1970 notionals on 1974-1983 boundaries

[Deleted]

I've got a serious case of the geekbumps!

I am delighted to announce - after a great deal of persistence - that I have managed to obtain the full notional results for the 1970 general election based on the boundaries that came into effect in the February 1974 general election. I've been all round the houses trying to get hold of them, but that's a different story.

It appears the notionals were calculated to the nearest hundred.

Here goes:

docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dX47DuTxmFg6SXaizeo3TQwvlEEOKPdCWQCTABWyN40/edit#gid=0

EDIT: These were the notional figures used to calculate swings for the BBC general election night coverage in February 1974. This makes direct comparisons possible between the general elections of 1970 and February 1974, in spite of extensive constituency boundary changes that took effect.

[Davıd Boothroyd]

Aug 13, 2015 20:48:57 GMT swanarcadian said:

I've got a serious case of the geekbumps!

I am delighted to announce - after a great deal of persistence - that I have managed to obtain the full notional results for the 1970 general election based on the boundaries that came into effect in the February 1974 general election. I've been all round the houses trying to get hold of them, but that's a different story.

Congratulations from me and I suspect everyone else.

Care to tell us that story?

[Andrew_S]

Aug 13, 2015 20:48:57 GMT swanarcadian said:

I've got a serious case of the geekbumps!

I am delighted to announce - after a great deal of persistence - that I have managed to obtain the full notional results for the 1970 general election based on the boundaries that came into effect in the February 1974 general election. I've been all round the houses trying to get hold of them, but that's a different story.

It appears the notionals were calculated to the nearest hundred.

Here goes:

docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/193Pv_gCPDfQbIU47JpFPEhmDxApz8kOere2hmkaTqko/edit?usp=sharing

Superb work / investigation to get hold of this important data. Obviously this makes constructing a Feb '74 running totals spreadsheet possible.

[Deleted]

Aug 13, 2015 20:50:08 GMT Davıd Boothroyd said:

Aug 13, 2015 20:48:57 GMT swanarcadian said:

I've got a serious case of the geekbumps!

I am delighted to announce - after a great deal of persistence - that I have managed to obtain the full notional results for the 1970 general election based on the boundaries that came into effect in the February 1974 general election. I've been all round the houses trying to get hold of them, but that's a different story.

Congratulations from me and I suspect everyone else.

Care to tell us that story?

Thank you David.

It all started in the Amazing Stupidity and Ignorance thread, of all places. I made the enquiry there about three weeks ago as to whether this data was available. It was yourself, David, who asked if anyone had approached Clive Payne of Nuffield College about it. Pete Whitehead meanwhile sent me a copy of the Radio Times from February 1974 which listed the new constituencies and who had won them. It took me a week to realise he had sent me it. I now check my e-mails regularly.

I was then inspired to contact Mr. Payne as David suggested. He informed me that Michael Stead had compiled the data for the BBC - and that ITN had created their own set! (perhaps that's for another day!?). Mr. Payne advised me to contact Michael Stead or David Cowling, Head of the Politics Unit at the BBC in case they had the data. I did so, but no reply was forthcoming from either. But Mr. Payne also suggested I got in touch with none other than David Butler!

David Butler (now in his nineties) replied remarkably quickly when I e-mailed him, saying I should try Stephen Fisher of Trinity College, Oxford. Mr. Fisher was on holiday at the time unfortunately, and all he was able to do at the time was suggest I searched on the UK Data Archive site. I did so, but to no avail. But when Mr Fisher returned from holidays, he forwarded me the data. However, it was an SPSS file which proved unreadable (hence my question on another thread a couple of days ago).

I was worried that Mr Fisher might get fed up of hearing from me, so I made one last attempt to ask him to provide the data on Excel. Tonight, I finally received that data, thanked him profusely and decided to share it with the other geeks. I am thrilled.

[Pete Whitehead]

Great work

[Andrew_S]

Aug 13, 2015 21:28:05 GMT swanarcadian said:

Aug 13, 2015 20:50:08 GMT Davıd Boothroyd said:

Congratulations from me and I suspect everyone else.

Care to tell us that story?

Thank you David.

It all started in the Amazing Stupidity and Ignorance thread, of all places. I made the enquiry there about three weeks ago as to whether this data was available. It was yourself, David, who asked if anyone had approached Clive Payne of Nuffield College about it. Pete Whitehead meanwhile sent me a copy of the Radio Times from February 1974 which listed the new constituencies and who had won them. It took me a week to realise he had sent me it. I now check my e-mails regularly.

I was then inspired to contact Mr. Payne as David suggested. He informed me that Michael Stead had compiled the data for the BBC - and that ITN had created their own set! (perhaps that's for another day!?). Mr. Payne advised me to contact Michael Stead or David Cowling, Head of the Politics Unit at the BBC in case they had the data. I did so, but no reply was forthcoming from either. But Mr. Payne also suggested I got in touch with none other than David Butler!

David Butler (now in his nineties) replied remarkably quickly when I e-mailed him, saying I should try Stephen Fisher of Trinity College, Oxford. Mr. Fisher was on holiday at the time unfortunately, and all he was able to do at the time was suggest I searched on the UK Data Archive site. I did so, but to no avail. But when Mr Fisher returned from holidays, he forwarded me the data. However, it was an SPSS file which proved unreadable (hence my question on another thread a couple of days ago).

I was worried that Mr Fisher might get fed up of hearing from me, so I made one last attempt to ask him to provide the data on Excel. Tonight, I finally received that data, thanked him profusely and decided to share it with the other geeks. I am thrilled.

I think Peter Snow was working on ITN's election programmes in 1974 so maybe he would be able to help with getting hold of the ITN notional figures.

[Deleted]

I've added percentages onto the spreadsheet. I’ll add the equivalent data for Feb 74 when I get home, for comparison.

[Harry Hayfield]

This is a question I have been asking ever since February 1974 was first replayed on BBC Parliament and it all stemmed from the scoreboard that was shown near the beginning of the programme when they explained about the boundary changes. I can't remember the exact numbers off hand (but as I have Election February 1974 recorded I shall refer to that and see if the numbers quoted there match these numbers) and will construct a Con / Lab battleground swingometer for the Home Counties and London (as shown in the programme) and if that matches up then "Sir, you have earned the praise of everyone in the land")

[Harry Hayfield]

This is the tally that I get:

Conservatives 12,733,977 votes (46%) winning 337 seats
Labour 12,132,879 votes (44%) winning 279 seats
Liberals 2,105,457 votes (8%) winning 5 seats
Scottish National Party 320,891 votes (1%) winning 1 seat
Plaid Cymru 163,397 votes (1%) winning 0 seats
Other Parties 131,575 votes (0%) winning 1 seat
Conservative lead of 601,098 votes (2%) with an overall majority of 39

The figures published on the February 1974 election broadcast were Con 338, Lab 284, Lib 6, Others 7 so I believe that given the fact that twelve seats were identified as "too close to call" these calculations match up exactly therefore believe that swanarcadian should be made an admin and founding member of the Psephological Society

[Deleted]

Aug 15, 2015 10:44:44 GMT Harry Hayfield said:

This is the tally that I get:

Conservatives 12,733,977 votes (46%) winning 337 seats
Labour 12,132,879 votes (44%) winning 279 seats
Liberals 2,105,457 votes (8%) winning 5 seats
Scottish National Party 320,891 votes (1%) winning 1 seat
Plaid Cymru 163,397 votes (1%) winning 0 seats
Other Parties 131,575 votes (0%) winning 1 seat
Conservative lead of 601,098 votes (2%) with an overall majority of 39

The figures published on the February 1974 election broadcast were Con 338, Lab 284, Lib 6, Others 7 so I believe that given the fact that twelve seats were identified as "too close to call" these calculations match up exactly therefore believe that swanarcadian should be made an admin and founding member of the Psephological Society

Well, that's very generous Harry. I might have made the data more accessible but I didn't actually calculate the figures myself, being born a number of years after the event. But I appreciate your comments.

I've added a bit of colour to my spreadsheet and am in the process of adding some notional swings for Feb 74. It confirms some surprises we knew from David Boothroyd's site such as Warley East being Conservative, for example. I'm also pencilling these results into my Times Guide, just as I have done with the 1979 notionals in my 1983 Times Guide.

[Harry Hayfield]

Whilst swanarcadian is showing the swings in the results from February 1974, here are the battlegrounds for the various parties. Firstly, Labour who needed 38 seats to gain an overall majority (on a swing of 1.74% from Con to Lab) and at least 48 seats (on a swing of 2.38% from Con to Lab) in order to get a working majority.

Number Constituency Swing
1 Upminster 0.00%
2 Ipswich 0.01%
3 Brighouse and Spenborough 0.06%
4 Lewisham West 0.34%
5 Northampton South 0.47%
6 Hampstead 0.52%
7 Bolton East 0.52%
8 Keighley 0.75%
9 Norwich South 0.86%
10 Bosworth 0.87%
11 Northampton North 0.88%
12 Middleton and Prestwich 0.91%
13 Birmingham, Perry Barr 0.94%
14 Gravesend 0.95%
15 Gloucester 0.96%
16 Stockport North 1.00%
17 Plymouth, Drake 1.03%
18 Bristol North West 1.03%
19 Aberdeen South 1.04%
20 Croydon Central 1.06%
21 Pembrokeshire 1.12%
22 Conway 1.13%
23 Dudley West 1.15%
24 Warley East 1.19%
25 Birmingham, Yardley 1.20%
26 Dover and Deal 1.41%
27 Ealing North 1.47%
28 Chorley 1.49%
29 Falmouth and Camborne 1.58%
30 Beeston 1.59%
31 Ilford South 1.61%
32 Leicester East 1.65%
33 Birmingham, Handsworth 1.67%
34 Bolton West 1.67%
35 Preston South 1.68%
36 High Peak 1.68%
37 Plymouth, Devonport 1.69%
38 Southampton, Test 1.74%
39 City of Oxford 1.78%
40 Nelson and Colne 1.84%
41 Battersea South 1.90%
42 Brentford and Isleworth 2.02%
43 Peterborough 2.07%
44 Coventry South West 2.13%
45 Luton East 2.13%
46 Buckingham 2.28%
47 Lancaster 2.30%
48 Western Isles 2.38%

[Harry Hayfield]

And in a similar vein, here are all the Liberal targets that would go down on a 10% swing to the Liberals

Number Constituency Swing
1 Hazel Grove 0.48%
2 Devon North 0.78%
3 Colne Valley 0.90%
4 Orpington 1.29%
5 Cardigan 1.91%
6 Ross and Cromarty 2.07%
7 Greenock and Port Glasgow 4.44%
8 Eastbourne 4.52%
9 Bodmin 4.68%
10 Rochdale 5.58%
11 Caithness and Sutherland 5.67%
12 Aberdeenshire West 7.02%
13 Cheadle 7.42%
14 Carmarthen 8.14%
15 Merioneth 8.59%
16 Banffshire 8.85%
17 Liverpool, Wavertree 9.11%
18 Scarborough 9.11%

Here are the nationalist targets

Plaid Cymru Targets
Number Constituency Swing
1 Caernarvon 3.38%
2 Carmarthen 3.97%
3 Cardigan 6.90%
4 Merioneth 7.71%
5 Anglesey 10.55%

Scottish National Party Targets
Number Constituency Swing
1 Aberdeenshire East 5.55%
2 Argyll 7.42%
3 Banffshire 7.90%
4 Hamilton 8.99%
5 Caithness and Sutherland 10.64%
6 Ross and Cromarty 10.74%
7 Moray and Nairn 10.78%
8 Dunbartonshire East 11.82%
9 West Lothian 12.38%
10 Stirlingshire West 13.73%
11 Galloway 14.86%
12 Aberdare 14.96%
13 Inverness 15.63%
14 Angus South 16.52%
15 East Kilbride 16.93%
16 Perth and East Perthshire 17.58%
17 Strilingshire East and Clackmannan 17.63%
18 Berwick and East Lothian 17.68%
19 Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles 17.72%
20 Edinburgh Central 18.05%

[Deleted]

So Jeremy Thorpe would probably have lost North Devon had the boundary changes come into effect before 1970.

[Harry Hayfield]

Aug 15, 2015 14:37:45 GMT swanarcadian said:

So Jeremy Thorpe would probably have lost North Devon had the boundary changes come into effect before 1970.

He would indeed have not won North Devon (a point mentioned on the election programme). When I get a moment I will screengrab the seats that the BBC called as "too close to call" and see how "too close to call" they were.

[afleitch]

Amazing stuff. I've done 1974 notionals for 1983 boundaries. I can work back to 1970 now

[iain]

Aug 15, 2015 14:37:45 GMT swanarcadian said:

So Jeremy Thorpe would probably have lost North Devon had the boundary changes come into effect before 1970.

I believe the results programme put it in 'too close to call', saying that any mathematical calculation would have had him losing, but they thought he would have had a personal vote - though of course one cannot factor that into a notional result.

[Harry Hayfield]

The "too close to call" seats (and their notional calculations) are:

Upminster: Con 20,700, Lab 20,700, Lib 3,900
Kingswood: Con 21,400, Lab 19,100
Dudley West: Con 26,800, Lab 25,600
Putney: Lab 21,600, Con 21,500, Lib 3,500
The Wrekin: Lab 29,500, Con 28,800
West Bromwich East: Lab 18,800, Con 18,500
Devon North: Con 25,200, Lib 24,300, Lab 8,000, Others 200
Hazel Grove: Con 23,800, Lib 23,500, Lab 5,200

[Deleted]

Most of the calculations I've seen are plausible.

This was Wolverhampton South West:

1970
Con 33100   70.1
Lab  11000    23.3
L        2800     5.9
Oth     300      0.6


Feb 1974
Con 23123 45.7 -24.4
Lab 16222   32.1 +8.8
L        9691   19.2 +13.4
NF      1523    3.0

Con to Lab swing: 16.6%

Now I know Enoch was popular, but...

[Pete Whitehead]

Well it is a matter of record that Enoch Powell won 64.3% in Wolverhampton South West in 1970 and the boundary changes would have signifcangtly improved the seat for the Conservatives as Tettenhall was added from Brierley Hill and more Labour leaning territory in the East of the seat was removed (basically the Parkfield area which is the inner part of the current Ettingshall ward). So I do think that result is entirely plausible. Remember it wasn't just that he was popular in 1970 but that he was still popular in 1974 and he advised his supporters to vote Labour

[Deleted]

Aug 15, 2015 22:15:31 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

Well it is a matter of record that Enoch Powell won 64.3% in Wolverhampton South West in 1970 and the boundary changes would have signifcangtly improved the seat for the Conservatives as Tettenhall was added from Brierley Hill and more Labour leaning territory in the East of the seat was removed (basically the Parkfield area which is the inner part of the current Ettingshall ward). So I do think that result is entirely plausible. Remember it wasn't just that he was popular in 1970 but that he was still popular in 1974 and he advised his supporters to vote Labour

A very persuasive post. I take back what I said.