Some alternate scenarios for the UK general election of 2010

Thande

Donor
As we know, there are several excellent timelines about the UK general election of 2010 on the site (such as The Fourth Lectern and Were you still up for Balls?, both of which I highly recommend). This is not a timeline but just a discussion of some alternate scenarios I have developed quite by accident while doing something else.

On the ASB Electoral Systems thread in ASB I have been looking at what the UK political landscape might look like if we had the French-style system of a two-round election, where you get elected in your constituency in the first round if you gain more than 50% of the vote, but otherwise the top two vote-winners go forward to a second round runoff election. In the process of this I made a map sorting the OTL 2010 results by majority (i.e. win in first round) vs plurality (would go to second round). To better understand whether the second round would be competitive or not, I also made a map showing the OTL runners-up in each seat, sorted by whether the runner-up was within 10% of the winner or not (i.e. there is a difference between a seat where the Tories beat the Lib Dems with 35% to 34%, and one where Labour gets 49% and the Tories or Lib Dems are second with 20%; the former case will likely have a competitive second round, the latter is unlikely to).

As a consequence of this it occurred to me that I could use these same maps to show shifts in the OTL 2010 election based on something a bit more nuanced than the usual Uniform National Swing. It's still rather arbitrary and ignores things like seats that changed hands over individual issues like Montgomeryshire or Redcar, but I think the results might be interesting. The way this worked was:

1) IF the seat was won in OTL with less than 50% of the vote, and
2) IF the runner-up was within 10% of the winner in OTL, and
3) IF I have chosen the runner-up's party as the one to boost

then the seat is instead won by the runner-up rather than the OTL winner. This produces some interesting alternate election maps and numbers which I will now share with you. If you are in Firefox you can easily compare these maps by right-clicking on each image and middle-clicking View Image, or in Chrome right-clicking and then clicking Open Image in New Tab, then go back and forth between tabs.
 

Thande

Donor
Firstly, here is the OTL 2010 result for comparison. Ignore the '2005' stuff in the key, it's because I was filling it in as I went along on election night.


Conservatives: 306
Labour: 258
Liberal Democrats: 57
Democratic Unionist Party: 8
SNP: 6
Sinn Féin: 5
Plaid Cymru: 3
SDLP: 3
Green: 1
Alliance: 1
Independents/Speaker: 2

Change from notional 2005 results (notional because of boundary changes)

Conservatives: +97
Labour: -91
Liberal Democrats: -5
Democratic Unionist Party: -1
SNP: 0
Sinn Féin: 0
Plaid Cymru: +1
SDLP: 0
Green: +1
Alliance: +1
Independents/Speaker: 1 (Sylvia Hermon +1, Richard Taylor -1)
Ulster Unionist Party: -1 (stood on joint ticket with Conservatives for 2010)
Respect: -1

2010 runners up x OTL for comparison.png
 

Thande

Donor
First scenario: Labour Boost

Labour win all seats that in OTL were won by another party by a plurality and where the Labour candidate placed second by less than 10%.

The thing I noticed when making this one was that there were a LOT of seats the Conservatives BARELY won from Labour on OTL election night, and which flip back in this scenario.

Results

Conservatives: 248
Labour: 327
Liberal Democrats: 50
Democratic Unionist Party: 8
SNP: 5
Sinn Féin: 5
Plaid Cymru: 1
SDLP: 3
Green: 0
Alliance: 1
Independents/Speaker: 2

Change from OTL 2010

Conservatives: -58
Labour: +69
Liberal Democrats: -7
Democratic Unionist Party: 0
SNP: -1
Sinn Féin: 0
Plaid Cymru: -2
SDLP: 0
Green: -1
Alliance: 0
Independents/Speaker: 0

Notional change from OTL 2005

Conservatives: +38
Labour: -22
Liberal Democrats: -12
Democratic Unionist Party: -1
SNP: -1
Sinn Féin: 0
Plaid Cymru: -1
SDLP: 0
Green: 0
Alliance: +1
Independents/Speaker: -1

Labour wins a knife-edge majority of just one seat. A confidence and supply agreement with the Liberal Democrats seems likely in this scenario, if not a full coalition.

2010 runners up x Labboost.png
 

Thande

Donor
Second scenario: Tory Boost

The Conservatives win all seats that in OTL were won by another party by a plurality and where the Conservative candidate placed second by less than 10%.

Results

Conservatives: 384
Labour: 204
Liberal Democrats: 37
Democratic Unionist Party: 6
SNP: 4
Sinn Féin: 5
Plaid Cymru: 3
SDLP: 3
Green: 1
Alliance: 1
Independents/Speaker: 2

Change from OTL 2010

Conservatives: +78
Labour: -54
Liberal Democrats: -20
Democratic Unionist Party: -2
SNP: -2
Sinn Féin: 0
Plaid Cymru: 0
SDLP: 0
Green: 0
Alliance: +1
Independents/Speaker: 0

Change from notional 2005 results

Conservatives: +174
Labour: -145
Liberal Democrats: -25
Democratic Unionist Party: -3
SNP: -2
Sinn Féin: 5
Plaid Cymru: 1
SDLP: 3
Green: 0
Alliance: +1
Independents/Speaker: 0

A comfortable Conservative majority here, with a disastrous result for the Lib Dems. The Conservatives break back into northern Scotland (something which they are far closer to doing than you'd think in numerical terms) and Northern Ireland via the UCUNF. At the same time, some other regions that would routinely vote Conservative pre-Thatcher remain stubbornly red with unassailably large Labour majorities.

2010 runners up x  Toryboost.png
 

Thande

Donor
Third Scenario: Lib Dem Boost

The Liberal Democrats win all seats that in OTL were won by another party by a plurality and where the Liberal Democrat candidate placed second by less than 10%.

Results

Conservatives: 285
Labour: 240
Liberal Democrats: 96
Democratic Unionist Party: 8
SNP: 6
Sinn Féin: 5
Plaid Cymru: 3
SDLP: 3
Green: 1
Alliance: 1
Independents/Speaker: 2

Change from OTL 2010

Conservatives: -21
Labour: -18
Liberal Democrats: +39
Democratic Unionist Party: 0
SNP: 0
Sinn Féin: 0
Plaid Cymru: 0
SDLP: 0
Green: 0
Alliance: 0
Independents/Speaker: 0

Change from notional 2005

Conservatives: +75
Labour: -109
Liberal Democrats: +34
Democratic Unionist Party: -1
SNP: 0
Sinn Féin: 0
Plaid Cymru: +1
SDLP: 0
Green: +1
Alliance: +1
Independents/Speaker: -1

This scenario illustrates the Lib Dems' problems. Their voteshare is too thinly distributed (look at my runners-up map in the OP) to make many breakthroughs under these rules, still struggling to break a hundred. However, they are unquestionably the kingmakers in this hung parliament, with a Lab-Lib coalition somewhat more workable than OTL (majority of 19) and a Con-Lib coalition possessing a large majority of 109.

2010 runners up x Libboost.png
 

abc123

Banned
Intresting.

Now, I understand that somewhere voters vote for person and not party, but can we assume that:

Labour, Liberal Democrats, SNP, Sinn Fein, Plaid Cymru, SDLP, Green and Alliance voters will vote for Labour candidate in second round is they can choose between Conservative and Labour candidate?
 

Thande

Donor
Intresting.

Now, I understand that somewhere voters vote for person and not party, but can we assume that:

Labour, Liberal Democrats, SNP, Sinn Fein, Plaid Cymru, SDLP, Green and Alliance voters will vote for Labour candidate in second round is they can choose between Conservative and Labour candidate?
If you want to talk about my two-round system idea, take it to the ASB electoral systems thread I linked to above--this one is just about variations in the OTL result under FPTP.
 
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