Mark Pack

Labour-Tory two-party politics is now the minority

By | Tue 10th April 2007 - 5:33 pm

Bad news for Labour and Conservative activists who don’t like those pesky liberals. Sorry folks.

I’ve been taking a look at the recently published Thrasher and Rallings projected results for the new Westminster Parliamentary boundaries.

Take all the seats where Labour and first and the Conservatives are second, or vice-versa, strip out the three-way marginals and … voila … you only have a minority of the seats in Parliament. Or to put it the other way round – the majority of Westminster constituencies are now not straight-forward Labour/Conservative contests.

Anyone fancy a bet on how long it will take the media to notice?

Read more by or more about or .
This entry was posted in News.
Advert

5 Comments

  • James Schneider 10th Apr '07 - 6:21pm

    What constitutes a three way marginal?
    This illustrates how on the ball Cameron has been. You need Liberal votes to win a majority in a GE.

  • Mark Pack 10th Apr '07 - 8:13pm

    I took the three-way marginal definition Thrasher and Rallings used in their book.

  • Hywel Morgan 11th Apr '07 - 8:37am

    Is this that new – I remember us bandying about some statistic pre the 1992 election that we were second in more Tory seats than Labour.

    The problem was most of them were distant seconds – most of the close seconds were Labour.

    The key difference now is that I suspect we are a lot closer in a lot more seats than at that time.

    This is the tories key problem – not only do they need to win a lot of seats – they aren’t terribly close to winning a lot of those that they do need.

  • Hywel Morgan 11th Apr '07 - 7:43pm

    Are there any comparative figures for three way marginals in 92/7.

    My gut feeling is that there would be masses more now than back then.

Post a Comment

Lib Dem Voice welcomes comments from everyone but we ask you to be polite, to be on topic and to be who you say you are. You can read our comments policy in full here. Please respect it and all readers of the site.

To have your photo next to your comment please signup your email address with Gravatar.

Your email is never published. Required fields are marked *

*
*
Please complete the name of this site, Liberal Democrat ...?

Advert

Recent Comments

  • David Allen
    Peter Martin, I agree that the lack of a real financial incentive for many people to take up low-paid jobs rather than living on benefits is a problem. But ...
  • Pawel Urbanski
    David, no apology needed, and less disagreement than you might think. I did not come to this party through its history, I came through its principles and a shop...
  • Jana
    @David Raw “…your message would have more impact if you actually produced some verified empirical evidence..” Perhaps this BBC news item from 15 years a...
  • Peter Davies
    "Labour and nature are the source of all value". The problem is that in the UK, much of that labour was by people long since dead. Unskilled labour these days i...
  • David Raw
    @ Jana "I do not blame people on benefits seeking to maximise their income by claiming PIP, particularly by getting their children diagnosed with ADHD and th...