I'd like to believe it's the Iraq War that's cost Labour in these elections

[ciphergoth]

...but if that's so, why have the gains been in favour of the fucking Tories?

(Feeling rather ill and snuffly. But looking forward to seeing folks tonight!)

Comments

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

and the BNP - they got three seats in Epping. Three! That's just up the road from me!

[lovingboth]

In part, because in some places, if you want Labour out, you've got no other choice.

In part, differential turn-out (ie Labour voters don't turn out as much as Tory voters).

[stevenothing.livejournal.com]

Possibly because Labour are the more public face of the Iraq war?

[ex-meta.livejournal.com]

Well, the Guardian says:

Charles Kennedy declared yesterday's local election results the best ever for his party as the Liberal Democrats stormed Labour heartlands to come second with a 29% share of the vote.

The party leader, who watched the results come in until 3.30am, took a train to Newcastle once it became clear the party would wrest control of the city from Labour for the first time in 30 years.

The result saw Lib Dem seats double, from 24 to 48, while Labour's fell from 54 to 30.

[...]

Yesterday's results, while almost matching the 30% share gained in 2003, were hailed as more impressive because the gains had been at Labour's expense.

Sounds pretty good to me. I mean, you can only expect the Liberal Democrats to gain so much; sadly, some protest votes had to go to the Tories.

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

A lot of 'normal' people still seem to think in terms of either/or politics. I think it's stretching the definition to call it strategic voting in the case of these people, it's not that well thought out, but they vote Tory purely because they want to vote against Labour.

[softfruit.livejournal.com]

First a note on the what. The gains in seats are relatively evenly split between the Tories and Lib Dems. This hides a lot more "churn" in the Lib Dem seats -- losses in the South offset by gains in the North still giving an overall rise. The figures on gains and losses of councils look a lot worse than they seem when you look behind the figures (eg the Lib Dems lost Cheltenham but lost just 2 seats when they'd had a majority of one; contrast with places like Cardiff).

The how? Partly cos in the South the Tories are still taking back seats from the Lib Dems that they lost in the days when no-one would publicly admit to voting Tory. Partly cos the Tories put up more candidates nationwide than the Lib Dems did. Partly cos press-wise and money-wise the Tories still get way, way, way more attention. Partly cos the Lib Dem gains were in urban areas where there are many more voters per council seat, so a big popular swing translates into fewer gains.

And partly the maths of first past the post seats with more than 2 parties: if a seat was Lab 45 / Con 35 / LDm 15 / Others 5, and 15% of the Lab vote slumps to the Lib Dem, the Tory gets in by 5%.

[pavlos.livejournal.com]

Vietnam syndrome? Maybe they feel a "stronger" party would not have "made a mess" of the war. I hope it's not that.