tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606798.post7138377545146815097..comments2024-03-27T16:39:43.522+00:00Comments on Liberal England: Did the rise of the SNP really spook Lib Dem voters in England?Jonathan Calderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00730157683743989696noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606798.post-21541219322282405092016-04-25T22:54:52.849+01:002016-04-25T22:54:52.849+01:00Fascinating, Wes. Did you write about this in grea...Fascinating, Wes. Did you write about this in greater detail elsewhere?robbiebhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12301769345615173912noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606798.post-10242112175762222842016-04-25T11:34:13.036+01:002016-04-25T11:34:13.036+01:00I did some analysis in a former Lib Dem seat compa...I did some analysis in a former Lib Dem seat comparing the General Election and District Council voting in 2015. Owing to a non-uniform set of candidates across the district, I had to apply some corrective variables to the data and credit the other parties votes in wards they didn't stand with reference to the vote share they got in the ones where they did. Not perfect, but I hope indicative.<br /><br />On the face of it 3,000 more people had voted Tory in the GE than they had for them in the DC. 3,000 didn't vote Lib Dem in the GE but did in the DC. The UKIP vote was 4,000 more than in the locals, a marginal increase for the Greens and Labour flat-lined. They were the same voters and the DC LD total vote cast on the same day in the same polling stations would have narrowly won the seat. <br /><br />It would seem in this seat that, using the DC votes as guides, at the GE level there was no evidence of a move to Labour, the Eurosceptic Tory vote was leeching to UKIP with the soft-LD vote moving to the Tories. This would seem to back up the SNP scare scenario, but it would be dangerous to extrapolate from a single seat. Other seats would obviously have their own local factors in play.<br /><br />I've not tried this anywhere else as it takes up a lot of time to extract the data from local authority web sites but if anyone has the time to do a full country wide analysis it might be more indicative of the real situation than using the raw GE data alone. Washttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08506032658589651155noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606798.post-152380870445444662016-04-25T10:10:55.158+01:002016-04-25T10:10:55.158+01:00I think it's very obvious that far bigger than...I think it's very obvious that far bigger than the SNP thing was tactical unwind -- all the Labour voters who'd voted for us in order to "keep the Tories out" voted Labour in seats where it really was a "two-horse race". Labour still came third, but we came second in those seats where we'd previously won.<br /><br />I think the "SNP scare" thing is a very convenient way for the people in charge to avoid all blame for a catastrophe that could be seen coming from four years before, and which they did little or nothing to avert.Andrew Hickeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07412263807838661843noreply@blogger.com