What if the Alliance had overtaken Labour in the popular vote in 1983?

The site www.electoralcalculus.co.uk allows you to estimate the effect on historical UK elections on changes in each party's vote share, which is a great alternative history tool. Their database goes back to 1983.

Starting in 1983, I am calculating the effect on each election on small changes in vote share. My rule is to change the vote share of one of the major parties party by 3%, the second by 2%, and the third by 1%.

The point of these small changes is that they could easily result from minor changes in the events of the campaigns. Then butterflies result.

For 1983, I decreased Labour's share of the vote by 3%, to 25%. I bumped the Alliance up by 2%, and the Tories by 1%. This means the Alliance overtaking Labour in the popular vote.

What would have been the effect of this?

See the results here, though I will try to embed them in the next post:

http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/...lay=AllChanged&regorseat=(none)&boundary=1983
 
The cut and paste job didn't work that well.

This was the historical result:

CON 43.5% 397

LAB 28.3% 209

ALL 26.0% 23

OTH 3.2% 22 (17 in Northern Ireland)


With my changes:

CON 44.3% 417

LAB 25.3% 184

ALL 28.0% 28

OTH 3.2% 22

Here are the individual seat changes and the MPs elected historically from those seats:

Conservative gains from Labour:

LONDON
Greenwich London (NG Barnett)
Walthamstow London (E Deakins)

SOUTHEAST
Ipswich Suffolk (K Weetch)
Thurrock Essex (O McDonald)

WALES
Alyn & Deeside Clwyd (SB Jones)
Carmarthen Dyfed (RG Thomas)
Gower West Glamorgan (G Wardell)
Wrexham Clwyd (J Marek)

MIDLANDS
Birmingham Erdington Birmingham (R Corbett)
Derby South Derbyshire (M Beckett)
Derbyshire North East Derbyshire (R Ellis)
Leicester West Leicestershire (G Janner)
Walsall South Black Country (B George)
West Bromwich East Black Country (P Snape)
Wolverhampton North East Black Country (R Short)

NORTH
Bradford South West Yorkshire (TW Torney)
Burnley Lancashire (PL Pike)
Carlisle Cumbria (R Lewis)
Crewe & Nantwich Cheshire (G Dunwoody)
Great Grimsby Humber area (AV Mitchell)
Stockton NorthTeesside (F Cook)
Wakefield West Yorkshire (W Harrison)



These are the five Alliance gains:

Durham City of Durham (M Hughes) SDP from LAB
Edinburgh West Edinburgh area (Lord J Douglas-Hamilton) LIB from CON
Islington South & Finsbury Islington (C Smith) SDP MP re-elected
Richmond & Barnes London (J Hanley) LIB from CON
Sheffield Hillsborough South Yorkshire (M Flannery) LIB from CON

That would have resulted in 20 Liberals and 8 SDP, up from the historical 17 and 6. Only one additional SDP defector, George Cunningham, would have salvaged his seat.
 
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