Labour do not tend to win elections because of Scotland

[andrewducker]

Over the last few days I've repeatedly bumped into the idea that if
Scotland leaves the UK then the remaining parts are destined to be ruled by
a permanent Conservative government, because only the Scottish Labour MPs
tip the balance.

This is simply not true. If you look at the actual figures you'll see that
the last time that a Labour government was dependent on Scottish votes to
take power was 1974. Every single Labour victory from 1997-2005 was by a
large enough margin to not need Scottish votes at all.

You can see the votes if you start here
and work your way back with the arrows in the box at the top left...

Comments

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

It would however be 58 fewer seats the Tories would require for a working majority though?

[andrewducker]

But as they only seem to need them that badly once every 34 years, I'm not that worried about it.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

That's interesting, so general elections tend to be big wins one way or the other.

[andrewducker]

Consequence of FPTP - you only need a few people in marginal constituencies to swing them, so a 3% swing in the general population moves a big wodge of close places from one side to the other.

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

This is, however, not taking into account the boundary changes which knock the total number of seats down from 650 to 600 and equalise the size of seats by population. With those changes, it will be extraordinarily difficult for Labour to get a working majority of any kind within the next ten to twenty years, even with the Scottish seats and the current (hopefully temporary) swing from Lib Dems to Labour.

(That's not as unreasonable as it sounds. The last time we had an election that actually transferred from a government with a working majority to another government with a working majority was in 1951, despite what all those people saying FPTP brings 'a clear result' say).

[steer.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that! Really interesting.

[lpetrazickis.livejournal.com]

Also, parties are not immutable. Both policies and the electorate change over time, and FPTP will tend towards a certain equilibrium regardless of a country's composition.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Absolutely. Neither Scotland nor Wales has sufficient seats, in fact, to swing an election. (I sometimes wish they did, since they tend to vote for more socialist parties. Not that the English are necessarily more right wing, but there are more rural seats, and historically those tend to be conservative.)

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

as I mentioned yesterday, the problem would not have been a lack of Scottish votes, but that the last Labour Government would have been impossible to form.

Not to say that Labour couldn't have won otherwise, just that the team that beat Major was overwhelmingly Scots.

[del-c.livejournal.com]

Even if it was true that elections flipped to Labour because of Scotland, it would be irrelevant. It would just show that when the UK flips from C to L, it does so a bit after the Scottish seats are ready for a change, and a bit before the English ones are. This is no more interesting than noticing that when you are looking for your car keys, they turn up in the last place you look.