Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 29, 2018 8:12:41 GMT
Yes and no I would say. Similarly to East Dunbartonshire, Inverness has been through some major boundary changes over the years. I would say that the addition of Easter Ross to the old Caithness and Sutherland constituency in 1997 was less drastic. I don’t think the current East Dunbartonshire is that different from the 1974-83 version. I think the current East Dunbartonshire would’ve been Conservative in Feb 1974 and Labour in 1979. I think the seat counts as an example of 4 parties holding it since WWII. The old East Dunbartonshire seat would never have voted Lib Dem. The Strathkelvin & Bearsden seat might have, but I doubt it. They are totally different constituencies. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 29, 2018 8:15:10 GMT
Okay.
How would the current East Dunbartonshire have voted from February 1974 to present?
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Mar 29, 2018 9:27:51 GMT
It would clearly have voted Conservative in the three elections of the 1970s. It may have been held by the Conservatives in 1987 (and therefore also 1992) before being lost to Labour in 1997
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Post by Deleted on Mar 29, 2018 10:21:01 GMT
It would clearly have voted Conservative in the three elections of the 1970s. It may have been held by the Conservatives in 1987 (and therefore also 1992) before being lost to Labour in 1997 Okay. So I think it counts as an example then. |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Mar 29, 2018 10:31:14 GMT
It would clearly have voted Conservative in the three elections of the 1970s. It may have been held by the Conservatives in 1987 (and therefore also 1992) before being lost to Labour in 1997 Okay. So I think it counts as an example then. Who chicken-ran or reverse chicken-ran there then? |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 29, 2018 10:38:32 GMT
Okay. So I think it counts as an example then. Who chicken-ran or reverse chicken-ran there then? No we were earlier discussing seats which have been held by 4 parties - a topic too small for its own thread. |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Mar 29, 2018 10:50:20 GMT
Who chicken-ran or reverse chicken-ran there then? No we were earlier discussing seats which have been held by 4 parties - a topic too small for its own thread. Not too small if it was expanded to include local government wards, or indeed to cover other countries. You had better be careful of the Off Topic Police who seem to be super zealous of late |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 29, 2018 10:52:44 GMT
No we were earlier discussing seats which have been held by 4 parties - a topic too small for its own thread. Not too small if it was expanded to include local government wards, or indeed to cover other countries. You had better be careful of the Off Topic Police who seem to be super zealous of late True. Although I think it’s a tad unfair as conversation naturally goes off in different directions but ah well. I just don’t like clogging the place with new threads. |
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Post by therealriga on Mar 29, 2018 17:33:57 GMT
UUP leader Jim Molyneaux. His South Antrim seat was split before the 1983 election as a result of Northern Ireland getting 5 extra seats. The main two successors were Lagan Valley and South Antrim.
Lagan Valley was Lisburn council plus one ward. In Lisburn, the DUP had outpolled the UUP by 43% to 32% in the 1981 locals.
South Antrim was Antrim council plus most of Newtownabbey. Antrim had favoured the UUP over DUP by 38% to 28% in 1981, while N'abbey had broken evenly.
Molyneaux chose Lagan Valley and won easily, getting a bigger majority than his successor in South Antrim.
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Apr 7, 2018 18:34:59 GMT
As I've mentioned before, I have it on good authority that Sproat wasn't a simple chicken run - he moved because members of his association became aware of information about him, and effectively blackmailed him not to seek reselection there.
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Post by greenhert on Apr 7, 2018 21:00:45 GMT
What information are you talking about? I always believed that Iain Sproat moved because he feared he would lose Aberdeen South to Labour in 1983 (it was of course retained by the Conservatives).
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ColinJ
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Post by ColinJ on Apr 8, 2018 7:54:38 GMT
Galloway's move from Bethnal Green & Bow to Poplar & Limehouse, and Martin Bell's move from Tatton to Brentwood & Ongar spring to mind - both to fulfil promises to only sit for one session, both from seats they might have held to ones where they lost. Similarly, Hugh Lawson won the Skipton by-election of 1944 for the Common Wealth Party, promising to only see out the rest of the Parliament. In 1945, therefore, he shifted over to Harrow West, where the popularity or otherwise of the Common Wealth brand was untested and which had an incumbent Tory MP. Lawson polled 4%. The Leader of the Common Wealth Party, Sir Richard Acland, had been MP for Barnstaple since 1935, but decided to contest Putney in 1945 for some reason. He received 8% of the vote there. Just seen this post; Hugh Lawson was a good spot. There are some other factors regarding his 'reverse chicken run' that I noted when researching for my web site a few years ago. I reproduce a footnote I made on the matter: The Common Wealth Movement had adopted Wilfred Brown as prospective candidate for the Harrow division in 1943, and he was re-adopted for the Harrow West constituency in February 1945. Brown withdrew in favour of Lawson in April 1945, who himself had withdrawn from the Skipton election in favour of the Labour Party candidate. Lawson claimed that before Harrow West Labour Party adopted Mrs. Thompson as their candidate that they had approached him and asked him to resign from Common Wealth with a view to being the Labour candidate.
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Apr 8, 2018 10:37:09 GMT
What information are you talking about? I always believed that Iain Sproat moved because he feared he would lose Aberdeen South to Labour in 1983 (it was of course retained by the Conservatives). I don't believe the details have ever been publicly reported, but one of those who forced him to stand down got in touch with the Labour campaign in Harwich in 1997 to try to get them to use the information (they declined.) I heard it from them, and they had no motive to invent it. The particular issue was unusual, but not criminal and I see no benefit in being specific. |
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WJ
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Post by WJ on Apr 9, 2018 19:30:10 GMT
Could there be a case for Ruth Davidson? First place on the Glasgow regional list to Edinburgh Central in 2016? While the Glasgow list could hardly be described as safe, surely it must have been considered safer than going for the constituency seat.
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Post by pepperminttea on Apr 9, 2018 19:43:20 GMT
Could there be a case for Ruth Davidson? First place on the Glasgow regional list to Edinburgh Central in 2016? While the Glasgow list could hardly be described as safe, surely it must have been considered safer than going for the constituency seat. Wasn't she on the Lothian list though? Thus if she had lost Edinburgh Central (as virtually everyone thought she would) she would have been back in parliament via the list anyway and seen as Lothian is a much stronger region for the Tories than Glasgow even in a complete disaster they'd still be virtually guaranteed a list seat there whereas they wouldn't be in Glasgow. |
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WJ
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Post by WJ on Apr 9, 2018 20:55:40 GMT
Could there be a case for Ruth Davidson? First place on the Glasgow regional list to Edinburgh Central in 2016? While the Glasgow list could hardly be described as safe, surely it must have been considered safer than going for the constituency seat. Wasn't she on the Lothian list though? Thus if she had lost Edinburgh Central (as virtually everyone thought she would) she would have been back in parliament via the list anyway and seen as Lothian is a much stronger region for the Tories than Glasgow even in a complete disaster they'd still be virtually guaranteed a list seat there whereas they wouldn't be in Glasgow. Ah, didn't know she was also on that list. |
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Post by Lord Twaddleford on Apr 9, 2018 23:26:28 GMT
Wasn't she on the Lothian list though? Thus if she had lost Edinburgh Central (as virtually everyone thought she would) she would have been back in parliament via the list anyway and seen as Lothian is a much stronger region for the Tories than Glasgow even in a complete disaster they'd still be virtually guaranteed a list seat there whereas they wouldn't be in Glasgow. Ah, didn't know she was also on that list. It was the only list she was on, she didn't stand in Glasgow in 2016. |
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Post by timrollpickering on Apr 9, 2018 23:53:39 GMT
Another historic example is Bonar Law in December 1910 when he abandoned Dulwich in favour of taking the tariff reform fight to Manchester North West but failed to gain the seat. The following year he returned in a by-election at Bootle.
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Post by johnloony on Apr 10, 2018 2:12:16 GMT
Ah, didn't know she was also on that list. It was the only list she was on, she didn't stand in Glasgow in 2016. I think the word "also" meant "as well as in the constituency", not "as well as in the Glasgow list". |
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Eastwood
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Post by Eastwood on Apr 10, 2018 10:38:59 GMT
To me, the most interesting aspect of reverse chicken runs is when leading figures in a party who hold a safe seat move to stand in a marginal seat because they believe their fame will work in their party's favour. It often doesn't. Alex Salmond running in Gordon at the Scottish Parliament elections in 2007 would be a (successful) example of this. It did have some overlap with his Banff and Buchan Westminster constituency but certainly wasn't the safest option the SNP could have found him and he deliberately didn't go on the NE Scotland list. Was quite a cunning tactic as he was able to talk up the decision as being due to his confidence that the SNP would form an administration that frankly not many people believed was possible in the run up to the 2007 election. I suspect the decision was partially motivated by the fact that he was unlikely to win the seat except if the SNP were doing relatively well so he was less likely to have to be leader of the opposition. |
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