The irony of tactical voting

[therealjr]

Here's an amusing question for you.
On May 7th who will decide which candidate Chesterfield elects to Parliament. Will it be those who vote Labour or those who vote Lib Dem?

[therealjr]

read the question again Nicheuk!!!!

[Fly]

I don't think the Lib Dems will get in again yet JR
So those that vote Lab, plus for some reason I thought it was May 5th LOL

[therealjr]

Not unless they change it to a tuesday!!

I will grant you it does work on the assumption that the Lib Dem vote holds up.
Heres the amusing thing (I will answer my own question)
The people who will decide will be Tory voters!!
in 2001 the labour candidate polled 18663 votes. he lost
in 2005 it was 17830. he lost
in 2010 it was 17891. he won

so Toby Perkins actually received fewer votes than Reg Race but he won. The difference?
in 2001 and 2005 the tory candidate scored 3600 votes (3613 and 3605 to be exact)
in 2010 it was 7214!

In other words when the Tory supporters came out and voted for their own party (which they did in 2010 to show their report for DC) they actually got the candidate they least prefered. Tactical voting got them a candidate they preferred slightly more!
If the Tory vote collapses again and they decide to vote tactically and the Lb Dem vote comes out the result may surprise.
Labour can't be complacent.
Of course throw in the UKIP factor and all bets are off!!!!

[therealjr]

it is slowly turning into horse racing, it's always been Horse racing. First past the post wins

[Fly]

Isn't that be the way it should be JR. Different govs keep moving the goal posts all the time.
Terms in office. Wages, ever changing bills etc

[therealjr]

Nicheuk: Clegg's price for coalition was a referendum on PR. The problem was that the question wasnt 'do you want PR' it was 'do you want a particular style of PR'?
Even Clegg, its biggest supporter had to admit that the type chosen was probably the worst one available.
The irony now of course is that the Naysayers like Slacker will tell you that PR leads to coalition governments and after the last 5 years coalition governments are a bad thing (of course if the coalition had been lib/lab we wouldn't have heard a thing)
What a proper PR system would mean is that a tory voter in Bolsover or a labour supporter in Chelsea would have a vote that would actually mean something. Might lead to greater engagement of the people in politics and far less protest voting.


Fly: not sure why it has to be that way. The public are already disillusioned with politics. Faced with 'more of the same' thats unlikely to improve

[Slacker]

There have been 4 elections in Chesterfield since the general and LibDems have fallen a long way behind in the vote share (4th place in EU).
A poor turnout will suit UKIP, they nearly won the by election in Bolsover that had about 13%