How big a landslide could 1997 have been?

In his memoirs, Tony Blair says that he started to worry on election night when 100 or so Labour seats had declared to just six Tory ones, leading him to worry that "I'd done some unconstitutional", due to Labour seats tending to count faster.

But how big could that landslide have plausibly been? What would need to be done to make it even more lopsided?
 

Pangur

Donor
Have the Labour party not contest seats like Dorset West letting the Lib-Dems win would be the most likely way and the Lib-Dems return the compliment
 
Maybe if Major had lost the leadership in 95' the huge poll lead Labour had could have been retained. At the time one of the predictions was:

Labour: 497

Conservative: 104

Lib Dem: 29

The result would have probably given Britain a dominant party system status and government for a good thirty years.
 
But if anything, wouldn't a new leader have given the Tories a poll boost? Sure, someone like Redwood would have been a disaster, but it was never going to be Redwood. It would have been Heseltine, or Clarke, both of whom had some residual personal popularity.
 

Pangur

Donor
But if anything, wouldn't a new leader have given the Tories a poll boost? Sure, someone like Redwood would have been a disaster, but it was never going to be Redwood. It would have been Heseltine, or Clarke, both of whom had some residual personal popularity.

Unless you have a Fowler or Tebbit as the new leader:eek:
 
The likelihood is that if Major had stood down that it would either have been Heseltine or Clarke who got the leadership, while they were more popular the chances are that their pro-EU position could have split the party or at the least further exacerbated the tensions leading to more rebellions.
 
The result would have probably given Britain a dominant party system status and government for a good thirty years.

Who says we don't have one already? ;)

Although a read analysis on here which predicted that Tory support would probably 'bottom out' to a core of about 120 seats, avoiding any major scandals.
 

AndyC

Donor
The likelihood is that if Major had stood down that it would either have been Heseltine or Clarke who got the leadership, while they were more popular the chances are that their pro-EU position could have split the party or at the least further exacerbated the tensions leading to more rebellions.

Which could neatly achieve the challenge.

Remaining Conservative vote split between the official Conservatives (Clarke/Heseltine) and the splinter Tories. Say the splinter Tories took an average of 3000 votes from the Official Conservatives.

Result:
Con 128
Lab 441
LD 62
Labour majority of 224
 
The party was horribly split on Europe in the 1995-1997 period IOTL and Clarke and Heseltine were the biggest eminences in the government, with much of the policy levers in their hands, and it didn't fracture (unless you count the RP, which was not a true splinter party) so I don't see any reason it would under a Heseltine premiership. You got massive internal divison IOTL over Europe so barring a split - and Tories generally don't 'do' suicide - I can't see a meltdown. We saw how a big, high-profile right-wing challenge played out IOTL and it didn't seriously dent Tory prospects.

Labour and the Lib Dems were not quite near their absolute limit, but were fairly close baring utter meltdown scenarios. I just had a quick look-through of the '97 results and I counted around forty Tory seats where the majority looked seriously shaky. (I.E, under a 3,000 majority or so.) Much of the rest looked pretty solid core seats with majorities going up to 10,000 or over, and it's not easy to imagine them being lost in any reasonable circumstances. I think putting the Tories down to around 100-130 seats is the rough limit barring hari-kiri on the part of the government. If, say, Major's affair somehow comes out during the campaign I think that would be enough to push the Tory result well into that range.
 
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Labour and the Lib Dems were not quite near their absolute limit, but were fairly close baring utter meltdown scenarios. I just had a quick look-through of the '97 results and I counted around forty Tory seats where the majority looked seriously shaky. (I.E, under a 3,000 majority or so.)

Can I ask what those 40 constituencies were?
 
Can I ask what those 40 constituencies were?

Obviously I don't have a precise list as I was only flitting through the results. I'd examined the results more than a few times before though. There are more than a few Lib Dem-Tory contests amongst them, it wasn't all Labour; most of those are in the South West. A lot of very close contests there which the Lib Dems in some cases later flipped. (Mid Dorset in 2001, and they eventually won Wells in 2010)

The Labour ones are mostly in and around London, the South East, and the Home Counties, a few Midlands seats too. Basingstoke, seats like that. Most of the Norfolk, East Anglia and Essex seats were quite close too IIRC.
 
Tebbit is out as leader since he would decline to seek leadership to care for his wife, who was disabled in the Brighton Bombing. (His wife not being permanently injured in the bombing is an interesting WI in itself.)
 
  • Edwina Currie affair early.
  • Alan Beith defeats Paddy Ashdown as leader of the Liberal Democrats, therefore less votes for the Lib Dems
  • More MPs than just George Gardiner defect to the Referendum Party, maybe even a few prominent Lords, maybe Tebbit?
 

AndyC

Donor
Can I ask what those 40 constituencies were?

A useful quick'n'easy resource for this is here:
http://www.politicsresources.net/area/uk.htm

Scroll down to the list of general elections since 1832 and look for the ones in the format:
'1997 general election, full results by constituency, including a statistical breakdown of the results'

On the statistical breakdown page (click through), towards the bottom is a link for "There is a list of constituencies in order of percentage majority, together with separate lists for the three main parties in order of marginality".

The percentage majority page can be filtered on Con/Lab/LD (or Alliance or Liberal for earlier elections).

It's an excellent resource for quick reference. That's where I got the 37 Conservative constituencies with a sub-3000 majority from earlier. They are:

[FONT=&quot]Dorset South[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Bedfordshire South West[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Teignbridge[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Hexham[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Lichfield[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Bury St Edmunds[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Wells[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Meriden[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Mid Dorset & Poole North[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Boston & Skegness[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Totnes[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Uxbridge[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Bosworth[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Chipping Barnet[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]North Norfolk[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Beverley & Holderness[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Mid Norfolk[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Eddisbury[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Billericay[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Tiverton & Honiton[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Altrincham & Sale West[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Bridgwater[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Dorset West[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Eastbourne[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Suffolk West[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Christchurch[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Norfolk South West[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Basingstoke[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Shropshire North[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Wycombe[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Surrey South West[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Orpington[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Grantham & Stamford[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Dorset North[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Aldridge-Brownhills[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Southend West[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Thanet North

Note that the order is in percentage majority, so you've got to keep an eye out on the raw vote score.
Of these, 23 are Con-v-labour; 14 are Con-v-LD
[/FONT]
 
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