Thinking and doing: The myth of electability

Thinking and doing: The myth of electability: In the creation of myths we have some great names: Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles. But to this we must add a new name, and one that is not ...

But, do the facts support the myth? Since
1983 there have been 10 general elections in the UK. The highest
percentage of votes received by the winning party was 43.6% (by
Johnson’s Tories in 2019). The average vote share to win is 40%. In
other words, in order to win a UK General Election you only have to
convince 44% of voters at most, and usually less than that.

Vote share Tory/Labour 1983-2019

	Tory	Labour	Combined
1983	42.4	27.6	70.0
1987	42.2	30.8	73.0
1992	41.9	34.4	76.3
1997	30.7	43.2	73.9
2001	31.6	40.7	72.3
2005	32.4	35.2	67.6
2010	36.1	29.0	65.1
2015	36.8	30.4	67.2
2017	42.3	40.0	82.3
2019	43.6	32.2	75.8
Average	38.0	34.4	72.4

The myth fostered by psephologists, and
widely believed by Labour members, is of an electorate constantly in
flux, but on closer examination this turns out to be highly unlikely. To
be clear , seventy per cent of voters are either Labour or Tory and
they tend not to vote for the other party. Swing voters may exist but
not in the numbers we have been led to believe.

The Independent in 2016 published a piece which confidently asserted that: “Britain
is turning into a nation of swing voters as increasing numbers of
electors shop around at general elections before deciding which party to
support.” 

 

More -  https://davemiddletons.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-myth-of-electability.html