Swing seats: the General Election of 2015 Lewis Baston For Westbourne Communications, January 2015
Jul 17, 2015
New features of the 2015 election
Post coalition
Lib Dems unpopular
Rise of UKIP
Rise of SNP
Rise of Greens?
Things that might have changed but didn’t
Same boundaries
Same voting system
Probably same low turnout
TV debates?First term
opposition is difficult
Two main parties have lost…
VotesMembers/
place in society
Loyalty
Ideology/ confidence
Nationwide appeal
Safe seats
Big majoritiesNot threatened
by swing or local factors
Often demographic
outliers
Long serving MP
Complacency and poor
organisation
Nomination usually equals
election
A new generation in safe seats
Con Labour Lib Dem Others
Safe seats with
retirements22 24 2 1
Women retiring 1 7 0 0
New women
candidates7 (2 TBA) 13 (4 TBA) 1 1
New BAME
candidates5 0 0 0
Conservative Labour
New MP keywords
(More) female
BME
Law Finance
Small business
Londoners
Female White
‘Real life’Voluntary
sector
Law Local
Myths dispelled
Not many ‘Special
Adviser’ types
Mostly locally known
Not many family connections
Fewer councillors than
might expect
Diverse life experiences
Heidi Allen (South Cambs) Lucy Frazer (SE Cambs)
Conservatives in Cambridgeshire
• Scientist, small business • Barrister
Another certainty (maybe less
comforting)
National choice between Conservative and Labour leading
government
… thanks mostly to the electoral system
Bad at translating
votes into seats
High ‘barriers to entry’
Tactical squeeze
Relative majorities are enough to win
Safe seats
Ed or Dave depends on much more than their national
vote
How much do ‘ground game’
and incumbency matter?
Who does better out of gains from
Lib Dems?
How many seats will SNP take from Labour?
How many will UKIP win (or tip the balance in)?
Will Greens vote tactically?
Will there be big regional
differences?
Predicting the ‘unpredictable’
LSB ID Lad S EE EF Lad N
Con 269 279 283 283 283 281/2
Lab 302 302 293 281 283 284/5
Lib D 31 24 33 26 26 28/9
SNP 21 18 22 36 33 29/30
UKIP 5 4 4 2 3 6/7
Prediction points
NOBODY is predicting a
majority
Lab and LD do better in seat by
seat work
Con and SNP do better in ‘global’
prediction
Nobody expects a working
majority for a 2-party coalition
There should be a way of
arbitraging the Ladbrokes odds
Labour’s high fliers (if they make it)
KeirSTARMER
RowennaDAVIS
Jessica ASATO
Helen HAYES
SophyGARDNER
Clive LEWIS