Swing required Vs Turnout
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Discussion

anonymous-user

Original Poster:

84 months

Wednesday 21st April 2010
quotequote all
The number of times this "swing" required is used as a measure of the change in voting against the 2005 election the more I'm beginning to distrust it as an appropriate measure.

2005 election had a 61% turnout. I'd imagine given the issues we are facing we will get a significantly better turnout than then. The tories were very crap in 1997, 2001 and 2005, a little better now in 2010 but no where near as good as 1979 as far as I'm told.

I believe that a lot of tory (and non-Labour in 01 & 05) voters stayed at home in protest and apathy in the last three elections. In 01 & 05 There was no viable alternative or a serious platform of rationale to oust Labour at this time.

If turnout returns to the 1997 levels of 71% or higher and I would envisage (hope) the swing of apathy & protest has swung to affect Labour, then the actual comparison Vs 2005 is really pointless.

Surely we should be comparing 2010 Vs 97 & 79 as that was more representative of the current policitical situation, although I have to say none of the current leaders have any where near the vote pulling power that Maggie & Tony had.

Anyway, they need to build this in to their models as it doesn't tell the whole story about what will need to happen in May.

Edited by anonymous-user on Wednesday 21st April 11:43