About that “swing to Labour”
UK Government is evidently taking samples, this month and early in the new year, of how effective its campaign of manipulation – born as “Boris Johnson’s lockdown-busting drinking partying”, grown into “cost of living crisis” and industrial relations turmoil† – has been in persuading Tory voters to adopt Keir Starmer. The safeness of each Labour candidate in an array of new by-elections – one already had last week, the other two to come – ranges from fairly secure to ensconced when it comes to the size of margins generated at the 2019 general election, so one can understand UK Government’s game at a glance. The intent is to play safe and produce no surprises: Labour will win three by-elections on the trot – like a party on an arc to occupying the office of the executive branch would be expected to do. The results, no matter how mediocre, will be spun to reinforce the impression of a prime minister in waiting in the shape of Keir Starmer. The Fake-Brexit epoch is being defined by collapsed support at the ballot box, but making use of an expected bigger crash in the Tory vote than that in the Labour one (and ultimately exploiting the annoyance of a Tory membership that voted for one leader but got another one selected for them), the “swing to Labour” will be a motif by corporate-media and politicians to seal the desired deal – at least, that is UK Government’s evident hope – in the minds of those who will be needed to act to bring the Starmer Project to its fruition.
However, the signs have been and remain to indicate that enough votes are not going to be transferred to Labour, against a backdrop of abandonment of voters from both main parties, to be able to establish what would appear to be a soundly legitimate Labour executive government. The problem is turnout, and apart from the fundamental issue arising from there being Members of Parliament who have no consent to govern, that it is entirely unreliable at this time means that predictions of inevitable success of Labour based on “swing” are not to be taken seriously.
Doubt about Labour performance is there to be seen, even as that John Curtice, staple of corporate-media political analysis, this time writing for iNews about the December 1st City of Chester by-election, can only stretch the swing to Labour so far:
If [the swing to Labour at Chester was] repeated across the country as a whole, it would only just be enough to deliver a Labour overall majority.
What he means is that Labour will scrape to win over half the 650 parliamentary seats needed for a simple majority. It’s definitely not the second coming of Blair – if the reader can remember the juggernaut conjured up by UK Government in the manipulation ahead of the 1997 Labour executive – the spirit of which is what there is an effort to nowadays install.
Ultimately this must be why Curtice wants to…
compare the performance in Chester with by-elections in Labour-held seats in the 1992-7 parliament, that is, the last time an opposition Labour party was a long way ahead in the polls, and a parliament that ended with Tony Blair’s landslide victory of 1997.
He continues:
…on average in these by-elections, Labour secured a swing of just over 12 points from 1992, when (in terms of votes) the gap between Conservative and Labour was not dissimilar to that in 2019. In short, Labour’s performance in Chester is on a par with what for the party is a hopeful precedent.
But it’s not really, because the context is very different between 1992 to 1997 and 2022 to 202? (a word on why the question mark in this date in due course). People are on to the con of the UK parliament like they never have been before, and general naïve belief that a completely new broom is ever going to sweep out all the debris of the corruption of the incumbent is a thing corroded to the point of crumbling.
Back to Curtice, and he signs off with the vital message:
In the meantime, the outcome in Chester is consistent with what we thought we already knew – that Labour is closer to a general election victory than at any time in the last twelve years. But that, of course, does not mean victory is in the bag.
So, the doubt can’t be disguised – but in the end, the issue is not whether or not Labour wins the next general election: this is an outcome that has already been decided. The issue that is behind the misgiving is the result’s lawful legitimacy, or whether or not enough people will have voted for Keir Starmer’s party so that it can’t be accused of being unwanted. While this prospect is not to be discussed overtly, an effort to prevent its realisation is actually what is behind the concern that Curtice injects into his piece in order to worry those who would be anxious about the legal legitimacy of a Labour executive – that is to say, those who don’t like “governments” weakened by not having enough seats, and having to be of a simple majority or even in a minority. The target audience is surely those Tory-voting types who feel bound to vote, but who couldn’t bring themselves to do it for the party of their usual support this time. Offered as an avenue for the release of their pent up frustration is the concept that if Starmer is going to win, then he must win by a good margin – and besides he is a Sir after all, to appeal to the need in these people to genuflect.
Needless to say, all of this has been proposed in these pages before; for example:
…what UK Government would ideally like is a proper old fashioned swing from the Tories to Labour for a one-nation government : this is why Starmer is made of the stuff to appeal to Jerry and Margot Leadbetter types whereby this is supposed to be inspired. And yet, there is no swing, only collapse…
The fact of collapse instead of swing is the fundamental issue to which all the discussion must return. It was evident again at Chester, the result at which, when put to certain scrutiny (of a sort that the reader is about to be introduced to), did not suggest that ex-Tory voters in the constituency had been persuaded in large numbers to defect to Labour instead of choosing not to participate. Such is the apparent ongoing problem of having once Tory voters change allegiance to Labour that the author has changed his mind about there being an election in early 2023 – even with Sunak liable to be blamed for everything that goes wrong over an unheated winter. More time will be needed to condition enough people to realise the irresistible arrival of Starmer. Perhaps there won’t ever be enough time (and there will be resort to cheating).
At the foot of the page is what might be called a numbers laboratory, or a thought experiment written down, where the dynamics or collapse versus swing are explored. Hopefully, what it shows is that swing as an indicator of the result of the next election is meaningless when the turnout is likely to be inconsistent. Also, in the context where there is abandonment of the system (leading to wildly unpredictable turnouts), a Labour win being touted on the basis of a high swing is absolutely hiding the problem of very low turnout.
Chester is a neat example of the issue, not a herald of Labour triumph. The turnout was 41.2%, the swing 13.8%. Also, that the margin in the 2019 election was 49.6% against 38.3%, and Labour lost 36% of its vote while the Tories lost 70% absolutely qualifies the by-election as a Scenario 2.i type as described below. All the other by-elections including and since Hartlepool where Labour and the Tories went head to head can also be matched to one of these types where the turnout is generally obscenely low, and Labour is actually in some cases at risk of losing to the Tories.
It’s no wonder that John Curtice can only see Labour scraping a simple majority, and that’s before we remember he’s bound to talk up their chances. That’s not to encourage people, by the way, to take the side of the Conservatives at the next general election as a kind of way to sabotage the Starmer Project, because Labour are not going to lose, but will win in the most shambolic way so that UK Government has become obviously illegitimate. This is not to talk about illegitimacy in the legal sense, where Starmer struggles to form a majority, but in a lawful one, where it can be said of the executive branch that it is not representative by dint of being elected after the participation in the election of a minority of the entire electorate – meaning where the people who didn’t vote are in a majority. As mentioned, UK Government may also find that it has to cheat extensively to get the result it requires, and having UK Government expose itself in either of these circumstances – as it surely will – is about revealing the fundamental illegitimacy of parliament, and the next phase in the necessary process of overthrowing UK Government. So, don’t vote.
* * * * *
There is a virtual electorate of 100 voters (100v), of which 70 voters (70v) took part in a benchmark election. The turnout, then, was 70%.
Scenario Set 1:
Benchmark:
Labour: 60% – or 42v; Tory: 30 – or 21v; Others: 10% – or 7v.
With this standard set, there can be examination of a number of sub-scenarios that could take place in a follow-up election, where the Tories are seeing a switch of 18% of their benchmark vote share (amounting to 4v) to Labour, with the Others also losing a share amounting to 1v to Labour.
In a first adaptation, there is no change in turnout. The results are:
Straight switch (turnout 70%):
Labour: 67% (47v); Tory: 24% (17v); (no need to be concerned with Others).
This means that there has been swing to Labour of 6.5%. Obviously, the higher the number of Tories who switch, the larger the swing. The 18% figure was understood from observations made by the author as being a realistic constant, and actually represents the upper end of a range of possibilities. In any case, it should be self-evident that in such a situation swing is quite meaningful.
In the rest of the scenarios, both Labour and the Tories suffer a drop in support, either at a high or low end of a scale. The Tory switch (as well as that from Others) is incorporated into the Labour tally.
Scenario 1.i: Low Labour failure (25% of the benchmark voters do not participate) with high Tory failure (70% of the benchmark voters do not participate). The result is:
Labour: 72% (31v); Tory: 14% (6v); turnout is 43%. Swing (gauged against the benchmark) is 14%.
Scenario 1.ii: Both parties see high failure (meaning for Labour the non participation of 45% of the benchmark). The result is:
Labour: 66% (23v); Tory 17% (15v); turnout is 35%. Swing is 9.5%.
Scenario 1.iii: Both parties see low failure (meaning for the Tories the non participation of 30% of the benchmark). The result is:
Labour: 61% (31v); Tory: 27% (14v)l turnout is 51%. Swing is 2%.
Scenario 1.iv: High Labour failure, low Tory failure. The result is:
Labour: 53% (23v); Tory: 33% (14v); turnout is 43%. Swing is -5%.
Now to reset the laboratory, and do the experiment all over again, but this time making the margin in the benchmark between the main parties smaller, so that the result is:
Scenario Set 2:
Benchmark:
Labour: 50% (35v); Tory: 40% (28v); Others: 10% (7v).
Straight switch (using 18%, which is 5v from the Tories, 1v from Others):
Labour: 58% (41v); Tory: 33% (23v); Swing (gauged against the Scenario set 2 benchmark) is 6.5%.
Note that the swing remains the same as in the corresponding result in the first scenario set.
Again, in the rest of the scenarios, both Labour and the Tories suffer a drop in support, and the switched votes are incorporated into the Labour tally. Percentages for low and high failures for both parties remains the same.
Scenario 2.i: Low Labour failure, high Tory failure. The result is:
Labour: 65% (26v); Tory: 20% (8v); turnout is 40%. Swing is 11.5%.
Scenario 2.ii: Both high failure. The result is:
Labour: 58% (19v); Tory 24% (8v); turnout is 33%. Swing is 6%.
Scenario 2.iii: Both low failure. The result is:
Labour: 50% (26v); Tory: 38% (20v); turnout is 52%. Swing is 1%.
[Note, Labour is in danger of losing this if the Tory switch is less than 18%].
Scenario 2.iv: High Labour failure, low Tory failure. The result is:
Labour: 42% (19v); Tory: 45% (20v); turnout is 45%. Swing is -6.5%.
[Note, the swing against Labour this time results in a Tory win].
Hartlepool, 2021: with starting margins of less than 10 percentage points, Labour lost 45% of its vote from 2019, while the Tories gained votes (consider it a “loss” of zero). The swing was 16% on a turnout of 42.7%. It was an election of the Scenario 2.iv, but obviously at the radical end of the scale.
Batley and Spen, 2021: Labour lost 41% of its vote from 2019, the Tories lost 32%. There was only 7 percentage points in the 2019 margin, closed to less than 1 at the by-election. The swing was 2.9 to the Tories, on a turnout of 47.5%. The best fit scenario is 2.iv, and the Tories were very a hair’s breadth from winning the seat.
Birmingham Erdington, 2022: A starting margin from 2019 of 10%, Labour lost 49% of its votes, the Tories 57%. Swing was 4.5% on a turnout of 27%. Scenarios 2.ii is the best fit, but Tory failure was actually at a medium in our scale, which meant a higher percentage share more like that in scenario 2.iii. Perhaps this result is best described as verging between the two. It was actually a shocking result for Labour.
Wakefield, 2022: The Tories were actually holding this seat and Labour gained it, but the same principles apply: the margin was “low” (-8%). Swing was 12.7% on a turnout of 40%. The Tories lost 61% of their vote, Labour 27%. Scenario 2.i applies, except both parties got lower percentage shares, probably as a consequence of starting in the wrong order (this scheme is based on Labour going into the by-election ahead).
As we go into the Stretford and Urmston and West Lancashire by-elections, with their 30 point and 16 point Labour leads respectively, if the haemorrhaging of the Tory support as it most recently has been continues, we can expect results of the scenario 1.i or 1.ii. Turnout should be awful, and although apologists can blame it on cold weather, there’s only UK Government illegitimacy at the root of it.
† Previously, at this site:
Johnson’s woes have been a central element in trying to turn would-be Tory voters to Keir Starmer. In fact, Johnson has somewhat been the sole whipping boy, for what amounts to the suspiciously artificial production of evidence seeming to betray Tory fatigue and tiredness of being in office, so that his continuing position of leader, on the same basis that a loose tooth must fall out when wiggled too much, does look fragile when countless corporate-media articles asks its audience to question it.
However, if Johnson’s term as Prime Minister is forcibly ended prematurely, it will not necessarily have been what UK Government has been trying to achieve, but only a by-product.
How hard do you imagine, reader, it is for UK Government to invent a crisis to engulf any successor of Boris Johnson’s in order to maintain its operation to undermine the Tories, and shore up Labour, at election?
It doesn’t matter who the Tory Prime Minister is, as long as he presides over a shambles…
