John Hemming’s guest piece: Mosaic and general election betting
September 2nd, 2006Lloyd George was a trailblazer in a number of ways. As Chancellor he introduced the old age pension, unemployment benefit and financial support for the sick. As Prime Minister he led the country through most of the First World War. After the war he introduced political funding systems much like those seen today – by selling honours. One of his key areas of trailblazing was to approach politics from the perspective of winning the general election, rather than building a coalition in parliament.
It is, therefore, Lloyd George (developing Gladstone’s strategy) that we have to thank for making betting on elections possible. Historically, limited constituencies were represented by their chosen representative and alliances were made in parliament. Gradually, through governments such as that of Lloyd George, the patterns of loyalty shifted through to a class-based political system that lasted substantially through to the 1970s and still persists today to some extent. That allowed class-based political parties to dominate. That basis for politics has been fading since the 1960s, however.
As the traditional division into working class and others has faded, the complexity of the political system has increased. The proportion of the electorate that might swing between parties has massively increased and the number of people who are strongly committed to any one particular political party have been reduced.
David Cameron in many ways is acting like Tony Blair in that he is taking on his own political party. That strikes me as an odd political strategy. It makes the assumption that your strongest supporters will not go anywhere else. The traditional class loyalties, however, are shifting. Liam Byrne, my geographical neighbour, wrote an interesting article for the Fabians which explained how people now categorised as Mosaic Social Class E shifted substantially from Labour to Lib Dem, giving the Lib Dems the seats of Manchester Withington and Cambridge.
Experian Business Strategies are a company that aims to explain “individuals, markets and economies” in the UK and around the world. They have categorised households in the UK into 11 groups, 62 types and 243 segments. For example rather than the traditional A, B, C1, C2, D and E we now have from A01 (Global Connections) to K61 (Upland Hill Farmers). What Liam Byrne and Labour have recognised is that with broadcasting information systems and mass media (although politicalbetting.com is more like narrowcasting), different Mosaic Groups will tend to move between parties and party brand identities in the same directions.
Traditional political polling, therefore, has a weaker merit in working out actually which seats are to be won and lost. The swing is less and less uniform so simply applying a national swing will not give you a reliable answer. If people want to be able to turn the General Election into money on the betting markets they need to know the trends for different Mosaic Classes and link that up to the individual constituencies.
The other difficulty in political betting as an investment strategy is that the electorate are considerably more volatile. Political loyalties take some effort to destroy. Tony Blair has done quite an effective job of undermining the support of Labour’s strongest supporters. David Cameron seems to be trying to work the same sort of magic on Conservative traditionalists.
Personally I have done reasonably well in the financial markets by relying on the fact that the markets sell uncertainty. It is as if half of my investments went bust and half of them multiplied by 10. This still gives a 400% return on an even spread. Applying the same strategy to the political betting markets does require better market intelligence. Outside the political parties that information is not available. The normal poll results do not reveal the levels of volatility in shifts of support. Furthermore the individual constituency campaigns are becoming more important.
In a world in which the allegiance to a political party is weaker then allegiances to individual representatives can be stronger. This gives rise to a stronger incumbency effect. Labour’s strategy (called the L Vote) in recent years has been to identify where their own supporters are, and address the campaign to them. This may result in lower turnouts, although having postal votes where individuals fill in a few hundred votes each has helped increase the Labour vote.
Happily the more recent changes to election law will reduce the amount of electoral fraud. However, the job for anyone wishing to make a return from betting on a general election is getting harder and harder.
John Hemming is the Liberal Democrat MP for Birmingham Yardley.
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Lovely article! Thanks
Thanks from me too, John. But I’d've expected a Lib Dem MP to know that Asquith was Prime minister for slightly over half of World War One
It would be interesting to know if Mosaic would have been a better predictor of the 2005 results than other methods - assuming one could get the raw data, patience and Excel would, I suppose, crunch the numbers. The particular significance of this for next time will be in those seats where the boundaries have changed.
All parties use Mosaic, which takes a rather Marxist view of people as likely to vote according to their class and personal circumstances, and obviously this is often though not always true. The Conservatives claimed before the last election that they had a more sophisticated approach to it that would pay great dividends: it’s difficult to disentangle this factor from all the others, so hard to know if they were right.
I wasn’t terribly impressed with its predictive value myself. Broxtowe is Labour because of a loyal but (compared to other constituencies) relatively small working-class vote, plus a rather large number of middle-class and even upper-class voters who want to do something for society with their vote to balance their personal prosperity. Mosaic is quite good at spotting the former, but not so good at spotting the latter, since they are voting without much connection to their personal circumstances. But it’s an interesting article - thanks, John.
Nice article. It will be interesting to see how Mosaic works out for the LDs… I have been pretty impressed by the effort that is being invested in it.
Very interesting article John. Thanks.
2 - It is possible to show both Asquith and Lloyd george as PM for more than half of WW1.
Asquith ceased being PM on 5th December 1916 and Lloyd George took over.
Assuming WW1 started for Britain on 4th August 1914 (the date we declared war on Germany) and ended on 11 November 1918 (the date of the Armistice) then Asquith was War PM for 854 days and Lloyd George for 705 days.
However if we assume that the end of the war was on 28 June 1919 (the date the Versaille peace treaty was signed bringing an end to the state of war), then Asquith was War PM for 854 days and Lloyd George for 934 days.
I guess in traditional Lib Dem fashion, you can have it both ways!!
The Blair is toast campaign seems to be spiralling now… I’m getting very tempted by the odds on GB (sorry MS) - if he doesn’t win Labour will tear itself to pieces which given its current policies I would consider to be a good investment.
Nick @ 3- As Conservative agent, I found the opposite with the predictive value of the Tories’ 9-box grid model (populated with all sorts of (presumably) Mosaic type data) at the 2005 GE in this North Wales Labour constituency.
It was generally pretty accurate at predicting Tory voters and liklihood to vote. With a small team it focussed our canvassing and targetted mailings much more efficiently than previously. It wasn’t as good at identifying Lib Dem voters, but that was not our major concern at the time - we’d to an extent excepted the anti-Iraq Labour vote was mostly lost to the Lib Dems.
Very interesting piece John. I’d not heard of Mosaic before. It has a certain sort of intuitive appeal although I take Nick’s point that it perhaps underestimates the impact of idiosyncratic voters who do not vote in accordance with their narrowly defined interests.
This is the first article I have seen which helps me to understand some of the more unpredictable results from the last election.
Thanks.
A further thought and one I’ve expressed on this site before….
I don’t agree with you about the difficulty of profiting from political betting. The big betting organisations regard it as a novelty and since turnover is generally very low they give it scant attention. The odds compiler is likely to be the latest Youth Opportunities kid who wandered through the door. It is not surprising therefore that good opportunities exist and the firms make losses on PB. They probably accept that as OK because of the publicity value. All the better for us.
The real problem for PBers, outside of GE time, is the lack of liquidity, as evidenced by the wretched Dome market. Yesterday I singlehandedly turned Greenwich into the hot favorite by placing £50 at evens!
[5] I just knew someone would come along and do that post…
10 Sorry!
10 IA. The shock being it wasn’t Andrea or I.
………………………………
Very good article John, many thanks.
BTW how do you view the boundary changes in your own constituency and other nearby seats ?
12.”BTW how do you view the boundary changes in your own constituency and other nearby seats ? ”
Hall Green should be the new Libdem target in Birmingham. It can be an interesting contests because of a substantial Respect presence in third place.
Thanks John - very interesting article.
I think several of the posters illustrate a particularly accute issue for the Lib Dems, that “our” voters don’t conform to any particular segment. I think the best correlation from recent data has been on the level of educational attainment correlating with Lib Dem voting.
Parties have always had broad appeal, though. In the early C20th the Conservatives managed significant blocks of working class support, often along religious lines (for example in Manchester they were viewed as the Protestant party vs the Catholic Irish immigrants who tended to vote Liberal).
Interesting article, though as mentioned above, those involved in politics often have far superior information on which to predict the likely outcomes - the only drawback being to eliminate wishful thinking and be ‘objective’. I believe the London council elections this year was a good example (though as I’m not from London I missed out on that one).
I do think it’s easy to exaggerate the death of the UNS. While not quite as uniform as it once was - and it also involves more parties than it once did - it’s still the baseline from which to work, and as an estimation it benefits from exceptions cancelling each other out to an extent.
Re Lloyd-George. I’d disagree about his revolutionising political campaiging - that change probably happened earlier, no later than the 1885 reforms which made contested elections the overwhelming norm.
15 - Joseph Chamberlain probably has some of the credit/blame too, inventing the national political machine. Birmingham Liberals, eh?
14 “I think the best correlation from recent data has been on the level of educational attainment correlating with Lib Dem voting.”
Can you elaborate please, Tabman?
Good analysis. But how good are the parties at using mosaic? My feeling is that the current spinners are, out of 10, about 3. But the tories are no more than 1.5, and the LDs are 1. At a bye-election, the LDs manage 4 or 5.
The principle of different messages for different groups is still in its infancy.
As Nick Palmer points out, there were ‘tribal’ tories who voted for him. He suggests that this was out of sense of doing what they felt was right for their community, rather than their bank account. Achieving a balance between ‘vote for us because it is good for you, and also, altruistically, because it is good for everybody’ is tough.
And TB and DC are following the same stratagey. Too hard to sell the details; concentrate on the brand –the ‘feel’.
There are those who don’t like the ’spin’ element. They don’t understand that the ‘John Blunt’ approach will never work again.
Did the ‘John Blunt’ approach ever work?
OT. Over at ConservativeHome our very own Sean Fear features in the community section, pictured in some cultural conservative dungeon in Brent.
Personally I think ConservativeHome should go along the Country Life way and have pics of the twin set and pearls Tories, who 3 day event, work for the Red Cross in their spare time and rut like good uns for posh nobs !
Not too sure though that Sean would look too good in pearls !!
Good piece John. Mosaics for me are just another tool. It can help if you do not know an area and have little canvassing data. Certainly with large mailshots they can be useful otherwise they are no big deal.
I liked the comment about Labour and the filling in a few hundred postal votes each. They were caught out round your way weren’t they! You are right about the L vote and only addressing campaigns to their supporters. They is short sighted and will return less votes each year they do it.
My favourite quote about geodemographics (of which Mosaic is one there is also ACORN, CAMEO, Personixs, Atomicube, Pixel etc etc) comes from the guy who invented the approach. I can’t remember it exactly but to paraphrase
“The very best geodemographic will only tell you what the local house breaker already knows”
Because geodems are built for multiple purposes (from selling baked beans to credit cards to the guardian) they are designed to be reasonably good at everything but perfect at nothing. The more experienced users in the commercial world (eg Tesco, M&S) have moved on to building their own geodemographic systems tuned exactly to their own market. I don’t believe anyone in the political area in the UK has done this yet, I could be wrong but the geodem building world is a small one and I have heard nothing.
The LibDems used to sponsor a political allegience question on the big national shopper surveys so I guess they would be the ones with the data to do it.
Excellent article John, thanks.
Regarding the L vote this is a terrible approach because it is nothing to do with engaging in wide debate, just with ‘people like us’. To drive down turnout in order to win is unconscionable and I hope it completely backfires long term (they already found this when factors like the BNP increase turnout so we shall see).
Regarding the education point, and picking up on a point I mentioned (but nobody responded to
) earlier this week. Lib dems tend to be relativists not absolutists, the latter are more to be found in the certainties of sections of the labour and conservative vote. This intellectualisation of politics and the decisions made naturally appeals to those who do not have this certainty so lib dems are disproportionately those of high educational attainment. Some would also say that this was a bad thing of course.
It should also be noted that the BNP do better in wards where there is low educational attainment, they are also absolutist in their approach to politics.
All of a sudden Scottish politics is starting to look interesting again:
PM for next 9 months at least
The Scotsman, 2 Sept 2006
http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=1295872006
“Mr Blair visited Edinburgh yesterday for a meeting with a group of Scottish political journalists. The Prime Minister made it clear that he intends to be in Downing Street to lead Labour to the polls in May.”
“MR BLAIR made it clear yesterday that he had no intention of reviewing the Barnett Formula - the Treasury rule which allocates a generous share of government cash to Scotland.”
“JACK McConnell was yesterday given the go-ahead by Mr Blair to pursue his own approach to nuclear power and even make Scotland nuclear-free, if that is what he wants.”
“The Prime Minister said the threat to the Union posed by an SNP victory would cause immense and wide-ranging problems.”
Interesting article John. Many thanks. It seems that with the postal votes thing the moto is vote early vote often.
23 - ukpaul, interesting point. Related to this is that for the most part voting Lib Dem is a conscious decision, either to vote for or against, because within living memory (and outside certain areas such as the South West) there are no tribal Liberal families or communities. As such it would tend to attract relativists, who can see more nuanced positions.
17 - my post got eaten! I responded that it was in Russell & Fieldhouse, but the data was most strong for 1987 when holding a degree was a strong determinent of Liberal voting (twice as likely as Con or Lab).
Jack, in fact it’s Pompeii.
Good article.
There are some interesting contradictions aired here.
1) It is generally believed that Labour do best on a high turnout, yet here it is claimed that Labour are expecting to do best on a low turnout.
2) Labour’s L vote strategy seems indistingishable from a core vote strategy. Yet the usually accepted theory is that Blair’s success is based on appealing to non-traditional Labour voters.
14 Liverpool rather than Manchester?
3 Rather a smug argument to suggest that well to do people vote Labour for altrusitic reasons. My personal experience is that it could be from wanting to identify with the local and national nomenclatura. Isn’t there an increasing split among voting patterns of middle class people according to whether they work in teh pribate or public sevtors?
david k at 18: Your commenht reminds me of the ultra-anecdote: a single voter in a highly Conservative area, active in Christian Aid and like-minded groups. She wrote to me after the 2001 election thus:
“I was annoyed to see your election address appealing to my self-interest. I voted for you because I believe you are interested in world poverty despite your preoccupation with matters like interest rates and anti-social behaviour during the campaign. I hope you will now resume normal service.”
But I’m not suggesting this is quite typical.
30. Moral smugness from Labour? Surely not.
We’ve been through this argument before. One of the least attractive facets of the modern British left is this ’smugness’, this ‘holier than thou’ attitude, this embarrassing and dreary preening. Labour hugs the moral highground like a drunk embracing a lamppost - both are desperate and ashamed.
A party which illegally invades other countries, slaughtering people in their tens of thousands, has no claim to any morality whatsoever. And they know it.
Ergo, if one good thing arises from these ten drifting years of Labour government, it is this: never again will Labour and the left be able to claim that “theirs is naturally the moral position to take”.
Whenever we hear this from New Labour, everyone will be able to turn around and say: Iraq?
Cue embarrassed silence and foot-shuffling from our leftwing friends.
Reading today’s FT, there seems to be total panic west of offa’s dyke regarding Blair’s departure date and next year’s elections. Are they right to sound so desperate? With the London boundary changes perhaps a guest slot maybe an idea.
GaryJ at 30: no, my experience differs from yours. I have almost never met anyone (I can think of two) who seemed motivated by wanting to be on the ‘influential ticket’. I’ve met thousands who vote Labour for altruistic reasons. I’ve not noticed a public/private split among these.
The political problem is that, whereas someone who votes Labour from self-interest will often continue to do so even if he thinks we’ve messed up something, an altruistic voter will only vote for us if he thinks we’re mostly doing the right things.
34-I am middle class, 35, a Chartered Accountant, lived and travelled a lot overseas (last count 79 countries), but have never even dreamed of voting Labour (as much as I respect you). Can you categorise me? BTW not interested in gender/green/racial issues…
(BTW I also share Charlie Kennedy’s booze hobby)
Re 29, Once-bitten, I think there s only a contradiction if you think new Labour considers its core vote as being old Labour. I don’t think it does, and I think its core vote is amoung a different type of voter.
On the turn out issue, it used to be the case taht Labour did best on a high turnout, but I don’t think that can be said anymore. Major won on a huge turn out, so did Blair in 1997, so that would be one each.
I do think the way campaigns are conducted is a problem for turn out though. I am unconvinced postal voting is the anser as the perceived fraud makes it even more pointless for people to vote.
36_I thought turnout in 1997 was not spectacular?
37. It was 71.6%.
Is there not a sector emerging of people who disagree with Labour but vote for them for purely selfish reasons - those with fingers in the PFI pie for example?
in 1992 it was 77.67%
There is an interesting article in the Economist about class and how it correlates (or not) with the marketing groupings:
http://www.economist.com/world/britain/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7289005
Occupation is the most trusted guide to class, but changes in the labour market have made that harder to read than when Orwell was writing. Manual workers (C2s and Ds in sociology-speak) have shrunk along with farming and heavy industry as a proportion of the workforce, while the number of people in white-collar jobs (ABC1s) has surged (see chart). Despite this striking change, when they are asked to place themselves in a class, Brits in 2006 huddle in much the same categories as they did when they were asked in 1949. There has been a slight fall in the number who reckon they are at either the very top or the very bottom of the pile, consistent with the move to working behind desks and in air-conditioned places. But jobs, which were once a fairly reliable guide to class, have become misleading.
…….it seems that many Brits, given the choice, prefer to identify with the class they were born into rather than that which their jobs or income would suggest. This often entails pretending to be more humble than is actually the case: 22% of ABC1s told YouGov that they consider themselves working class. Likewise, the Experian survey found that one in ten adults who call themselves working class are in the richest quintile of asset-owners, and that over half a million households which earn more than £100,000 ($191,000) a year say they are working class. Dissimulation in the other direction—pretending to be grander than income and occupation suggest—is rarer, though it happens too.
It might explain why the prosperous folk in Nick’s contituency are still voting for him.
For large parts of the 1980s I was extremely poor. I started off fairly skint at University in the early 80s, and by the mid-late 1980s I had no job, was on the dole, was a squatter, etc. Part of this was because I was lazy and druggie, and preferred getting drunk and going to parties than actually working, nonetheless I was seriously poor.
I remember once I couldn’t actually afford a bag of chips, and I went hungry for two days.
The reason I mention all this is because, despite my poverty, I was a committed Thatcherite, and voted Tory every time.
In theory, if I was selfish, I should have voted Labour - as they were more likely to raise the dole, give stuff to the poor, get me housing, etc.
Yet I didn’t. I looked beyond my own circumstances and realised that only Maggie and the Tory party could save the country, crush the overweening unions, return us to true prosperity. In the long run that would be better than any short term Labour expedients; I voted unselfishly.
How I despise the moral narcissism of the British left, who believe that altruistic and selfless people could only vote for them. They are arrogant, idiotic and putrid. To hell with Labour.
In a pitiful attempt to avoid some weekend work, I’ve allowed myself to be sidetracked by PB.com and the Mosaic debate. Using data from the Pippa Norris database, I’ve whacked together a spreadsheet here which shows the average percentage of voters by ACORN type in seats won by the main parties.
Unfortunately, Scottish and NI data is not available so it does only relate to England and Wales.
I’ve also done the same for types of work and religion.
Caveats are a) this is the equivalent of Excel doodling and so I’m sure it has mistakes, b) the Census and Acorn data is probably out of date and c) averages don’t show the interesting swings and exceptions.
Still, enough for all parties to start spinning.
36-40.
Turnout since 1959 here.
1997, 2001 and 2005 were all outside of the normal historical range (although 1997 was very borderline). Using 1992 and 1974 (Feb) it does seem that there is some truth behind the intuitive suggestion that there is a correlation betweenthe closeness of the election outcome and high turnout.
Whether this will be the case at the next general Election remains tobe seen. I think it will.
44 oooooh. What a great way to distract me from my work too! Any chance of the seat names to go with the data on sheet 2?
At very brief glance, it seems the religion breakdown is interesting. No really significant differences between the parties for the other religions, but quite a stark picture for muslim voters. There is a preference for Labour over LD/Tory (as we knew), but I am surprised that muslim voters are more than twice as likely to vote for another party (presumably Respect or Indies) than they are the main parties and Lib Dems combined.
44 Actually, on second thoughts, I’m not sure I can draw that conclusion from the data. Data shows breakdown of a party’s vote vote by religion, not vice versa.
45/46 - I’ve posted an updated version with Tabs for Acorn/Work/Religion by seat winner and constituency name.
Right, time for tea.
Sorry, should have added that it is available via the previous link.
Just read Liam Byrne MPs piece about how Labour won.
An interesting piece, but all it does is explain - not how Labour has managed to move the centre ground of British politics (a la Maggie) - but how Labour have simply chased the centre ground through analysis and focus groups as a way of staying in power.
However the centre ground is heading back towards the Tories (YouGov tracker being an example of this drift). All you seem to be suggesting is chasing Tory views just to get elected? The report defines NuLab failure. Failure to set a progressive popular agenda for Britain and watch the numbers come in after, not before.
A lot of Labour members I speak to are getting fed up with Brown because similarly he can’t see the wood for the trees.
2, 5,10 etc - so it was a guess where I lucked out.
12, 13 - Adding the bits around Yardley to Yardley should assist in keeping up the Lib Dem Majority. Hall Green is the next strongest seat. We have five swing Lib Dem/Labour seats in Brum.
21 - I drafted the Aston Election Petition. (about the vote factory in Witton)
49 - the point here is about politics following the electorate rather than trying to lead. Very dangerous in the long term. The real difficulty is that there are real solutions to real problems. When, however, people don’t know what the problems are or what solutions work, then there is little chance of effective government.
I don’t think there is a real distinction between people who vote according to their personal interests and those who vote for what they see as the good of the country. I think nearly everybody would put themselves into the second category.
It is of course easy for there to be a degree of self deception to all this but even somebody who votes for those who will reduce his taxes or increase his benefits will justify it, even to himself, along the lines that the country would be better off if ‘people like me’ were better rewarded or looked after.
I’ve always thought that the big divide in voters is between those who think things are alright as they are and those who think things should change. It is when enough people want a change that a government is defeated.
The conundrum of course is when a government campaigns for change - so why haven’t you done it before?
Or when an opposition campaigns for the status quo - not a good idea because the status quo means you stay in opposition. That’s why an oppostion needs to oppose and not be seen as government cheerleaders (e.g. Iraq, university fees, education and for a while ID cards).
46 - the other thing to remember is that that are only three ‘others’ of which one is Bethnal Green, thus heavily influencing the Muslim vote result.
39: I’d have thought the number of people with a direct interest in PFI contracts was so small as not to trouble the scorers. I don’t know a single one!
50. So what you are suggesting is we are in an illiterate age of of politics as you suggest there are real solutions, they just don’t/won’t connect with voters?
NuLab will continually chase voters rather voters chase them. Probably a fair asessment as NuLabs pool of voters - with little renewal or radical reform - has been shrinking over the 9 years and will continue to shrink with this philosophy.
29 - The apparent contradiction is easily explained.
High turnout increases Labour’s relative percentage share of the vote, so using standard, blunt “seat predictors” gives the impression that high turnout should benefit Labour electorally.
The reality is that low turnout is currently exacerbated by a disproportionately low turnout in safe Labour areas, which therefore seems to skew the %vote:seats ratio in their favour. (there is of course low turnout in safe Conservative areas as well, but there are fewer of them so the net effect is to Labour)
It depends how you define self interest. Anyone living in Westminster knew that a vote for the Tories would lead to the second lowest rates/poll tax in the country but would also mean the dirtiest streets in the land and rough sleepers in every doorway. The voters of Westminster saw their self-interest in having low rates.
Tabman and UKPaul both believe that high educational achievment means you are likely to vote Lib/Dem. SeanT believes all the beautiful people are on likely to be Tories.
Nothing much else to say really.
As always Roger allows his weird personal spleen to cloud reality.
estminster, the dirtyest streets in London? He should have visited Brent or Hackney.
Rough sleepers every doorway, did he ever see Camden?
A far better guide was the leaked letter from the Westminster Labour councillor to Frank Dobson, pleading for Labour Camden to undetake urgent repairs to pavements on streets that were shared with Westminster. This was because as Labour canvassed voters in Westminster (ever met a voter Roger, or do you just shout at them) they were regualrly told that “if they voted Labour Westminster would end up a mess like Camden”.
Roger is a national seet - the type of motor mouth that reminds you why Blair, Cambell and the rest are so yuk.
55 - Alex.
I still don’t see how a lower turnout helps Labour. If the decrease is mainly in safe seats, it should have little impact Also, most recent polling indicates that Tories voters are more likely to vote, so a reduced turnout should disproportionately hurt Labour more than the Tories.
I suspect the Labour’s campaign managers have decided to focus on the research suggesting that Labour’s core vote is around 17%, while the Tories’ core vote is only around 10%. Therefore, if they can depress turnout down to the core votes for each Party, they will be on a winner.
Personally, I think they are skating on thin ice for several reasons:
1) I don’t trust the 10% figure for the Tories. I suspect the methodology of the poll may be flawed. (Why? Because the last 10 years have shown us that the Tory core vote is around 30% of the poll, which is around 19% of the elctorate.)
2) Labour’s core vote seems to be more evenly spread than the Tories’ core vote. Thus, when the Tories reached rock bottom, they still managed to hold around 170 seats. Labour’s more uniform spread could emulate the Libdems of the 1980’s; ie. below a critical threshold, it could produce a frightening low number of seats.
Overall, I would expect a core vote strategy to make sense for Labour, as long as their polling stays above a tipping point. If it goes below that figure, then Labour could implode. If I were Labour’s campaign team, I would not want to find that tipping point by trial and error.
55/58 In practice I can tell you that the higher the turnout, the less likely the Conservative candidate will win in most seats. This is mostly down to differential turnout. Conservative voters are disproportionately more likely to vote so therefore low turnout hurts Labour.
53 Nick I think the point that was originally made wasn’t just about PFI shareholders, but about those who have a self interest in a Labour government, for instance the massive number employed by the state. Since turkeys don’t vote for Christmas, it’s hardly surprising that many of these people vote Labour - to keep the high spending high tax socialist Brown in power!
59 - Ben Redsell.
It is traditionally thought that low-turnout costs Labour seats. I was arguing that this is still the case.
56 = Not really what I said, I postulated that relativists are more likely to vote lib dem (because of their, and lib dems, lack of reliance on ‘us & them’ ‘certainties’), there would also appear to be a greater relativist sensibility in those of graduate status or beyond. The nature of this level of education being predicated on shades of grey as opposeed to definites.
You can put the two together but it gives a greater possibility not an inevitability, I’d be interested to see if there was any research on this (Tabman alluded to it I think).
58/9 - you’ve misunderstood my argument. Simplistic vote share/seat models suggest that high turnout boosts Labour. This leads to a belief that “high turnout helps Labour”. Because the reality is not like this (in terms of seats NOT in terms of votes) this can give rise to arguments about low turnout helping Labour (because of the logical fallacy “(high turnout does not help Labour) => (low turnout helps Labour)”.) By thesis is that national turnout has fairly neutral effects overall under our electoral system at present.
(note: that is not the same as saying that turnout in any individual seat is neutral - in any individual seat high turnout should help Labour).
Apologies if that makes no sense whatsover, I suspect it might not
*My thesis, not By thesis.
Surely it’s got to be the Liberal Democrats who have the most to fear from high turnout and the most to gain from keeping the turnout way down low?
I’m basing this on the assumption that there are no disillusioned stay-at-home Liberal Democrats. On the other hand there are plenty of stay-at-home Conservatives and Labourites since 1997 and 2005 respectively. If these people ever decide to vote again then it’ll be largely the Conservatives and Labour who benefit.
All this high turnout helps Labour stuff has been gone over again and again and it is an urban myth. We had all this before the locals in May and the results speak for themselves.
I have been fed this line by so many people (including my dear old mum when we were getting my dad elected in the 1970’s). You can do as many Excel spreadsheets as you want but there is no statistically significant correlation.
It’s well-established from opinion polls and canvass data that non-voters tend disproportionately to lean to Labour, and it’s that which makes people think that high turnout is good for Labour. If voting were compulsory, that would probably be significant. However, if turnout rises just moderately, it’s not clear that it’s always the reluctant Labour voters who are bothering.
On the other hand, I think that low turnout tends to benefit the Conservatives. They have a larger proportion of voters who feel it’s simply something one has to do.
Nick P is that an admission that Conservatives tend to feel democracy is more important! Lol!
There are times when I have seen a high turnout and been concerned that we have lost, only to find that the high turnout was down to a desire to kick out Labour.
So it doesn’t always follow!
Mind you I think the reverse is true, a low turnout does tend to make a Conservative victory easier as our voters tend to vote. If that makes sense.
When the SNP become the largest party in Scotland, expect Labour to end the Bartlett cash
High turnout favours Conservatives not Labour.
That is known eg 1992.
Labour voters spend more time at home not working so it is easier for them to go to the polls.
Vote Conservative!
I have heard it said that there is on average, a tendency for Labour voters to be more lazy in bothering and going out to vote in the same way that they are less inclined to make provision for themselves and have less dependency on the state than supporters of other parties. I saw somewhere in some Labour Party information for their campaigns that Labour supporters were something like four times more likely to vote in local elections if they had a postal vote. No wonder they have pushed postal voting and made their stronger regions compulsary postal votes in some elections.
My view on turnout is that higher turnout favours those who are in the acendancy in that area, hence the mixed national picture. A party who is ahead nationally would do better with a higher turnout nationally.
68 - you been on the beer?
More chance Brighton winning UEFA Champions League
The Scottish know where their money comes from (English taxpayers)
66. “It’s well-established from opinion polls and canvass data that non-voters tend disproportionately to lean to Labour, and it’s that which makes people think that high turnout is good for Labour. If voting were compulsory, that would probably be significant. However, if turnout rises just moderately, it’s not clear that it’s always the reluctant Labour voters who are bothering.
On the other hand, I think that low turnout tends to benefit the Conservatives. They have a larger proportion of voters who feel it’s simply something one has to do.” by Nick Palmer MP September 2nd, 2006 at 9:34 pm
Thats rubbish Nick. People who don’t vote are in the anti camp. Give them a vote and they will vote against the incumbent. Low turnout suits incumbants, high turnout suits opposition.
68/71- Ave it. Yes I can’t see the SNP winning a majority. We had all this hype leading up to 2003. The Labour success depends I think on who is/likely to be Labour leader either at that time or very soon afterwards.
If no movement on Labour leadership then yes they will be punished in Scotland with all the others gaining I would expect.
I am getting fed up of paying through the nose while having cr@p infrastructure here in the South in order to keep Labour voters sweet in their heartlands by subsiding them.
73 - at last some one on here with a brain!
Well done!
73. I don’t think anyone suggested that the SNP would win a majority. It is, however, quite likely that they will surpass Labour and become the largest party as Labour loses votes heavily to both the SNP and Lib Dems. Whether this will result in an SNP government is unclear, and an SNP-Lib Dem-Green coalition (the most likely scenario) would not vote for independence anyway as the Lib Dems would be opposed.
75 - difficult for SNP to do so as they are more than 20% behind Lab in so many seats. they always flatter to deceive in glasgow and strathclyde but as ever will end up with nothing there
“It’s well-established from opinion polls and canvass data that non-voters tend disproportionately to lean to Labour, and it’s that which makes people think that high turnout is good for Labour.”
Correct. That’s why the turnout has been manipulated by use of “banana republic” changes to the way we vote in Labour strongholds. Labour know that by boosting votes in those regions, they will win more seats there. As bent as thoe bananas the lot of them. Those that agree say Aye.
77- Aye! Didn’t they moot supermarket voting and online voting with no paper trial?
74- Thanks Ave It. Good luck to Watford as I received a rare compliment on here…
79 - thank you too. You and I represent rare sensible viewpoint compared with all the LD and Lab whingers on here!
64 - Not necessarily. It depends on what motivates them to vote. Wanting to change the government by voting for party best placed to beat labour in their constituency might be a reason for such people to vote Libdem in many places.
Wanting to avoid a return of the tories might prompt them to vote Libdem in Tory/Libdem contests.
The fact is, for all the claims to the contrary non-voters don’t ‘belong’ to anybody. And quite a few of them don’t exist anyway due to death and out of date electoral rolls.
79- But there are less of em Ave it than us. They just shout louder to give the impression there are more of them.
76 They have a chance in Glasgow Govan, Cumbernauld, and Kilmarnock - if they poll over 30% in FPTP then there may be strange results all over the place.
LibDems set to ditch Labour after election
EXCLUSIVE By Paul Hutcheon Scottish Political Editor
THE Scottish Liberal Democrats are preparing to ditch Jack McConnell as First Minister by declining to enter a coalition with Labour after next year’s Holyrood election.
LibDem leader Nicol Stephen wants to loosen ties with Labour by changing the party’s policy of automatically negotiating with the largest group in the Scottish parliament.
Senior strategists say Nicol does not want to share office with a party “on the way down” and would prefer to keep his options open on a three-way coalition with the SNP and Greens.
http://www.sundayherald.com/57736
83 - Woe betide the SNP if they are foolish enough to enter into a formal coalition with the Lib Dems in Scotland. Labour’s recent experience with them should be instructive to all parties in this regard.
83. Thanks for the link the link Marcia. This shows why I do not want to see the conservatives enter into a coalition with them either in Holyrood or at Westminster.
“LibDem leader Nicol Stephen wants to loosen ties with Labour by changing the party’s policy of automatically negotiating with the largest group in the Scottish parliament” That is not a change of policy but a cynical move to distance the Libdems from the collective responsibility of the present Lab/libdem coalition. It is also convenient that some political pundits are predicting that the SNP will become the largest party in Holyrood.
85 Such cynicism about Lib Dem motives Chris. Surely you know that Ming’s party always do what is right for the country, not just what suits them at an election.
Interesting that Nicol Stephen is trying to loosen the coalition. Lib Dems on Suffolk County Council used to be in coalition with Labour, until we took control. However in 2004 there were a number of stories about how they were thinking of breaking free from the coalition etc. It never happened until they lost power (without a chance of retaking it) and they were suitably punished for their tax rises (18.5%) but they seemed to think that they could distance themselves from their own administration by saying they’d go it alone.
It won’t work in Scotland any better than it did in Suffolk, is my prediction. A decent campaign will show that they are tied to Labour in Government, and everything that people hate about Scottish Government has been propped up by the Lib Dems.
83- This shows the folly of PR in that it gives a party who are joint third with the Conservatives (Libdems) in the Scottish Parliament a disproportionate amount of power.
What Scotland needs is more Conservatives if it is wants some kind of sensible government. A Conservative/Green coalition would be my choice but a long shot me thinks. What a mess up there both with having this Parliament in the first place, the voting system and who they elect! The way this is going you could have the Greens and Socialists having the balance of power if Lab and SNP have similar numbers in first place and the Conservatives and Libdems joint third.
Oh and I looked at the website for the Scottish Parliament. You can look at it in a language called “Scots” which is really just terrible English spelt in a way that Rab C Nesbit would talk!!!
87. How would more Conservatives help at all? You cannot expect that any other party, like the Lib Dems, would be noble and self-sacrificing for no particular benefit to themselves or the nation.
Generally, the diversity of parties in Scotland is a good thing; nearly everyone has an option that represents fairly well rather than having to compromise some of their ideals and vote for one of two or three big parties that only vaguely represents them.
And Scots is a real language that certainly isn’t easily understood by English speakers. Your comparison is a bit like saying Dutch is just badly spelt German.
87 - By all means adopt an ‘anti-Scottish’ attitude on things that matter like the Barnett formula - English people should be under no obligation to represent Scottish interests - but it amazes me how many Tories go out of their way to actively repel votes north of the border on issues that don’t.
88- I have some difficulty grasping that Scots in a real langauge. Gaelic, no problem but where does Scots come from? Would Geordie or Cockney become a langauge too?
89- I just see the political scene as bad up there and get fed up with anti English sentiment while Scottish nationalism is rife.
87 All Scottish polls show that the Scots want fewer Conservative MSP’s even than they have now and more LibDem’s . The LibDems will be a clear 3rd after next year’s election . A coaltion between SNP and LibDems with possibly Greens will represent the votes of over 50% of the voters .
89/90 The anti Scottish sentiment in many Conservatives often disguised as Little England Nationalism is rife and nauseating to myself as Liberal who is pro the Union of the United Kingdom .
90 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Gaelic_language
91 - Mark as you well know there are hardly any Scottish polls let alone reliable ones. Indeed YouGov’s (who were the only polling organisation to get the 2003 result right)regional break down showed a tiny increase in the Tory vote and a fall in the Lib Dem vote.
As for the others polls its exactly what they said last time too (and what the Lib Dems claimed would happen) so we’ll have to wait and see.
93 Max , there have been several polls on Holyrood voting intentions , you may not like the results and dismiss them as unreliable but the trends if not exact figures are clear . The Yougov figures regional breakdown refers to Westminster voting intentions so is of limited relevance to Scottish Parliament voting .
94 - Mark look at the polling figures last time round. They showed an identical trend. It didn’t happen. With less polling evidence this time round what makes you think they are more accurate?
And all of the polls done by Mori since the election have the Tories at 14-16% roughly where we were last time round. The Lib Dems 17%-19% so it’s hardly a huge gap. And given the underestimation of Tory support in the past I’m fairly sure we’ll do better than the polls suggest.
And local by-elections - which you seem happy to use as ‘evidence’ that the ’strawman’ is really doing badly certainly don’t indicate a Tory decline in Scotland.
Max , there are still 8 or so months to go before the Holyrood elections so polls now are only indicative anyway. Surely though the internal Conservative rows about MSP reselection and the suggestion of supporting the current Labour administration post the next election are indicative of a party which does not know where it is going .
96 - Mark it’s remarkable that you keep spinning this line that the Tories are going to prop up the the current Labour administration - it has never been the case. What was said was that rather than formal coalitions their should be support for policies on an issue by issue basis. The Tories would support any party where their is
As for the ‘internal row’ it’s a couple of people trying to drum up publicity in order to get themselves or their friends on the list. Not very helpful but hardly the end of the world. The fact that we will soon be hosting the parties biggest ever fundraising event in Glasgow is hardly a sign of a party in crisis either.
I’m also intrigued as to how you reconcile your passionate Unionism with support for a party that may be forming an administration with the SNP after the next election?
94.”The Yougov figures regional breakdown refers to Westminster voting intentions so is of limited relevance to Scottish Parliament voting .” Mark, I have to disagree with you there, I think that most people tend to vote for the same party in both Parliments. It maybe Labour in government at Westminster but the Lab/Libdem coalition in Holyrood is why both the Labour and Libdem vote has dropped North of the border. The YouGov poll certainly corresponded with the feeling that I get talking to people about Scottish politics in general at the moment.
96&97. “As for the ‘internal row’ it’s a couple of people trying to drum up publicity in order to get themselves or their friends on the list. Not very helpful but hardly the end of the world.”
Must admit I agree with that assessment Max, although I actually think that it might benefit the party in the long run. I think there is real disappointment, anger and disillusionment among some voter’s about the cost and effectiveness of Holyrood. If members of one of the main parties is seen to be demanding its MSP’s do better that might resonate with some voter’s.
DC, the PR system has been good for the Conservatives. Without the list system they would have only one or two in the Parliament, if that.
Before you judge perhaps you should live in Scotland, they may have certain views on the political situation “down there” or “down here”. On so much you seem to have a closed mind.
Can you let everyone know your background?
98 The Yougov figures are of limited interest anyway as they are already out of date being an accumulation of polls from earlier this year . The LibDem average in these polls for example is 16% and current Yougov figure 18% . I have previously pointed out the Others figure in the Scottish region as not being credible and noone has come up with a sensible explanation of them .
Max , I think it is much more you spinning to try to turn around the bad publicity the news items I have merely reported .
99 - Chris I think the main problem is that devolution was over sold at the outset and people had unrealistic views of what it would achieve. As a result there is that degree of dissillutionment and I think that will be reflected in a very poor turnout.
For our part I think we have to offer a real alternative - namely lower taxes and a smaller state, so as to differentiate ourselves fuly from Holyrood’s leftwing consensus.
100 - Mark I think it’s perfectly possible that the increase in others is mostly the Green vote. They only polled 1.1% at the 2005 election (only standing in around 15seats). Had they contested all seats they may have polled significantly better.
And is it not the case that the Mori polls (which I assume are the ones you referred to above) are also out of date given they cover three month periods?
I also can’t help noticing that you’ve completely avoided the question of the Lib Dems potentially going into coalition with a party that wants to destroy the Union?
Max the Green % in the latest Yougov poll is 4% for the Scottish TV region (which includes part of Northern England ) This seems reasonable but the remaining 3% increase in others plus a probable 1% decrease in SSP is not credible .
You well know that Scottish independence is not poossible without a referendum and the Scottish people as a whole voting for it . That Scottish LibDems would campaign against and as a separate issue I don’t think comes into whether there should be a joint SNP/LibDem administration at Holyrood .
98.”If members of one of the main parties is seen to be demanding its MSP’s do better that might resonate with some voter’s. ”
but if they field them again, I’m not sure voters will be impressed. But I don’t think that they would so impressed by an en masse deselection.
101. Max, I agree that the turnout could be quite poor. What also interests/concerns me is the possibility that we could see voter turnout for Holyrood elections becoming similar to local council elections especially considering the added costs of running the parliment. I did not vote for the Holyrood parliment but now we have it I want it to work and work well.
My friend’s son has just got elected to the Youth parliment and his enthusiasm and determination to make a difference is very heartening. We quite often chat about politics and although hard, I do try to keep it general and avoid being partisan while he decides which party to join in the future. :D:
104. Andrea, I don’t think either scenario is going to happen but just the impression that the party is placing an emphasis on the MSP’s to provide good quality representation might be attractive to some voter’s.
I find that many Scots are still much more knowledgable about politicians in Westminster than in Holyrood. I think that if asked they be more likely to name their MP rather than their MSP’s.
106. Chris, yes, but considering we’re talking about all the sitting MSPs, voters can wonder why they arrived there in first place. I think your point can be right if the talks would regard just some names: a sort of “we aren’t all crap, but there’re some bad apples and we’re going to get rid of them because we care so much about people getting good MSPs” scenario.
Labour had some problems with the Glasgow Govan MSP, there were some deselection calls, becuase he wasn’t apparently hard-working enough (still doing another job whilst being MSP).
99- Yes David you are right about PR giving the Conservatives seats they would otherwise not have had. Forgetting my loyalties for a moment, I still do not like PR and confusing electoral systems. If the Conservatives were in third or fourth and they had been in a coalition with Labour, I would still think it wrong about disproportionate power being held by us.
No never lived in Scotland (too cold) but have visited many parts of it. I am a Unionist and do not like the SNP at all. It is possible to be pro Scottish without being anti English but that is not what I see.
103 re the joint SNP/LD administration. I suppose it comes down to whether you view the SNP as a left of centre party that has independence as one of its issues, or as a nationalist party that views all its policies through the prism of independence. You would seem to take the former view.
107 - Andrea, to be brutally honest I don’t think - with a few exceptions - anyone really cares about who is or isn’t on the list. Last time round two Tory MSP’s lost their previously high places on the list. I doubt it gained or lost us more than a hanful of votes.
As Chris said a lot of people would struggle to name who there local MSP is - a picture that is further confused by the impression that some constituencies seem to have more than one!
110. Max, I agree that pushing some anonymous MSP at the bottom of the list won’t cost any vote, but some people suggested all MSPs and well, I don’t think that if Annabel Goldie is pushed at the bottom of the West Scotland list would reflect well on your party.
111 - Well that would be a disaster but it won’t happen. As phil Gallie and James Douglas-Hamilton are standing down there will be a couple more new faces. Other than that I only think 1-2 people are seriously at risk of slipping down in the rankins.
112. Max, do you know who can risk to get an not good place and who’re the frontrunners (among non MSPs) to get winnable places?
112. Max, do you think it would be beneficial to the Scottish tory party if they changed their policy of trying to distance themselves from the Westminster party?
I don’t think that it worked in the 90’s because I think that the anti tory feeling which was rampant right across the UK was most strongly felt in Scotland. David Cameron is now seen as the Westminster party’s biggest asset. I wonder if a much closer working relationship now would help attract some Libdem voters in former conservative heartlands like the North East constituency I live in.
113. Andrea, I am trying to work that one out as well. :D:
115. My grammar was so bad that I’m also trying to work out what I wanted to write!
(I think I wanted to write “an unwinnable” and then changed in “a not good place”, but in the end it became “an not good place”!)