In the first of a short series highlighting issues which need early and urgent attention from an incoming Conservative Government, ConservativeHome Contributing Editor Paul Goodman considers the need to redraw constituency boundaries to level a playing field which is currently weighted in Labour's favour.
Let’s start with a simple comparison. Imagine that at the coming election we win 40% of the vote, Labour 30%, the Liberals 18% and others 12% [The results in the overnight ICM poll]. All else being equal, we’d have a Commons majority of eight.
Now reverse those first two figures. Imagine that Labour gain 40%, we take 30%, and the other two figures stay the same. Labour would have a majority of 138 – an 130 seat difference on the same share of the vote, according to UK Polling Report.
Put aside, for a moment, the likelihood or otherwise of the vote dividing up in this way. Wave away, too, the rejoinder that all things are never equal, and that regional swings, local factors, tactical voting and so on must be taken into account. The big point remains: the rules of the game work against us. (I will stick to “rules of the game” rather than “electoral system”, because the latter suggests the matter of the voting system, which is extraneous to the case I wish to make.) In the big game between blues and reds, we start off several goals down – and that’s before taking into account that we start from a base of under 200 MPs.
I concede that not all of our setbacks stem from the rules. There are other factors at work, and I don’t mean policy or presentation. For example, our vote is unevenly distributed: it tends to pile up where we don’t need it – namely, in seats that we already hold. Martin Baxter of Electoral Calculus argues that this differential turnout is the most important element of all. So do others – as we’ll see later.
Or again, we’ve tended to be the victim of tactical voting, as Liberal and Labour voters switch to the leading local anti-Conservative challenger to keep us out. It’s worth noting that Labour may be the losers from this phenomenon next time, in what’s called “tactical unwind”. Mike Smithson has explored this possibility repeatedly on the Political Betting site and his pieces are worth checking out.
None the less, it’s evident that the rules of the game don’t simply work against us, but are unfair as they stand. I want generally to steer clear of complex figures, but it’s vital to illustrate the main weakness of the rules – that Labour get more for less.