[Politics] Tory meltdown finally arrived [was: incoming]...

[Audax]

My preference is to base the outcome on who wins the seat.

Define: "who wins the seat"

My definition of winning a seat would be that a candidate has the support of at least 50% of voters who cast a vote in that seat. (Note: I have a problem with the high % of voters who do not vote in this country, but that's a different argument). PR is one alternative that does a better job of reflecting the wishes of the electorate. Another is Preferential voting if PR isn't an option. Australia uses the latter, and it works better than FPTP does (still not as good as PR would be, but better than FPTP).

FPTP in far too many cases does not provide clear and indisputable evidence of this in far too many cases. At the 2019 GE, 421 seats were won with >50% of the vote, while 229 were won with less than that. Of those, 21 were "won" with less than 40% of the vote. Now, admittedly, most of those 21 were won by a non-Tory.

85 of the seats won with <50% of the vote were won by a Tory. Of those, I've identified 40 where it is likely the result would have been different with an Australia-style preferential voting system. Not all to Labour, some would have gone SNP, Lib Dem, or Plaid. That would have seen them fall 1 seat short of a majority and either forming a minority government propped up by a minor party, or a formal coalition led by the Tory party. But it certainly would not have put is in a situation where the excesses of the Tory party couldn't be challenged.

Given the overall national vote share, that would have felt like a "fair" result to me. Far more people voted *against* the Tory party than for them, however the Tories did have the largest vote share.

"First Past the Post" is such a bad name for the system used today. In far too many cases, *no one* actually gets past the post IMO. It would be better called "Nearest to the Post".

 

[The Clamp]

No party is being bold about calling out the failed deal, its destroying our industries. Take farming, its in total crisis

When its gone its gone, there will be no return and our food security will be weakened further.

Meanwhile for EU agric importers its business as usual, the government are basically scared of implementing their own deal and not implementing import checks.

Throw in the threats new trade deals from AU / NZ and we're heading to a very bad place

Only hard working UK exporters are getting punished

Yep. We need someone to step up and tell it like it is.

 

[Psychobilly freakout]

Yep. We need someone to step up and tell it like it is.

We literally have no one at the forefront of the both main political parties that has any moral compass and willing to risk their career over sticking their head above the parapet and telling it like it is. We are drastically missing a charismatic, honourable politician in this country.
The press and media should shoulder some of the blame, as soon as someone does come out with the plain hard facts, their are shoot down, belittled and proclaimed a scaremonger, or crackpot.

This country is sleeping walking into the oblivion and in several generations, unless something is done, we will be a "third world country" with nothing to offer the world, no industry, no food, just world champion chair luzzing angry folk.

I fear then our forefathers "indiscretions" will be taken into account when we go to the now "emerging nations" cap in hand for help. Our past will haunt the children of the future and this country will be left to rot and just get on with it.

entirely my opinion, a humble floorlayer who knows nowt really.

 

[The Clamp]

We literally have no one at the forefront of the both main political parties that has any moral compass and willing to risk their career over sticking their head above the parapet and telling it like it is. We are drastically missing a charismatic, honourable politician in this country.
The press and media should shoulder some of the blame, as soon as someone does come out with the plain hard facts, their are shoot down, belittled and proclaimed a scaremonger, or crackpot.

This country is sleeping walking into the oblivion and in several generations, unless something is done, we will be a "third world country" with nothing to offer the world, no industry, no food, just world champion chair luzzing angry folk.

I fear then our forefathers "indiscretions" will be taken into account when we go to the now "emerging nations" cap in hand for help. Our past will haunt the children of the future and this country will be left to rot and just get on with it.

entirely my opinion, a humble floorlayer who knows nowt really.

I totally agree. We are allowing a Tory elite to rule over us as Britain ruled over it’s colonies. Take control of the wealth, arrange the economy so money flows away from the working classes into the bank accounts of the upper class and take away our right to protest about any of it, erode workers rights and tax us into submission.

No different to how their ancestors treated Indians or Pakistanis. Doesn’t matter where you come from or where you live, if you’re not elite, you’re a pleb. Only good enough for one thing, to serve your master. And leaving the EU has allowed them to remove our protection against the exact type of government we have.

 

[Audax]

I am not sure about your inferences.

I thought it was pretty clear, but you chose to ignore it. I refer you to the final paragraph in my post: my problem with FPTP is that at the 2019 GE more than 50% of those who cast a vote voted *against* the Tories, and yet we got a massive Tory majority, which was then used by Boris to force through a version of Brexit that did not have a clear democratic mandate.

 

[WATFORD zero]

Yep. We need someone to step up and tell it like it is.

We literally have no one at the forefront of the both main political parties that has any moral compass and willing to risk their career over sticking their head above the parapet and telling it like it is. We are drastically missing a charismatic, honourable politician in this country.
The press and media should shoulder some of the blame, as soon as someone does come out with the plain hard facts, their are shoot down, belittled and proclaimed a scaremonger, or crackpot.

This country is sleeping walking into the oblivion and in several generations, unless something is done, we will be a "third world country" with nothing to offer the world, no industry, no food, just world champion chair luzzing angry folk.

I fear then our forefathers "indiscretions" will be taken into account when we go to the now "emerging nations" cap in hand for help. Our past will haunt the children of the future and this country will be left to rot and just get on with it.

entirely my opinion, a humble floorlayer who knows nowt really.

I'm sorry, but I think there have been people 'telling it like it is' all along and a lot of the Electorate know exactly how it is. The issue is there are still a significant number of the electorate who, if they accepted 'how it is' would have to admit to having been conned for over 6 years and that is a bitter pill to swallow.

I think there is a lot more economic suffering to come, before they even entertain the thought. And a lot of people who do understand 'how it is' will suffer alongside them

 

[Psychobilly freakout]

I'm sorry, but I think there have been people 'telling it like it is' all along and a lot of the Electorate know exactly how it is. The issue is there are still a significant number of the electorate who, if they accepted 'how it is' would have to admit to having been conned for over 6 years and that is a bitter pill to swallow.

I think there is a lot more economic suffering to come, before they even entertain the thought. And a lot of people who do understand 'how it is' will suffer alongside them

Maybe, but my point stands I think, about the main parties and the press/media.

 

[beorhthelm]

I thought it was pretty clear, but you chose to ignore it. I refer you to the final paragraph in my post: my problem with FPTP is that at the 2019 GE more than 50% of those who cast a vote voted *against* the Tories, and yet we got a massive Tory majority, which was then used by Boris to force through a version of Brexit that did not have a clear democratic mandate.

they voted for parties other than Tories. you cant assume they are voting against anything, there is insufficent evidence for that (loud groups calling for tactical voting is not evidence). we do not know how people would vote with transferable votes, Liberals might vote Conservative second perfence, even Labour voters might in some places. see London, Johnson won the Mayoralty where analysis of voters would suggest it should go Labour.

 

[nicko31]

I'm sorry, but I think there have been people 'telling it like it is' all along and a lot of the Electorate know exactly how it is. The issue is there are still a significant number of the electorate who, if they accepted 'how it is' would have to admit to having been conned for over 6 years and that is a bitter pill to swallow.

I think there is a lot more economic suffering to come, before they even entertain the thought. And a lot of people who do understand 'how it is' will suffer alongside them

10m + with less than £100 is savings, the Tories created an underclass. Now let them suffer in pursuit of de-regulation and rewarding their cronies

 

[happypig]

I actually think a party taking on a very strong rejoin the EU identity, if they ran the campaign properly, would prove very popular. Strongly sending the message that a vote for them is a vote for rejoining. I say draw the battle lines and let's slug this out. See if we can restore true democracy to the UK. Appeasing the Brexiteers and pussy-footing around the fact Brexit is an utter disaster needs to end. A clear, strong message ...REJOIN. would go down very well I reckon.

The big problem with this is that there is strong cognitive dissonance amongst leavers; the see the reasons for Johnson's "oven ready" brexit being caused by The EU ("they want to punish us for leaving"), Covid, Remoaners (not "believing" hard enough nor "moving on"), Ukraine and many other things. The one thing they won't admit is that Brexit, as delivered, has been a shitshow and will never work as promised
Until Brexiters admit to themselves that the Brexit they were promised was a lie, we are doomed to endure it.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Define: "who wins the seat"

My definition of winning a seat would be that a candidate has the support of at least 50% of voters who cast a vote in that seat. (Note: I have a problem with the high % of voters who do not vote in this country, but that's a different argument). PR is one alternative that does a better job of reflecting the wishes of the electorate. Another is Preferential voting if PR isn't an option. Australia uses the latter, and it works better than FPTP does (still not as good as PR would be, but better than FPTP).

FPTP in far too many cases does not provide clear and indisputable evidence of this in far too many cases. At the 2019 GE, 421 seats were won with >50% of the vote, while 229 were won with less than that. Of those, 21 were "won" with less than 40% of the vote. Now, admittedly, most of those 21 were won by a non-Tory.

85 of the seats won with <50% of the vote were won by a Tory. Of those, I've identified 40 where it is likely the result would have been different with an Australia-style preferential voting system. Not all to Labour, some would have gone SNP, Lib Dem, or Plaid. That would have seen them fall 1 seat short of a majority and either forming a minority government propped up by a minor party, or a formal coalition led by the Tory party. But it certainly would not have put is in a situation where the excesses of the Tory party couldn't be challenged.

Given the overall national vote share, that would have felt like a "fair" result to me. Far more people voted *against* the Tory party than for them, however the Tories did have the largest vote share.

"First Past the Post" is such a bad name for the system used today. In far too many cases, *no one* actually gets past the post IMO. It would be better called "Nearest to the Post".

Very good points.

I have posted on this before. The 'winner' to me is the candidate that gets the most votes. I don't consider that 50% plus is necessary. However...in my little world, casting no vote is a positive vote for no candidate and if no candidate has a majority in a constituency, then the constituency gets no MP. I consider this better than forcing everyone to vote (Australia).

But at the end of the day there is an argument that if there is a 95% turnote in constituency A and only a 20% turnout in constituency B, so it goes.

I think my clinging to FPTP may have something to do with my being 'on the spectrum'. To me, the idea that I cannot cast my one vote for my one preferred candidate, with the outcome binary, makes me feel almost ill. The idea of voting for a party rather than a candidate, or putting candidates in order of preference, would mean I could not vote. I like to know exactly what I'm getting when I 'buy' something. I appreciate that others who are wired differently may take a different view.

On a side note, I am marking final year BSc exam papers presently. There has been some discussion about the poor quality of some essays owing to what looks like a very tenuous grasp of the English language. For example a student may write (I will change the subject area but the principle is the same) "Margaret Thatcher was the first man leader made prime minister over the labour party with the leader of the union, which was too much power". So there are some egregious errors there. Should I assume the student means "Thatcher was the first female PM, coming to power during dissatisfaction with Labour owing, in part, to their having allowed the unions to have too much influence"? Maybe. Depends on the overall flow of the essay.....

...however some of my colleagues argue that the essay format is unfair to students who have a weak grasp of the English mangiage so we should move more towards short answer questions or multiple choice. My view......as you may imagine, is that the problem is we are letting in students whose English would be too poor for them to get a job where thay had to write any prose. So we should not be taking them on and certainly not changing the assessments to suit them. That would be like making goals taller to accomodate the poor grasp of penalty taking by Ulloa. I am sure I will be told that I'm wrong but, just like FPTP, I simply can't see it.

Oh well, never mind. Thanks for your thoughts

 

[nicko31]

The big problem with this is that there is strong cognitive dissonance amongst leavers; the see the reasons for Johnson's "oven ready" brexit being caused by The EU ("they want to punish us for leaving"), Covid, Remoaners (not "believing" hard enough nor "moving on"), Ukraine and many other things. The one thing they won't admit is that Brexit, as delivered, has been a shitshow and will never work as promised
Until Brexiters admit to themselves that the Brexit they were promised was a lie, we are doomed to endure it.

The government's fear is at some point that cognitive dissonance evaporates. The best way to keep it going to keep the Brexit fires burning and maintain the myth of the EU as the aggressor; cue the latest domestic legislation on the NI protocol. When you have the Brexit opportunities minister asking Express readers for idea you know they go nothing else...

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I thought it was pretty clear, but you chose to ignore it. I refer you to the final paragraph in my post: my problem with FPTP is that at the 2019 GE more than 50% of those who cast a vote voted *against* the Tories, and yet we got a massive Tory majority, which was then used by Boris to force through a version of Brexit that did not have a clear democratic mandate.

Apologies. I try to reply to everything but often fail.

I think that your arguments (about a majority not voting for the party that wins, and that this is a problem that needs fixing) is seductive, but it would offend me only in a 2 candidate system (one of the 'models' I posted yesterday illustrates this). When there are more than two candidates (let's say 3 for example) it is almost inevitable that the party with the most seats may have only slightly more than a third of the votes, yet end up with a comfy majority. I am happy with that. But you think this is unfair. I think the reason you think this is for other reasons explained below. Presumably you would argue that in my 3 candidate model above (where every seat in the nation is a 3 candidate fight) a coalition is the only fair outcome? In this example it would either be a coalition of all 3 parties or, if 2 parties could negociate to obtain a pact - like the Lib-Lab pact, or Dave's pact, for example, a 2 party coalition. I will leave that for a moment but let's not forget nobody voted for a coalition and in the UK coalitions always end in acrimony. Not preclusive, but a caveat.

So I presume you are OK with a coalition government if it represents a majority of those who voted? If you see that as a successful outcome (and I would agree that it is) then I'm now thinking about how that could be achieved more easily without having to bin FPTP (I will cling on to FPTP for as long as I can - )

OK. Is one of the biggest problems not the electoral set up itself rather than the FPTP: boundaries are unfair, many seats are monocultures, and constituencies vary in size? I won't go through all the calculations but clearly problems of fairness are inevitable with all this heterogeneity. Here is the obvious example: if we have two monoculture tory constituencies (by that I mean constituencies where most voters vote tory) each with 25K registered voters, and one monoculture labour constituency with 50K registered voters, you will always get two tory MPs per head of voter to one labour? That is an extreme example but since constituencies do vary in size and make up, this is bound to contribute to the scenario you mentioned where a minority of those voting end up seeing their party (it is always the tories) getting a comfy majority. Perhaps it may explain it almost completely (I don't know but it makes sense to me)! More bang for your buck in one constituency versus another. That' is intrinsically unfair.

If so, then, could the problem (or unfairness) not be resolved by making all constituencies the same size in terms of registered voters? This could be done on a fluid basis perhaps, with boundaries set after voters have registered to vote.

The problem with that of course is that people will object to being moved in and out of constituencies. And there are practical problems. OK, forget that.

Alright, I will accept the present system is unfair. Not because of FPTP, but because the set up of the constituencies is unfair. So the first step of a solution must be to change the constituency system surely? This could be very tricky. I have no immediate suggestions.

Going back to principle, and clinging on to the idea of voting for one candidate in the hope they become my representative.....what about a system that requires that a candidate obtain a set minimum number of votes to become MP? Oh, that won't work all the while constituency voter sizes vary. What about a set % of the votes available? OK, no that will only work if there are a set number of candidates standing for election in each constituency. The threshold % in a 3 cornered race cannot be the same as that in a 2 horse race, because the defined necessary threshold (say 40%) may not be reached by any candidate in a 3 cornered race, yet this could be exceeded by both candidates in a 2 horse race. The problem, now seems to me to be.....that you cannot create a simple one size fits all solution to ensure fairness if you use FPTP - there, I said it!

So, no doubt you will now intruce the idea of ranking candidates and whatnot. Things I dislike. Hmmm.....

Yes this is all tricky. My position has always been 'leave well alone and suck it up if you lose' and I say that as a labour man who, I suspect, has the most reason to complain that the system is stacked against me getting the government I want. So, for now, I still feel that changing the boundaries and maybe the number of seats may be the best solution.

As far as feasibility (fir any change) is concerned, chickens don't vote for Chrimbo so all the while the tories keep winning they are not going to change the system to one that makes it more likely labour will win. So we are stuffed.

Revolution? I'll bring my pitch fork. What have you got?

 

[Audax]

they voted for parties other than Tories. you cant assume they are voting against anything, there is insufficent evidence for that (loud groups calling for tactical voting is not evidence). we do not know how people would vote with transferable votes, Liberals might vote Conservative second perfence, even Labour voters might in some places. see London, Johnson won the Mayoralty where analysis of voters would suggest it should go Labour.

OK, I'll reword: more than 50% of "first preference" (as that's all we have here) votes were not for the Tory party. That 50% threshold was reached by looking only at Labour (campaigned on a confirmation referendum for Brexit), Lib Dem (campaigned on revoking Brexit), Greens (also clear anti-Brexit platform), and SNP (again, clear anti-Brexit / anti-Tory). It *did not* include other anti-Tory and/or anti-Brexit groups - eg Plaid C in Wales, or SF in NI.

You're absolutely correct that we're not able to predict with any certainty how preferences would flow if we had a preferential system here in the UK. However, we can estimate reasonably closely based on what happens in other countries (eg Australia) who do have preferential voting systems. From that, you can loosely assume that "leakage" of preferences (eg Labour 1st, Tory 2nd instead of Green or Lib Dem) would be balanced by leakage the other way (eg Tory 1st going Labour 2nd instead of Brexit etc). You can reasonably assume that a *very high* percentage of preferences will flow from left-leaning party to left-leaning party, and right-to-right.

The wrinkle in the UK is the Lib Dems. Australia doesn't have a credible "third" party other than the Greens. Where Lib Dem preferences would go would, I think, largely depend on the specifics of each election. For 2019, I would expect the majority would have gone left rather than right because of the Brexit dynamic. But for the next GE, that might be the other way around (disaffected Tory voters choosing to move to the Lib Dems would be more likely to preference Tory 2nd).

 

[KZNSeagull]

This raised a smile (Private Eye):

 

[Audax]

I think that your arguments (about a majority not voting for the party that wins, and that this is a problem that needs fixing) is seductive, but it would offend me only in a 2 candidate system (one of the 'models' I posted yesterday illustrates this). When there are more than two candidates (let's say 3 for example) it is almost inevitable that the party with the most seats may have only slightly more than a third of the votes, yet end up with a comfy majority. I am happy with that. But you think this is unfair. I think the reason you think this is for other reasons explained below. Presumably you would argue that in my 3 candidate model above (where every seat in the nation is a 3 candidate fight) a coalition is the only fair outcome? In this example it would either be a coalition of all 3 parties or, if 2 parties could negociate to obtain a pact - like the Lib-Lab pact, or Dave's pact, for example, a 2 party coalition. I will leave that for a moment but let's not forget nobody voted for a coalition and in the UK coalitions always end in acrimony. Not preclusive, but a caveat.

So ... it depends on the 3 candidates involved. UK is different, but let's look at Australia. Over there, if you boiled it down to 3 parties you would have the "Coalition" (Liberal-National), ALP (Labor), and the Greens. So you would have 1x right-side party and 2x left-side parties. In a FPTP system you split the left-leaning vote, making it a lot easier for the right-leaning party to "win" despite a lot more voters voting for left-leaning policies.

As I say, UK is different. You've got the Scotland / Wales / NI specific parties that are big within their own areas but non-existent elsewhere, and you've got 3 major parties (Tory on the right, Labour on the left, Lib Dems in the middle) plus a significant Green base. For the sake of a 3 party model, I'd roll the Greens into Labour and you've then got 1/1/1 (left/middle/right). With FPTP (based on what we see in the UK historically), what we typically see is that the party in the middle gets squeezed other than some regional areas where they outperform either right or left. So either the right or left sided party will win the most seats. If they don't get enough for a majority, then a coalition with the party in the middle becomes the most likely outcome. This would have the effect of "moderating" the ability of the party with the most seats being able to simply force through their policies.

The unfortunate effect of FPTP in a 3-party contest where you have a 1/1/1 split, is you simply do not know whether the people who vote for the middle group would have preferred a left or right government. If you instead have preferences, then you *do* know. In a 3-corner contest, the party who finishes 3rd you then redistribute their votes based on 2nd preference and you get a clear winner for every seat. And you will either get a left-leaning or right-leaning government.

As an example from Australia, the seat of Brisbane had first preference results in this order:

1. Liberal National Party - 37.7%
2. Labor Party - 27.3%
3. Greens - 27.2%
+ 4 minor parties who got between 1.7% and 2.2% each.

Those 4 minor parties were then excluded, and their preferences redistributed. That resulted in changing the order for the top 3:

1. Liberal National Party
2. Greens
3. Labor Party

Labor were then excluded and their preferences redistributed. That resulted in a final outcome of:

1. Greens - 53.8%
2. Liberal - 46.2%

The UK FPTP system would have delivered a Liberal seat. However, there were 54.5% of people whose first preference went to a left-leaning party (either Labor or Green) split evenly (there was 9 votes between them before preferences were counted). You can actually see that as the preferences were counted there was some leakage of those left-leaning votes (soft-left Labor voters) to the right-leaning Liberal, but that leakage was small - it only reduced the vote in favour of left-leaning policy by 0.7%.

In my mind, electing a Green candidate in this seat was a *more fair* result than electing the Liberal candidate. And I would say the same if it was reversed - IMO Labour should have lost Hartlepool at the 2019 GE, not at the subsequent by-election. That is because at the 2019 GE the right-side vote was split between Tory and Brexit party but had a clear majority.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

So ... it depends on the 3 candidates involved. UK is different, but let's look at Australia. Over there, if you boiled it down to 3 parties you would have the "Coalition" (Liberal-National), ALP (Labor), and the Greens. So you would have 1x right-side party and 2x left-side parties. In a FPTP system you split the left-leaning vote, making it a lot easier for the right-leaning party to "win" despite a lot more voters voting for left-leaning policies.

As I say, UK is different. You've got the Scotland / Wales / NI specific parties that are big within their own areas but non-existent elsewhere, and you've got 3 major parties (Tory on the right, Labour on the left, Lib Dems in the middle) plus a significant Green base. For the sake of a 3 party model, I'd roll the Greens into Labour and you've then got 1/1/1 (left/middle/right). With FPTP (based on what we see in the UK historically), what we typically see is that the party in the middle gets squeezed other than some regional areas where they outperform either right or left. So either the right or left sided party will win the most seats. If they don't get enough for a majority, then a coalition with the party in the middle becomes the most likely outcome. This would have the effect of "moderating" the ability of the party with the most seats being able to simply force through their policies.

The unfortunate effect of FPTP in a 3-party contest where you have a 1/1/1 split, is you simply do not know whether the people who vote for the middle group would have preferred a left or right government. If you instead have preferences, then you *do* know. In a 3-corner contest, the party who finishes 3rd you then redistribute their votes based on 2nd preference and you get a clear winner for every seat. And you will either get a left-leaning or right-leaning government.

As an example from Australia, the seat of Brisbane had first preference results in this order:

1. Liberal National Party - 37.7%
2. Labor Party - 27.3%
3. Greens - 27.2%
+ 4 minor parties who got between 1.7% and 2.2% each.

Those 4 minor parties were then excluded, and their preferences redistributed. That resulted in changing the order for the top 3:

1. Liberal National Party
2. Greens
3. Labor Party

Labor were then excluded and their preferences redistributed. That resulted in a final outcome of:

1. Greens - 53.8%
2. Liberal - 46.2%

The UK FPTP system would have delivered a Liberal seat. However, there were 54.5% of people whose first preference went to a left-leaning party (either Labor or Green) split evenly (there was 9 votes between them before preferences were counted). You can actually see that as the preferences were counted there was some leakage of those left-leaning votes (soft-left Labor voters) to the right-leaning Liberal, but that leakage was small - it only reduced the vote in favour of left-leaning policy by 0.7%.

In my mind, electing a Green candidate in this seat was a *more fair* result than electing the Liberal candidate. And I would say the same if it was reversed - IMO Labour should have lost Hartlepool at the 2019 GE, not at the subsequent by-election. That is because at the 2019 GE the right-side vote was split between Tory and Brexit party but had a clear majority.

Interesting. The bit I can't work out from what you have written is that in a three cornered constituency if party A gets the largest %, but party B and C combined has a bigger %, which candidate goes up to Westminster? A, or (hand in hand, presumably) B and C?

 

[usernamed]

Interesting. The bit I can't work out from what you have written is that in a three cornered constituency if party A gets the largest %, but party B and C combined has a bigger %, which candidate goes up to Westminster? A, or (hand in hand, presumably) B and C?

If I’ve read it correctly, they’d look at 2nd preferences for the votes that had been cast for the party that came 3rd, and if more of the 2nd preference for those votes was for Party A, they’d go up, if the 2nd preferences were for party B (and there were enough to take Party B’s count past Party A’s) then Party B’s candidate would go up.

Is that right?

 

[clapham_gull]

they voted for parties other than Tories. you cant assume they are voting against anything, there is insufficent evidence for that (loud groups calling for tactical voting is not evidence). we do not know how people would vote with transferable votes, Liberals might vote Conservative second perfence, even Labour voters might in some places. see London, Johnson won the Mayoralty where analysis of voters would suggest it should go Labour.

The Mayoral elections are very much personality rather the party.

Livingstone was a busted flush. I don't recall thinking Livingstone would get in again.

 

[Hampden Park]

If I’ve read it correctly, they’d look at 2nd preferences for the votes that had been cast for the party that came 3rd, and if more of the 2nd preference for those votes was for Party A, they’d go up, if the 2nd preferences were for party B (and there were enough to take Party B’s count past Party A’s) then Party B’s candidate would go up.

Is that right?

that's how i read it.