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<P>I think most Labour MPs saw their share of the vote decline, as in fact did most Labour candidates - I daresay it has something to do with being tainted by association with the war, although there is just general disillusionment to consider.</P>
<P>In most Labour constituencies where there was a "swing", it will have involved Labour's vote crumbling and running off in various directions (Lib Dems, Respect, Greens, UKIP, BNP, Veritas) rather than an increase in the 'blue' vote. The fact that the Tories increased their share of the vote by a meagre 0.5% is cause for some cheer.<BR><BR><BR>>From: Daniel Davies <d_squared_2002@yahoo.co.uk><BR>>Reply-To: lbo-talk@lbo-talk.org<BR>>To: lbo-talk@lbo-talk.org<BR>>Subject: [lbo-talk] Votes for anti-war Labour MPs<BR>>Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 08:28:48 +0100 (BST)<BR>><BR>>Michael P wrote:<BR>><BR>> >>So far looks like anti-war Labour<BR>>MP's lost votes compared to the last election. Not what we would have<BR>>expected.<<<BR>><BR>>And started out on a quest to crunch the vote share numbers to see what was<BR>>going
on.<BR>><BR>>Just a warning that this is going to be a quixotic quest for two reasons.<BR>><BR>>1) First there is a problem of cause and effect (there is a five-shilling<BR>>statistical term for the problem I'm about to describe but I won't plague the<BR>>list with it). The idea here is that a lot of anti-war Labour MPs, represent<BR>>constituencies which were a) anti-war and b) strong Labour. This was the case<BR>>in my own constituency (Holborn & St Pancras). So what you're looking at are<BR>>people who tried to neutralise the protest vote by taking an anti-war position<BR>>themselves but were unable to do so because voters like me knew that they could<BR>>safely make an anti-Labour protest vote which would show up in the national<BR>>popular share totals, without any real material risk of getting anything
other<BR>>than a Labour MP. This is certainly what happened in the case of Diane Abbott<BR>><BR>>2) Second, those "swing" numbers are very dodgy constructs. In the left-wing<BR>>districts where anti-war MPs saw a "swing" to the Tories, for the most part<BR>>what you're seeing is Labour voters staying home while the Tory voters (who had<BR>>no reason to do so) voted in about the same numbers as they had previously.<BR>><BR>>3) Red Pepper and the New Statesman, sad to say, are not the force in the land<BR>>that they once were. To be honest, I didn't know that RP was still going. The<BR>>dominant message for antiwar types in the UK was "a vote for Labour is a vote<BR>>for Blair", and that there were to be no excuses on grounds of "but my local MP<BR>>is a nice bloke and he was against the
war".<BR>><BR>>I think that the vote totals are too crude an instrument to pick up the sort of<BR>>very refined tactical voting effects you're looking for. I think some local<BR>>good-government types are planning on doing something to try and measure the<BR>>impact of the anti-war vote with surveys, but we'll have to wait on that.<BR>><BR>><BR>>dd<BR>><BR>><BR>><BR>><BR>><BR>>___________________________________________________________<BR>>How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday<BR>>snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos http://uk.photos.yahoo.com<BR>>___________________________________<BR>>http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk<BR></P></DIV></div><br clear=all><hr>Be the first to hear what's new at MSN - <a href="http://g.msn.com/8HMBENUK/2740??PS=47575" target="_top">sign up to our free newsletters!</a> </html>