What if the Alliance had narrowly outpolled Labour in 1983

[nodealbrexiteer]

Apologies if we've done this one but inspired by a john07 post elsewhere(elections in fiction) what might have happened if Alliance had say got 28% and Labour 26% in 1983-less Labour seats than they got but still far ahead of the Alliance seat tally-would this have registered with the public and there be a greater demand for PR? Would Labour then have collapsed subsequently?

[Pete Whitehead]

Jan 22, 2021 19:59:15 GMT nodealbrexiteer said:

Apologies if we've done this one but inspired by a john07 post elsewhere(elections in fiction) what might have happened if Alliance had say got 28% and Labour 26% in 1983-less Labour seats than they got but still far ahead of the Alliance seat tally-would this have registered with the public and there be a greater demand for PR? Would Labour then have collapsed subsequently?

That makes me think of that game they used to play on Mock the Week
Things you wouldn't hear on the Vote UK Forum:

"inspired by a john07 post"

[LDCaerdydd]

Jan 22, 2021 19:59:15 GMT nodealbrexiteer said:

Apologies if we've done this one but inspired by a john07 post elsewhere(elections in fiction) what might have happened if Alliance had say got 28% and Labour 26% in 1983-less Labour seats than they got but still far ahead of the Alliance seat tally-would this have registered with the public and there be a greater demand for PR? Would Labour then have collapsed subsequently?

Temporarily. Doubt it would have impacted on the Conservative vote though.

[The Bishop]

Labour *narrowly* being outpolled by the SDP/Libs - which was seen by many in the party as about a 50-50 chance on the eve of polling day - might not have made much practical difference, especially as they would still have won vastly more seats despite this.

The psychological humiliation might actually have made the Labour "modernisers" task slightly easier, in fact.

If the move to the Alliance had happened earlier, and gathered momentum so that in the GE they polled around 30% and Labour not much over 20% - that is the sort of scenario where you might have seen fundamental change result.

[nodealbrexiteer]

Reversing the 1983 Lab and Alliance vote shares on EC gives Con 407,Lab 192,Alliance 30

[john07]

I suspect that a reversal would not have a huge effect on much of the country. It may have impinged on some areas where an Alliance candidate ran ahead of Labour in terms of tactical voting next time around.

My Constrituency Edinburgh South is an interesting example. It had been a Conservative/Unionist seat from 1918, although the Liberals won in previously. Gordon Brown mounted a strong challenge against Michael Ancram 1979 losing by 2,460. In 1983 there was a big surge by the SDP and they took second place by 6 votes from Labour.

In 1987, a surge by Nigel Griffiths won the seat for Labour from third place. Labour has held the seat since with Griffiths and Ian Murray starting with wafer thin majorities against the Conservatives, the Lib Dems and the SNP and winning in 2017 by over 11,000.

By contrast in Edinburgh West, at seat with a lower general Labour vote, the Liberals got good second place and became the main challengers to the Conseratives and sustained this. They won the seat in 1997 presumably by picking up more of the anti-Tory tactical votes. Would Labour have been able to pick this seat up had they been in the right place? It has been Liberal/Lib Dem since then apart from an SNP win in 2015. Labour remained in a tactical squeeze since then.

It is a question had Edinburgh South looked closer to Edinburgh West, would the Libs Dems have won the seat. They did manage to hold the corresponding Scottish Parliamentary Constituency between 2003 and 2011 although the boundaries are now very different.

[nodealbrexiteer]

Between 1983 and 1992 in the seats the Alliance were in second place to the Conservatives in 1983 they dropped on average only 2% whilst nationally they went down around 8%(according to the 1992 Nuffield study) and because the conservatives had drifted down in these seats too in 1992 the Lib Dems were on average no further behind the Conservatives in these seats than in 1983.

In the seats where Labour were 2nd in 1983 to the Conservatives they went up on average by 10% compared to 7% nationally.

All this meant was partly due to tactical voting it would become increasingly hard for the Tories to get a majority in the low 40% vote share range.

[🏴‍☠️ Neath West 🏴‍☠️]

Jan 27, 2021 10:01:20 GMT nodealbrexiteer said:

Reversing the 1983 Lab and Alliance vote shares on EC gives Con 407,Lab 192,Alliance 30

What seats change hands on that?

[nodealbrexiteer]

Jan 28, 2021 10:55:15 GMT 🏴‍☠️ Neath West 🏴‍☠️ said:

Jan 27, 2021 10:01:20 GMT nodealbrexiteer said:

Reversing the 1983 Lab and Alliance vote shares on EC gives Con 407,Lab 192,Alliance 30

What seats change hands on that?

Not sure I'd have to go back on EC and look

[nodealbrexiteer]

www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/usercode.py?scotcontrol=N&CON=43.5&LAB=26.0&LIB=28.3&Brexit=&Green=&UKIP=&TVCON=&TVLAB=&TVLIB=&TVBrexit=&TVGreen=&TVUKIP=&SCOTCON=&SCOTLAB=&SCOTLIB=&SCOTBrexit=&SCOTGreen=&SCOTUKIP=&SCOTNAT=&display=AllChanged®orseat=%28none%29&boundary=1983

[johnloony]

In the great scheme of things, it would have made no difference. Perhaps an extra half-a-dozen Guardian readers might have been persuaded to support PR, but the Conservative and Labour parties would have been resolutely against it as ever.