WI: the 1983 General Election Didnt produce a majority.

This comes from a TL I've got an idea for but don't have the knowledge of the period to do justice. I was looking for a PoD that brings Proportional representation into Britain and shakes up the system.

One example of this would of course be the Alliance Wins TL.

My idea is. Through either no falklands or falklands not going as well as OTL or other reasons the 1983 GE leads to no one party producing a majority. Possibly with the Alliance doing far better than OTL, maybe even coming second.

What are the chances of an Alliance-Tory or Alliance-Labour coallition government? What are the chances then of the Alliance forcing through proportional representation?
 
Well with PoD after the creation of alliance there's absolutely no chance of getting proportional representation by 1983. Neither the Labour Party nor the Tories were invested in the idea at any point post-war as both depended on constituency structures. This is especially true with the 'mass' Labour Party, whereas you'd be hard pressed to ever find a time when Tories would support this no matter what, especially because of the nature of the Home Counties which are shoe in Tory seats.

My argument is the last time this is feasible is in the inter-war period when you have a strong Liberal and Labour Party. Perhaps during MacDonald's term you'd have enough of an interested in both to produce proportional representation to avoid splitting the anti-Tory vote but I really can't envision a conventional PoD after WWII producing proportional representation.

That said, I don't think the time line is a bad idea, nor the idea absolutely unfeasible. My suggestion could be to have the Labour Left take up the cause of proportional representation, perhaps via Michael Foot who was deeply influenced by radical liberal thought. Then maybe Callaghan agrees to instate it sometime during the early part of his administration when Labour is looking far from certain for reelection and he needs to appease the left. This could potentially get you around the problem and produce proportional representation, although full proportional representation is still a long shot. Rather, in my estimation, your greatest hope is Alternative Vote or maybe 5 seat constituencies awarded proportionally.

Alternative Vote would have a massive impact in 1983 and far from preventing a Thatcher majority, its likely to result a Labour majority. It's important to remember that the vast majority (58%) of Brits voted against Maggie in '83. By avoiding the split in the Labour vote, a great number of traditional working-class seats lost as a result of the SPD could be avoided. The question then becomes where the Liberal Party casts its second vote. Though, this may be less of a problem then we imagine as Labour is very weak in the districts where the Liberal Party tends to be strong (i.e. Southwest England and portions of the highlands in Scotland). In the end I think a Labour majority or a Labour-SPD coalition is your most likely result in '83 under alternative vote.
 
Well with PoD after the creation of alliance there's absolutely no chance of getting proportional representation by 1983. Neither the Labour Party nor the Tories were invested in the idea at any point post-war as both depended on constituency structures. This is especially true with the 'mass' Labour Party, whereas you'd be hard pressed to ever find a time when Tories would support this no matter what, especially because of the nature of the Home Counties which are shoe in Tory seats.

My argument is the last time this is feasible is in the inter-war period when you have a strong Liberal and Labour Party. Perhaps during MacDonald's term you'd have enough of an interested in both to produce proportional representation to avoid splitting the anti-Tory vote but I really can't envision a conventional PoD after WWII producing proportional representation.

That said, I don't think the time line is a bad idea, nor the idea absolutely unfeasible. My suggestion could be to have the Labour Left take up the cause of proportional representation, perhaps via Michael Foot who was deeply influenced by radical liberal thought. Then maybe Callaghan agrees to instate it sometime during the early part of his administration when Labour is looking far from certain for reelection and he needs to appease the left. This could potentially get you around the problem and produce proportional representation, although full proportional representation is still a long shot. Rather, in my estimation, your greatest hope is Alternative Vote or maybe 5 seat constituencies awarded proportionally.

Alternative Vote would have a massive impact in 1983 and far from preventing a Thatcher majority, its likely to result a Labour majority. It's important to remember that the vast majority (58%) of Brits voted against Maggie in '83. By avoiding the split in the Labour vote, a great number of traditional working-class seats lost as a result of the SPD could be avoided. The question then becomes where the Liberal Party casts its second vote. Though, this may be less of a problem then we imagine as Labour is very weak in the districts where the Liberal Party tends to be strong (i.e. Southwest England and portions of the highlands in Scotland). In the end I think a Labour majority or a Labour-SPD coalition is your most likely result in '83 under alternative vote.


I meant Proportional representation as a result of the 1983 election (which would still be fptp)

I will take this on board though
 
Alternative Vote would have a massive impact in 1983 and far from preventing a Thatcher majority, its likely to result a Labour majority. It's important to remember that the vast majority (58%) of Brits voted against Maggie in '83.

This is a very shaky proposition, and only makes sense if you lump the non-Tory vote together as a single bloc. Considering the Alliance's policies were probably on balance closer to the Tories than Labour, it's puzzling why people would do that. You can just as easily say that the whole non-Labour vote was a vote against the '83 Labour manifesto.

I'm sure AndyC will be along soon to post that BBC graph. (Which although representative of a post-election survey is, I think, a pretty fair assessment of what difference AV would have made to the election. I.E, very little.)
 
This is a very shaky proposition, and only makes sense if you lump the non-Tory vote together as a single bloc. Considering the Alliance's policies were probably on balance closer to the Tories than Labour, it's puzzling why people would do that. You can just as easily say that the whole non-Labour vote was a vote against the '83 Labour manifesto.

I'm sure AndyC will be along soon to post that BBC graph. (Which although representative of a post-election survey is, I think, a pretty fair assessment of what difference AV would have made to the election. I.E, very little.)

Its important to remember, however, that Labour voting is as much a social phenomenon as a political one. A great deal of SPD votes came in Labour constituencies. Now, if we look at analysis of the time, the middle-class tended to be more radical then the working class who, theory has it, tended to view Labour in instrumental and social terms. Therefore, it can be assumed (and rightly so) that a great deal of SPD vote actually came from the working class. I find it very difficult to assume that very many working-class voters in 1983 would place the Tories over Labour regardless of policy differences. Thus most second choices by the SPD would trend Labour.

As for the Liberals, I agree that the mass majority of Liberals would vote Tory as a second choice. However, this is entirely irrelevant as the majority of Liberal voters had voted Liberal in 1979 and where based in the Southwest of England where Labour never really had much of a chance. In fact, the presence of second choices would cause the Tories to preform even worse as a result of Labour voters ticking the Alliance as a second choice in the Southwest, thereby creating more Liberal/Alliance seats.
 
I meant Proportional representation as a result of the 1983 election (which would still be fptp)

I will take this on board though

Ah my apologies for misunderstanding the question.

As for it being a result of the 1983 election, as you seem to suggest there's no way that happens with the Tories in power. However, I find it very very unlikely to happen with a Labour-Alliance coalition either. Labour benefited massively in the 1983 election from the constituency system. The Alliance got a quarter of the vote but only 3% of the seats while Labour got 27% of the vote and 1/3 of the seats. It would take an immense willingness to shoot their own party in the foot for Labour to back proportional representation after 1983 since it risks turning the Alliance into a major third party and damning Labour perpetually to the hard left.
 

AndyC

Donor
This is a very shaky proposition, and only makes sense if you lump the non-Tory vote together as a single bloc. Considering the Alliance's policies were probably on balance closer to the Tories than Labour, it's puzzling why people would do that. You can just as easily say that the whole non-Labour vote was a vote against the '83 Labour manifesto.

I'm sure AndyC will be along soon to post that BBC graph. (Which although representative of a post-election survey is, I think, a pretty fair assessment of what difference AV would have made to the election. I.E, very little.)

I felt a prickling in my fingertips and a coldness on my ears - I am summoned ...

V-J is absolutely correct - the Labour stance in 1983 was so alienating that the overwhelming second-preference amongst Alliance voters was pro-Tory.

John Curtice wrote a piece for the BBC based on earlier research, which used the data from the wide-ranging and detailed British Election Survey. Outcome as below:

(NB - I'd contend with the proposition that SDP voters would have "gone home" to Labour - they were voters who'd already made the decision to separate from Labour to a degree already. Given the swings that were more common back then, and the levels of support that the Big Two could command in previous elections in fairly recent memory, and the sharp leftwards push by the "longest suicide note in history", the conclusions by Curtice et al seem to remain strong)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8506306.stm

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Its important to remember, however, that Labour voting is as much a social phenomenon as a political one. A great deal of SPD votes came in Labour constituencies. Now, if we look at analysis of the time, the middle-class tended to be more radical then the working class who, theory has it, tended to view Labour in instrumental and social terms. Therefore, it can be assumed (and rightly so) that a great deal of SPD vote actually came from the working class.

Are you saying Labour voters were socially conditioned to vote that way as a result of partisan/class alignment, and then they somehow became socially conditioned to not vote Labour and vote SDP? I don't really need to point out why that's a ropey argument.

Well, here's the social background of purely SDP voters in '83: AB 20%, C1 27%, C2 24%, DE 29%. For the Liberals it's AB 17%, C1 17%, C2 35%, DE 31%. SDP voters were actually more middle-class than Liberal voters - and much, much more so than Labour voters.

This clean geographical and socio-economic break you're imaging in voter profiles didn't actually exist.
 
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For the record, my ASB-ish plan was as follows (and almost all entirely wish fulfillment)

1983: After 3 way dead heat in the polls (with the Alliance winning the popular vote), The Alliance and Labour form a coallition government, in exchange for concessions to Labour, the Alliance get their poilicy of the introduction of proportional representation into government

1987: The election almost produces a tory Majority. In an effort to keep the Tories from calling a new election and getting a majority (From which it is believe they'd bring back FPTP). David Steel proposes an Alliance-Tory govt. the SDP wing disagrees but Steel takes the Liberals into government with the Tories. Causing a split in the Alliance.

Long term ideas:

Early 90s
SDP possibly Rename as "The Democrats"
Tory Party split over Europe.
Possibly Labour-> Democrat defections.

2010s political landscape

Eurosceptic/Socially Conservative/Somewhat nationalist "Little England" Party
Europhilic/free market Tories
Free Market/Socially Liberal- Liberal Party
Social Liberal, Center-Left Democrat party
Left Wing, Trade unionist Labour Party
"Alternative Left" Green Party
 
Are you saying Labour voters were socially conditioned to vote that way as a result of partisan/class alignment, and then they someone became socially conditioned to not vote Labour and vote SDP? I don't really need to point out why that's a ropey argument.

Well, here's the social background of purely SDP voters in '83: AB 20%, C1 27%, C2 24%, DE 29%. For the Liberals it's AB 17%, C1 17%, C2 35%, DE 31%. SDP voters were actually more middle-class than Liberal voters - and much, much more so than Labour voters.

This clean geographical and socio-economic break you're imaging in voter profiles didn't actually exist.

I'm not saying it was a clean break, but the fact is that the Tories only received 1/3 of manual labourers' votes in 1983. This is, in fact, nearly exactly the same percentage they received of manual labourers' votes in 1951. Meanwhile, if we add the number of SDP voters in manual labour and subtract the standard 5-7% the Liberals received in the group, than Labour maintains almost exactly the same percentage of manual labourers votes as in 1979 and prior.

What this suggests, is that the swing among working-class voters went from Labour to the SDP, leaving the Liberals and Tories essentially untouched. The actual content of the Liberal vs. SDP vote is of questionable importance since the Alliance lead to the two never facing off and thus reflects the constituencies each chose as much as the actual support.

Suggesting that Labour voting was socially conditioned is of course simply true. You grew up in a working class neighborhood that voted Labour, went to a Comprehensive school that taught you how to be a labourer, and then got a job where you joined a union that was part of the Labour party. Voting is very much a social phenomenon for the same reason the Home Counties always vote Tory. It is as cultural as it is economic and the Labour vote was culturally embedded in the urban working-classes in Britain in this era.

Source: http://www.earlhamsociologypages.co.uk/vbint.htm (Document 1, Part A)
 
Of course no Falklands factor and tories doing badly makes the election more likely 1984.

I think that squeezing the Labour vote in seats where the Alliance could beat the tories would be possible.
 
The actual content of the Liberal vs. SDP vote is of questionable importance since the Alliance lead to the two never facing off and thus reflects the constituencies each chose as much as the actual support.

Man, you were the one who brought the social breakdown of SDP voters up, not me. The point is, they were not, as you asserted earlier, preponderantly working-class, and therefore engaging in any kind of crude determinism about their second pretences on that basis is wrong. Even if you want to engage in that kind of argument, which I won't, as it's simplistic, then it points towards the Tories, not Labour, being the recipient in an SDPless scenario.

Looking at the data, it seems pretty clear to me that SDP voters in '83 tended towards being middle-class or skilled manual, former Labour voters who had soured on their former party in a big way - what you would largely expect, in other words.

As for SDP-contested constituencies being more affluent - what you seem to be implying - I doubt there was any appreciable difference between the ones they and the Liberals contested. But if there was it will have been because the SDP made claim, in their negotiations with the Liberals, to constituencies where they already had exhibited existing strength. The point about social composition therefore reinforces itself. The constituencies that the Alliance parties contested weren't just plucked out of the air.

Suggesting that Labour voting was socially conditioned is of course simply true.

The mechanics of partisan/class alignment are not what I'm disputing, what I am disputing is why you believe this should suddenly break down when the SDP arrives. You seem to be asserting that working-class voters were habitually conditioned to vote Labour, including those ones who didn't vote Labour. It's a fairly strange argument. The notion that working-class SDP voters would be more or just as likely to vote Tory than return to Labour en bloc seems a more a sensible a priori one to me - they had already bucked their 'traditional' party. But then we don't need to engage in that type of argument, as we actually have these voters stated policy and party preferences, and they don't tally with your belief.
 
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