U.K election maps

[Peter]

You can find the Feb 1974 results here if you are interested. I'm not sure how reliable these results are.

Horsham & Crawley was an interesting seat - it went 42% Con - 33% Lab - 24% Lib in Feb74. Methinks that if it had existed in 1966 (the Horsham of then covered the entirity of the North of West Sussex), it might well have gone Labour: Just imagine that, Horsham represented by a Labour MP.

I liked the slightly hidden joke: Never, ever ask the British electorate who governs

[Peter]

IIRC the Tory majority in Horsham in '66 was something like 8,000 (in an extremely oversized seat so that's nowhere near as impressive as it looks)... and seeing as how the areas lost to Chichester are (IIRC) extremely Tory... Horsham & Crawley would probably have gone Labour in '66... ;

Only 6,000 apparently, in a constituency with an 88,000 electorate. Also, the suggestion that there are any non-Tory voters in that bit of Sussex will get you hunted like a fox (no, literally).

Also, whilst you might not have been alive in 1974, you clearly are Anuerin Bevean reincarnate.

[Peter]

If only Shirley had run against Roy or David had beaten Roy, then maybe we could have had a little more purple on that map.

I might do a map under my wet dream scenarios of the Alliance taking some chunks out of the Tories and Labour or something.

[Peter]

If only Shirley had run against Roy or David had beaten Roy, then maybe we could have had a little more purple on that map.

I might do a map under my wet dream scenarios of the Alliance taking some chunks out of the Tories and Labour or something.

This book had a very interesting scenario where the SDP did much better in 83 and finished second in terms of share of the vote…

Amazon Bookstore

I bought the book within about a week of it going on sale. It's interesting but a number of the scenarios aren't really that plausible.

Whether the Alliance would have gotten 5% from both parties is highly debatable on this counterfactual. I think you have to go back long before the 83 election campaign began to get a sensible counterfactual build up here.

For example, it seems eminently more sensible to have had David Owen beat Roy Jenkins in the 1982 leadership contest as his thoughts on where to position the SDP would have been:
1. Electorally better
2. More independent from the Liberals than it turned out to be.

The fact that the SDP and Liberals ended up fighting half the constituencies each and never against one another is actually the result of a slip of the tongue by Bill Rodgers. It would have been quite plausible to see the two parties compete in 400 seats whilst leaving 250 as "target" seats.

With this greater independence, I think one can safely say that there is no more joint platform, though a united approach would be needed in the target seats and no large divergences in policy.

On the basis of an optimistic election result, one might see the following:
SDP gain 6 points from Labour and 4 points from Tories
Liberals gain 7 points from Tories and 3 points from Labour.
As you can see, they both gain 10 points total, but in different ways. This is roughly the scenario I am working on.

[Peter]

What's southern Wales like? It appers there's a strip there that always vote ultra-Labour.

The bit you are referring to is basically a paradise for Al given that all that used to happen there was coal mining. Coal miners were usually a very tribal lot who voted Labour heavily.

Just to the south of the Labour voting belt is a blue strip, which is Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan. Some of the constituencies went Tory, some didn't.

[Peter]

I wouldn't mind seeing Youainteverhaditsogood at some point.

[Peter]

The Labour vote in NW Wales will come back IMO.

It's certainly *started* to... after all we hold Ynys Mon again and have re-asserted our natural (ie; 2nd at the very least) place in Caernarfon, following boundary changes it'll be ours again methinks.
But the question is how far the road to recovery will go... know what? I think we need another Goronwy Roberts...

Speak for yourself, but I wouldn't mind seeing another Welsh Dragon.

[Peter]

Wikipedia has full election data for the full life of Caithness and Sutherland:

Constituency page

As a side note, just look at 1945 - that surely has to be a record of some kind. I have no idea what was used as a source, but the generally accepted source for pre-50 results is Craig's series of books. 50 and after is often based on www.psr.keele.ac.uk which uses The Times and Whitakers Almanack as its sources, which presumably means that data is double checked.

[Peter]

IIRC the defeated Liberal that year is some relation of the current M.P for the seat.

Correct, he is the grandfather. Alistair Sinclair was created Viscount Thurso in 52 after he had been ejected from the Commons. His grandson is also Viscount Thurso but has not had to disclaim as Viscount Stansgate did because hereditary peers no longer receive automatic seats.

Wiki is eveloving intoa  good source. It is interesting to read about the university seats and the 'Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds'

It is quite variable - some areas are quite thorough, such as Surrey (some nutcase with too much time on his hands is responsible for that), whilst other areas like Shropshire are quite sparse, mostly because they haven't discovered computers there yet.

[Peter]

whilst other areas like Shropshire are quite sparse, mostly because they haven't discovered computers there yet.

Is that a hint?

I was thinking about doing something about that actually... hmm...

There's a guide and some vague attempt to co-ordinate our efforts linked from this page, though don't worry yourself too much about some of the more pernickety rules. If you need any help, I'll be happy to point you in the right direction (if it exists, which it probably doesn't - Just remember, there are 1 million articles on wikipedia, but 2 million administrative pages, thats what I call bureaucracy)

[Peter]

Liberals lose Ceredigon (or Cardigan as it was then) for the first time in what .... history?

[Peter]

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Don't encourage me.