Game on: is this the critical election?

[matgb]

OK, when I talked about Labour getting wiped out in 2010 a couple years back, I was semi-joking and being deliberately provocative. Or maybe I was just being prescient. Email from YouGov:

Our latest daily polling figures for The Sun (fieldwork 15th-16th April) are:

* Conservative: 33%
* Liberal Democrat: 30%
* Labour: 28%
* Others: 9%

The Liberal Democrats have surged to 30% in the latest YouGov poll, which was conducted entirely after the leader's debate, pushing Labour down to third place.

I'll say that again:

pushing Labour down to third place

Even the Sun, who commissioned the poll, are being nice:

the most dramatic shift in support for the Lib Dems was from the young, with a massive 44 per cent of 18 to 34-year-olds saying they would vote for Mr Clegg

(and there's more analysis on UK Polling Report).

But, so people are saying (morons) that the seat calculators say the LDs will still get crap because of the voting system. Well yes, that's true, the calculators do. Because the calculators are rough approximations based on uniform national swing effects.

Here's the thing. I live in a tight Labour/Tory marginal. On paper. When we decided on our campaign strategy, it was fairly easy. I went through the numbers, pointed out that Labour were dead in the water with a non-existent activist base, no local Govt presense and that we ought to be fighting to win. My PPC and agent were persuaded that this was at least a viable strategy; we're fighting the Tories for first place, Labour have Lost it in Calder Valley (that was my slogan, quite proud of it actually).

Yes, there are local issues, and the sheer uselessness of the eventual Labour candidate is helping, but it'd still be a good strategy even without their implosion.

Reality: persuade voters that Labour can't win and we can, we've won

So, according to the seat calculators, seats like mine fall Tory, or stay Labour. Reality is, as soon as we persuade local voters that Labour can't win and we can, we've won (happening already). It helps, of course, that we've an incredibly strong candidate.

Uniform swing calculators cannot, and will not, take into account the effect of a strong local campaign, or even the third party squeeze effect in reverse. Once Labour voters in an area are convinced their candidate can't win, some of them will switch to us to stop the Tory candidate. I don't want to live under a Tory MP, they sure as hell don't. This sort of effect is exactly what happened in Canada when their Tory Govt got eviscerated.

Extra added bonus? A bunch of notional Tory voters now are voting Tory just to stop Labour. Persuade them they don't need to worry? Even more swing to us.

This could be the game changing election

It's probably the most critical election since 1983. Only this time, those that want real change have learnt from the mistakes of last time, and will be pushing forward with a much stronger message.

Time to abandon those narrowly chosen target seat campaigns guys. Secondary seats that on previous polls were unlikely to fall are in much more need of support if we're actually going to take advantage of this massive boost.

Seats like Calder Valley. Where we're fighting to win from 3rd place. And if the opinion polls keep showing Labour in 3rd place? We'll take it easily. With a bit of extra cash.

I'm guessing we need to go sort out an online donation system.

Comments

[leftoutside.wordpress.com]

I think you make a good point. The swings are not going to be uniform by by any stretch of the imagination but I think it is dangerous to focus you're argument on this too much. When you say:

Uniform swing calculators cannot, and will not, take into account the effect of a strong local campaign, or even the third party squeeze effect in reverse.

...that is all well and good. But what people will say, and I instantly thought, is that Uniform swing calculators cannot, and will not, take into account the effect of a weak local campaign".

The analysis you offer is important in Calder Valley, but may be average out across the whole nation.

Regardless it is a good poll result, but you will still probably get the least seats out of it, and Labour the most. [Frankly, it might be good for democracy in the medium term, the sense of outrage would be enormous and we might be able to capitalise on that.]

[matgb]

Oh, absolutely, a weak campaign will lose a seat, there needs to be local efforts.

Which is why I'm specifically telling LD fundraisers to start spreading the cash around a bit, I thought we were over-targetting anyway, now I'm convinced.

LAbour might get the most seats, yes, if they stay in the mid to high 20s. But if they collapse down to low 20s?

As soon as it looks like they've lost, that could very easily happen. I wouldn't put money on them going below 20, but I wouldn't bet against it either.

But yes, if the results are really close, this time the reform argument (real reform not Brown's AV fudge) will be a lot stronger.

[solipsistnation]

Wasn't the Clegg (or Klegg?) some kind of evil enemy alien in Judge Dredd way back when? Clearly this is working against Labour.

[matgb]

I have no clue, but I know a man who would.

[missedith01]

Reading a lot into one set of polls? Political hegemonies are hard things to shift ... and the 'Dems have been promising Labour voters that they can shift this one since the Gang of Four first ... ganged.

Good luck in Calder Valley tho ... will look out for you on the night!

[matgb]

Oh, I know, one poll, but if it's repeated more than once, then the media narrative changes. To an extent it already has.

Equal footing is a big difference, if it can continue...

And this time, soft Labour supporters, former Labour voters, really don't want Labour as is in Govt now to get back in. It's not just CV that the Labour vote has collapsed, the Euro elections last year were proof of that.

It's basically a very interesting election. Which could lead to some very strange results all over the country.

[missedith01]

Agreed, a very interesting election.

I hope you have a more interesting reason than me for being up at this hour. Mine is to do with burping.

[matgb]

Up? Who's up? Netbook, bed, Buffy on DVD.

But, y'know, new babies do these things I'm told. I skipped that bit, seems to have worked out well.

[missedith01]

Well, yes. I use the word "up" in the sense of "not unconscious". :-) Laptop, adjacent bed and cot, knitting.

You skipped the sleeplessness? How did you manage that? I mean ... how come?

[matgb]

Not meeting her until she was three helped there I think.

SB just said I'll likely experience it in the future though...

[missedith01]

I like a lady with a plan ... :-)

[mooism.livejournal.com]

Not only is this only a single poll, it's only the first debate. Two more to come, lots of time for the media narrative to change in reaction to them.

Plus, the other parties saying our policies will get more scrutiny now? They have a point. Some of our supporters will have been projecting their beliefs onto us, and might not like what they see.

We can't put all our eggs into assuming our poll ratings will stay high.

(Your tag cloud is hiding the rhs of this text box, on my netbook, FF 3.sth.)

[matgb]

(that's very weird, not doing that for me at all, set proportion columns, will try to replicate)

And yes, yopu're right. But if we don't even consider trying for more properly, then we'll get significant gains where we're fighting but lose other potential gains further down.

Need to fly the kite to get people to think about it properly, especially if more money is raised than can be spent in targetted seats.

[birguslatro]

Is it a foregone conclusion, (or perceived to be), that the LDs would form a coalition with Labour if they (or Labour;) held the balance of power?

As if so, an effective Conservative response might be that a vote for the LDs is a vote for more of the same. You might need to counter that perception.

[matgb]

No. Tories are trying to say that, but Labour are trying to say the exact opposite.

There are issues where the LDs are closer to each of the other parties; Labour have been awful on civil liberties, online IP law, etc last few years, Tories have, mostly, been much better on that (SRSLY, wanting to lock people up for 90 days without even knowing what you're charged with?)

OTOH, Tories are still arseholes on some social issues, esp abortion and LGBT rights, which Labour are better on.

They're both useless on the economy, but in different ways.

But yes, countering such stuff is a big part of campaign effort centrally; best line currently is "we're already ahead in the polls, vote Lib Dem, get Lib Dems", which, y'know, works for me.

[chris]

I presume that since then you've seen this report that one poll to be published in the press tomorrow has the Lib Dems in first place?

[matgb]

Oh yes. And a few others as well. Tonight's YouGov, plugged into Baxter, gives my seat turning yellow, exactly as I predicted above. two more pooints from each party, and we're looking at overall majority.

Which is scary; some of the people taking ministerial posts are likely people not even expecting to have a chance of election as an MP last week.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

OpenID refuses to accept me unless I give it admin rights. Fuck that.

So, comment here:

"So, the "Labour" party are facist bastards. That's not new. What's the *DOWNSIDE* to them beign completely wiped out and their pathetic fuckwit supporters being absorbed by the National Socialists, again?"

[matgb]

Don't know what's up with OpenID, shouldn't be asking for admin rights; the UI is still a bit crap though, better'n LJ's but that says nothing.

Downside is that a lot of Labour supporters aren't happy with the authoritarian faction (who started out fairly liberal but are basically centrists who follow the polls), and some of them would be good at reclaiming the party after a GE. They've got some damn fine MPs, and my party doesn't want to become the default party of the left (some do, I don't, need a proper Liberal party over here).

Also, the BNP are bad enough, and frequently the BNP do well in traditional Labour areas because they're fighting as the only alternative (I was partially wrong about who's voting for them, see "posts Mat never wrote passim").

I'd rather fix the voting system so there's space for a wider range of actual parties, etc.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

It didn't actually want real admin rights, it was just demanding that I allow more and more scripts on various sites *after* I'd already got the popup from Livejournal saying "do you want to share your ID with this site?"

And, really, I surf with scripts off *for a reason*.

[matgb]

Weird; I'll report it to support on DW, but pretty sure it'll be LJ based scripts.

You've seen they're running a new link redirect script, right? Scans every outgoing link on mouseover, reporting both locations to an off site server :-(