Thursday 19 June 2008

Safe

Is there any seat in the House of Commons that is not safe?

First the Tories claimed to have taken a previously impregnable fortress by overturning only a seven thousand majority at Crewe & Nantwich.

And now Labour is claiming that Haltemprice and Howden is rock solid Tory even though the majority there is a mere five thousand.

Just how small does a majority have to be in order for the seat to be marginal?

23 comments:

  1. Let's turn the question round - is there any seat which you do consider safe? What majority would that be?

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  2. Ten thousand?

    Actually, I'd always assumed that that *was* the working definition of a safe seat. If not, then what is?

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  3. A safe seat is one that takes a significant amount of swing more than the historical or current General Election average to turn it. If we look back at all general elections since 1951, we find an average national swing of just over 3% (3.046%, to be precise).
    Let’s call a safe seat one that would only change with a swing of 10% - over 3 times historical average. Only about 400 seats have ever had a greater than 10% swing –that’s around 4% of *all* seats contested since the war.

    To give us a recent historical parallel, national swing in 2005 was 3.15%, in 2001 was 1.8%. Even in 1997, the great Labour landslide, swing was 10.23% - which confirms the thesis that a 10% swing or more is a once in a generation type swing

    Bearing that in mind, let’s turn to Crewe and Nantwich. Swing from Labour to Tories? 17.6%

    As you would say David, point proved.

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  4. You are clutching at straws, and probably just making this up.

    Crewe & Nantwich was a marginal seat which just happened to have had a very popular MP for a long time. Taking it once she had died was nothing to write home about.

    And Haltemprice and Howden is so marginal that the Lib Dems genuinely thought that they were going to take it last time.

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  5. Why will there be no Tory candidate at H&H? I think Jon should do it.

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  6. I'm doing neither - link to historical swing here:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_%28politics%29

    And Crewe and Nantwich result here:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crewe_and_Nantwich_by-election%2C_2008

    I have to say, "you're probably making this up" is a pretty feeble come back. Crewe and Nantwich, under any possible definition, was a safe seat, and the Tories took it with a landslide size swing. That's not to say that they will repeat this at the next GE (I would be amazed if they did). But it was a safe seat.

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  7. "It was! It was! It WAS!", screams Jon. "Yes, Cameron IS the most popular Leader ever! He is! He is! He IS!"

    No. He is not. He won't even put up a candidate at Haltemprice and Howden. As Anonymous 17:53 says, why don't you give it a go, Jon?

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  8. Yawn. Don't change the subject. Don't throw childish abuse.

    You asked a sensible question. I gave you a sensible answer. Just because you don't like it, or it doesn't fit your preconceptions, don't throw your toys out of the pram.

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  9. I'd pay very good money to see Jon attempt it.

    Scotland (no local elections this time round but apparently it doesn't matter), the South West (hardly any local elections this time round but apparently it doesn't matter), and now even East Yorkshire. Just where is the heartland of the Cameron Conservatives?

    At this rate, expect them to lose the Henley by-election. But it won't matter. Course it won't.

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  10. Why don't you put up at H&H, Jon? MacKenzie's not doing it now, and Davis is an Independent, not a Tory.

    Don't all those morally and socially conservative Eurosceptic Yorkshire folk who are itching to vote for a pro-Cameron candidate deserve the chance to do so?

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  11. I think it's misleading to think of there being an absolute number for a majority which makes a seat "safe" - it depends on the wider political context. Given where we are at the moment, pretty much every Tory MP ought to be able to consider their seat safe. If the national swing at the next election is anything near what the polls now suggest, then a Tory MP with a majority of, say, 100, ought to be able to expect to get a four-figure majority next time. Meanwhile, any Labour MP with a majority under, say, 10,000 is likely to be worried at the moment.

    Obviously, polls can change. And I'm talking in big-picture terms: even if the Tories win the next election comfortably, it's perfectly possible that they will lose a seat here and there against the national trend, and that Labour will hold a seat here and there defending a tiny majority - partly because local MPs and parties defending tiny majorities often work very hard for an entire parliament, and do better than average.

    But the wider point about David Davis is that a 5,000 Tory majority in 2008 ought to be considered safe, even though a 5,000 Tory majority in 1996 was not safe at all, and a 5,000 Labour majority in 2008 looks pretty marginal. There will almost certainly one day come a point where Tories with 5,000 majorities are marginal again, and Labour MPs with tiny majorities can comfortably expect to be re-elected - but it probably won't be for a while, and it probably won't be until the Tories are back in power.

    If you build a sandcastle a few feet from the sea as the tide is going out, it will look precarious at first but it will be safe all day.

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  12. You should start a daily Jonwatch, both on this and on the drugs question that he never answered before.

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  13. So why aren't the Tories standing anyone against this maverick Independent, Andy? Don't they want to keep one of their safe seats?

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  14. They'll just let him back into the party when he wins. Much easier.

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  15. But would he re-join if they asked him? There's a thought. If he is thumpingly returned, effectively against the Tories even if they don't put up (against Cameron, anyway), then why would they want hime, and why would he want them? He certainly wouldn't need them.

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  16. Just as a quick point, I'm pretty sure he hasn't actually resigned from the Conservative Party. He's resigned as a Conservative MP, but the operative part of that is "MP" - since he's not an MP, he's not a Conservative MP. He's not an Independent. He's still a party member now, and he'll immediately sit as a Conservative MP if he's re-elected, taking the Conservative whip. So the Tories aren't in a position where they need either to stand against him or to readmit him.

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  17. Not according to Martha Kearney, but of course that doesn't make you wrong.

    At the very least, he's now semi-detached, a political brand in his own right like Boris Johnson or Ken Livingstone.

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  18. "a political brand in his own right like Boris Johnson or Ken Livingstone."

    Or David Lindsay.

    How's the brand-recognition coming along?

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  19. OK, but how is it with people who didn't meet you at university?

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  20. Rather better than among people who did.

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  21. You mean amongst people who know you or have met you, you're not that popular or vote worthy? Kind of a problem, isn't it?

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  22. Lots of people have met me before or since I was at university.

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