Polling Games
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The UK Polling Report website has an excellent ‘Swing Calculator’ feature which allows you to enter the figures from any poll - or even your own predictions - and produce a projected result in terms of seats. It is particularly useful in illustrating just how skewed the current electoral system is.
If you take today’s YouGov poll figures (reported in the Sun newspaper) you can see just what an uphill battle David Cameron has, and how - even if he is to lose some of his existing seats to the Tories - Nick Clegg could still have the kingmaker role he so vehemently claims he doesn’t want. The poll puts the Conservatives on 40%, Labour on 31% and the Liberals on 17%. This is how it works out in terms of seats, according to the Swing Calculator:
Con Conservative 321 seats (+123)
Lab Labour 261 seats (-95)
LD Liberal Democrats 38 seats (-24)
Others 12 seats (nc)
NI Northern Ireland 18 seats (nc)
Hung Parliament, Conservatives 5 seats short.
Clegg’s Liberals are under threat from the Conservative challenge in a number of seats, since their gains over the past three elections have generally been at the expense of the Conservatives. Even so, assuming a loss of 24 seats - mainly to the Tories - Clegg is still in a position to either put Cameron into power as part of a coalition (with, presumably, electoral reform as the deal-breaker) which would then have an overall majority, or at the very least deny them the chance of majority government. A formal alliance with Labour in this instance would allow a Lib-Lab coalition to govern as a minority government, this time leaving the ‘Others’ (mainly nationalist parties) and the Northern Ireland parties to act as ‘Bill-makers’.
However, change the figures just slightly, and the outcome becomes even more interesting, and potentially dangerous for the Liberals. On a 5.7% lead (Conservatives 39, Labour 33.3, Lib Dems 20), Labour actually has the higher number of seats despite scoring fewer votes (see Mike Smithson’s post using the swing calculator on Political Betting). The Liberals at this point could put Labour into power as a majority government. So, as Smithson asks in his post, does Clegg go with the vote winner or the seat winner? Labour is far from being out of this game (making yesterday’s plot fever all the more extraordinary), and as we track the polls with the invaluable aid of the swing calculator, we can see just how an uneven electoral system might tip the balance against the most popular party. Not much comfort there for David Cameron.
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