On the 2015 Election, Devo Max and the Coming Lib Dem Collapse.

[danieldwilliam]

Two pieces of analysis on the Coming Lib Dem collapse crossed my desk this morning. The first is an analysis of the potential electoral outcomes for the Lib Dem, Conservative and Labour parties if the current polling position for the Lib Dems of about 10% translates into vote share at the 2015 General Election.

The first is from Robert Ford, of the University of Nottingham School of Politics and International Relations, the second is from Hopi Sen, Labour blogger and co-author of In The Black Labour.http://hopisen.com/2012/the-coming-libdem-collapse-and-labour/#comment-13293

Ford trials two scenarios for the shifting of Lib Dem voters and looks at the results.  The first is a universal national swing. Lib Dems lose seats to the Tories, the Tories lose seats to Labour in Con-Lab marginal with high 2010 Lib Dem votes. The end result is that the Labour party ends up 6 seats short of a majority in the House of Commons with the Lib Dems on 11 seats. 

Which allows the Labour Party to form a majority coalition with the Lib Dems, or for the Conservative Party to form a (rather unlikely) coalition with the Lib Dems and the Unionist parties in Northern Ireland.

The second scenario looks at the votes cast if the current split of 2010 Lib Dems votes hold true for defected to Labour, the Tories, to Don’t Know (further re-allocated) and stayed Lib Dem.

This scenario sees the Lib Dems reduced to zero seats in the House of Commons and the Labour party sweeping to a Hung Parliament, 14 seats short of an absolute majority.

The SNP finish on about 7 seats.  I’ll let those with a calculator do that sum.

Hopi Sen broadly agrees with the analysis but questions some of the detail about how Don’t Knows split between Labour, Lib Dems and Conservative. He also asks some questions about UKIP. Things will be messier than just one axis of change.

In real life lots of stuff will happen that goes against the general rub of the green and actual results might vary and in such a close election might prove significant.

On this analysis the results look far from being a Labour landslide.  It doesn't take much to shift for both the Labour Party and the Conservative Party to end up on functionally the same number of seats and for the Lib Dems to end up more influential than they were in 2010.  If this strikes you as a perverse result, well that's First Past the Post for you.

And raises the question touched on in an earlier post of mine, who do you vote for if you want constitutional change and electoral reform?

It seems clear to me that if you want Devo-Max and you concede that the Yes to Independence campaign won’t win the 2014 election then I think the party to vote in any seat where the SNP came second to the Labour Party is the SNP. 

Which doesn’t help me much. I live in a three way marginal, and the SNP are 4^th.

Comments

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Devo Max is dead. Calculating that you might have a government in Westminster well disposed towards it, or which can be blackmailed into it in a hung parliament is buying shares in Titanic (Deckchairs) Ltd at noon on the 14th of April, 1912.

If you want change, vote for change in 2014.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Then Devo-Max is dead.

There is no way that the Yes Campaign can pull back the deficit it has. At this point it needs to be polling in the high 50’s in a forced choice poll. It’s not. It’s low 30’s to 40%.

Also dead, by this logic, is any form of constitutional change. Ever. Not only now, but also dead in the past. Which appears not to have been the case since about 1832.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

This is very strange logic. When Scotland was offered a referendum on devolution in 1979, and it didn't pass (despite a majority voting Yes) devolution was off the agenda until 1997. When Scotland voted yes to that, we got a Parliament. If we vote no to independence, then devolution will be off the agenda for another 20 years (which is not the same as being dead, granted, but 20 years under a hostile government is a long time to be Scottish. Trust me. I was here.

Polls are strange things. So long as there was a fictional comfort blanket between the status quo and independence, then that would draw support. The choice now is stark. The Independence or the status quo, and even that is under threat - the Unionist parties are fairly united in wanting to roll back universal benefits in Scotland.

With two years of cuts ahead, the polls will narrow. When the Better Together campaign has to define what "together" means, they will fall apart - they cannot promise anything to Scotland, they can only threaten to take things away, and try to frighten the voters with what might happen. Labour ran that campaign of threats and fear in the last Holyrood election, and managed to turn a 20 point lead into a crushing defeat.

It's a long road that has no turning...

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Don't be so complacent! I am firmly against independence (I'm writing a big part to explain my reasoning), but you really shouldn't assume that the Yes campaign will fail.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

I wrote "blog post" but Swype wrote "big part". Apologies - I am writing a blog post to explain my reasoning...!

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

There is zero point me voting Lib Dem where I currently live, except on principle (and I'm actually pretty happy with our SNP MP), but the thought of them potentially losing all their Westminster seats is depressing in the extreme.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Yeah – it’s a bit sad.

I don’t think it will come to that.

I think they will pick up a little in the polls as we approach the election and the Labour party are required to be more definitive about what they are doing.

I think, if any party knows how to win street by street elections it’s the Lib Dems.

I think UKIP will help them from the right by taking some votes off the Conservative Party, although this might not that useful in the sort of marginal seats the Lib Dems hold.

[andrewducker]

There is, apparently, less swing in areas where they have MPs, than areas where they don't.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

An analysis I read (sorry - I can't remember where) reckoned that the LibDem vote is very granular: it is holding up well in constituencies with LibDem MPs but falling elsewhere.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I have read something similar. It makes sense to me.

General incumbancy effect.

Clearly the areas where they have won are areas where they are good at winning (effective local campaign structures for instance) or areas where the core Lib Dem vote lives.

Makes me think that the 2015 election is even more likely to turn out to be a hung parliament leading to a coalition.

Although, that rather depends what the Labour party want to do in government between 2015 and 2020. If I were them I’d maybe take a leaf out of the SNP’s book and be a frustrated minority government for a term.