29September
Yesterday's Grauniad webties had a long piece on how Thursday's by-elections should give Mr. The Soup Dragon cause for concern about calling a general election in the next few weeks. Thanks to the unique way in which Het Grauniad's webtie is mis-structured, we cannot find hide nor hair of this piece on the morning after.
The preap's retained psephologist, Polly Pegonthenose, took the results in the week's half-dozen by-elections (mostly in safe Labour seats), and generalised up to an entire country projection. Without using the standard disclaimer, It's just a bit of fun!.
Now, swingometer fans, what were Polly Pegonthenose's errors? That's right, Vine, she's using far too small a sample. You'll get there yet, I'm sure. The average Butler swing on Thursday's results was +8%, sufficient to generate a thumping big majority for Dave The Eager Young Space Cadet. The three-party transfers were +6% from Labour to the Conservatives, -2.8% from Lib Dem to Labour. That's right, Labour lost votes to both other major parties.
Pop those numbers into any credible seat-by-seat calculator, and remebering, it's just a bit of fun, we find Labour loses 90 seats, the Tories gain 88, leaving Mr. The Eager Young Space Cadet about 20 seats short of an overall majority. Labour + Lib Dem would still be 10 short.
Serious psephologists, and this commentator, prefer to take a longer rolling average. Here's the score based on the last three months:
| Now | 23 Sept | |
|---|---|---|
| Con from Lab | +5.71% | +5.66% |
| Con from LD | +0.49% | +0.75% |
| Lab from LD | -5.22% | -4.91% |
No significant changes there, we would expect a wander of 0.5% in any direction at any time.
| Now | 23 Sept | |
|---|---|---|
| Conservative | 281-306 | 281-305 |
| Labour | 232-258 | 233-258 |
| Lib Dem | 75-83 | 73-82 |
| Others | 34-35 | 34-35 |
| Conservative Overall Majority | (-90)-(-38) | (-90)-(-40) |
The conclusion is precisely the same as last week: if the council swings were repeated nationally, Mr. the Soup Dragon wouldn't lead the largest party.
We can look more closely: from this starting point, Labour would need a 3% swingback from Conservative voters just to become the largest party. Alternatively, they could concentrate on winning back the 5% of people who have defected to the Lib Dems: achieving that in isolation would also leave the parties roughly level. Doing both leaves Labour about 25 short of an overall majority.
Even looking at just September's by-election results, we still find a 4% swing from Labour to the Conservatives, and the Lib Dems able to coalesce with either major party.
We repeat our bottom line conclusion from last week: if Mr. The Soup Dragon were to call an election this autumn, he would be taking a needless risk, an entirely reckless gamble.
