labour 28,124
IKHH 18,739
Interestingly, Labour were not that much more popular in Scotland (38.9% of votes in 2005) and Wales (42.7%) than in England (35.5%). It is just that their vote is a lot more effective in those two countries and the Tories are a lot less popular.
Rolfe
Adult human female
Sorry, come again? The SNP only contest the 59 Scottish seats, end of story. There have occasionally been some tongue-in-cheek suggestions they might put up a candidate for an English seat, but there is a practical reason for not doing that, even as a joke or a protest. Because this would change the way entitlement to party political broadcasts is calculated, it would drastically reduce the number of PPBs the party was entitled to.
I was forgetting how dire the 2005 election was. How long ago it seems now! Just adds to my suspicions that some of the opinion polling in the Glasgow East by-election was invalidated by people answering about the 2007 Holyrood election when they were being asked about the 2005 Westminster election.
That's very interesting, things have changed quite a lot. I remember (I think) from school that about 100,000 SNP votes in that election didn't get any seats at all (that was a year or two before the now-legendary Hamilton by-election). Poor old Tories, slaving away for no reward! Fortunately for them, the PR system in the Holyrood parliament they so despised brought them back into Scottish politics.
Rolfe.
Rolfe
Adult human female
This was what I was talking about regarding more recent opinion polls.
For this, n probably equals no more than 350 or so, so it will have a wide margin of error. The data have been collected by aggregating the Scottish parts of four separate opinion polls, each of which would have had less than 100 Scottish responders.
Years ago, the Herald used to run a System 3 poll on Westminster voting intentions in Scotland every month, and it was very very interesting to monitor it. Unfortunately, during a period where there seemed to be little change month to month, some cheapskate cancelled the exercise to save money. It's seldom we see Scotland-only polls for Westminster with a proper sample size.
Anyway, the date on that page above is May. Things seem to have moved even further since then, but I can't get the data. I'm only seeing second-hand posts on blogs.
This seems to have been about 19th July. The next one is later, possibly after the by-election.
Both of these are just the Scottish respondents for single polls, so probably only about 80 respondents each. Far too small to be representative. The last one seems totally ridiculous. But if you keep getting these sorts of numbers coming out, a pattern does start to emerge. And it isn't 17.66%, or even 17.89.
Rolfe.
For this, n probably equals no more than 350 or so, so it will have a wide margin of error. The data have been collected by aggregating the Scottish parts of four separate opinion polls, each of which would have had less than 100 Scottish responders.
Years ago, the Herald used to run a System 3 poll on Westminster voting intentions in Scotland every month, and it was very very interesting to monitor it. Unfortunately, during a period where there seemed to be little change month to month, some cheapskate cancelled the exercise to save money. It's seldom we see Scotland-only polls for Westminster with a proper sample size.
Anyway, the date on that page above is May. Things seem to have moved even further since then, but I can't get the data. I'm only seeing second-hand posts on blogs.
Doonhamer said:
This seems to have been about 19th July. The next one is later, possibly after the by-election.
Alex Porter said:
Both of these are just the Scottish respondents for single polls, so probably only about 80 respondents each. Far too small to be representative. The last one seems totally ridiculous. But if you keep getting these sorts of numbers coming out, a pattern does start to emerge. And it isn't 17.66%, or even 17.89.
Rolfe.
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Well the English results from the link Lothian gave have SNP on 8541 votes in England or 17.89% of the votes in the electorates they stood in. I figured they might have stood in Berwick or stood elsewhere in England, Wales or NI so that 'expat' Scots could indicate their support for independence and/or the SNP.
However, the SNP candidate for East Kilbride Strathaven & Lesmahagow got 8541 votes or 17.89% of the votes cast which makes me suspect the website has included it as an English electorate.
It seems that first past the post voting is unfair for parties like the Tories in Scotland and the SNP who don't have many of the 'fiefdom' seats you mentioned. Below a certain level of popularity they are going to win few if any seats. The SNP has broken through this barrier but the Tories have slipped below it.
Hmm, Labour gets seats in excess of its votes thanks to first past the line voting and its core of Scottish seats give it a much better chance of controlling the British Parliament. Why am I not surprised that Labour is so against independence and hasn't tried to introduce PR into the British elections? Should the Tories be starting an 'Independece for England' movement?
Lothian
should be banned
Undesired Walrus
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Who voted for the BNP?
Jaggy Bunnet
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Sorry, have been cutting back on smileys so you might have thought this was a serious comment.
As has been pointed out, the website includes the SNP in its results for English seats. Looks like this is due to cock-up (or possibly geographical ignorance) as to where East Kilbride is.
It is ironic that the Tories only secured seats again in Scotland by way of the Scottish Parliament - which they opposed tooth and nail - and then by the PR system introduced. Also be aware that Labour instituted major electoral reform with PR for local councils, forever changing the colour of the political landscape (to Labour's detriment) - although one could justifiably argue that this was down to the Lib-Lab coallition.
Ivor the Engineer
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I don't think I'll ever understand loyal support of political parties. It seems too close to religious belief for my liking.
Except for some of the more extreme political parties, it makes little difference to me which party is in power.
It would be fun watching the SNP trying to fund their grand schemes if the public budget was spread somewhat more fairly between the members of the UK.
Except for some of the more extreme political parties, it makes little difference to me which party is in power.
It would be fun watching the SNP trying to fund their grand schemes if the public budget was spread somewhat more fairly between the members of the UK.
Lothian
should be banned
