Did The Lib Dems Cost Labour The Election?

By @edent · conservatives labour lib dems politics statistics · 5 comments · 1,000 words · read ~476 times.

There have been howls of protest from Labour voters at the prospect of a Lib/Con coalition. The main complaint is that anyone daft enough to vote for Clegg has caused a Tory government. But is it true?

Using data from The Guardian, we can see if the Lib Dems cost Labour a majority.

In how many seats did a Labour candidate lose to a Conservative? 137.

But this doesn't tell the whole story. In Clacton, even if all the 5,577 Lib Dem votes had gone to Labour, the 16,376 is still well short of the Conservative's 22,867.

So, in how many of those seats, would the Labour candidate have won if every single Lib Dem voted Labour? 92.

Conclusion

If every Lib Dem voter in a Lab/Con marginal had voted Labour, the result would be Con = 214 Lab = 350 Lib = 57

So, the Labour Party would have ~3% majority in Parliament. Only 24 seats. A majority, sure, but not a hugely useful one.

Remember, that's assuming every single Lib Dem voter in a Lab/Con constituency voted Labour.

Would you call that the Lib Dems costing Labour the election?

The Stats

This table show every Conservative won seat where Labour came 2nd. What would have happened if 100%, 75%, or 50% of the Lib Dem vote went to Labour. As some have mentioned in the comments, there is no guarantee that Lib Dem voters would automatically vote Labour. Given that support for the Lib Dems only went up 1% nationally, it's hard to credit Labour's defeat to the Lib Dems.

Seat	100% Lib->Lab	75% Lib->Lab	50% Lib->Lab
Extra Seats	92	72	54
Labour Majority	25	5	-13
Aberconwy	Lab	Lab	Con
Aldridge-Brownhills	Con	Con	Con
Amber Valley	Lab	Lab	Lab
Basildon and Billericay	Con	Con	Con
Basildon South and Thurrock East	Lab	Con	Con
Battersea	Lab	Con	Con
Bedford	Lab	Lab	Lab
Bexleyheath and Crayford	Con	Con	Con
Blackpool North and Cleveleys	Lab	Lab	Lab
Boston and Skegness	Con	Con	Con
Braintree	Con	Con	Con
Brentford and Isleworth	Lab	Lab	Lab
Brigg and Goole	Lab	Con	Con
Brighton Kemptown	Lab	Lab	Lab
Bromsgrove	Con	Con	Con
Broxbourne	Con	Con	Con
Broxtowe	Lab	Lab	Lab
Burton	Lab	Con	Con
Bury North	Lab	Lab	Lab
Calder Valley	Lab	Lab	Lab
Cannock Chase	Lab	Lab	Lab
Cardiff North	Lab	Lab	Lab
Carlisle	Lab	Lab	Lab
Carmarthen West and Pembrokeshire South	Lab	Lab	Con
Chatham and Aylesford	Con	Con	Con
Chelsea and Fulham	Con	Con	Con
Chester, City of	Lab	Lab	Lab
Chingford and Woodford Green	Con	Con	Con
Chipping Barnet	Con	Con	Con
Cities of London and Westminster	Con	Con	Con
Clacton	Con	Con	Con
Cleethorpes	Lab	Lab	Con
Clwyd West	Con	Con	Con
Corby	Lab	Lab	Lab
Crawley	Lab	Con	Con
Crewe and Nantwich	Lab	Con	Con
Croydon Central	Lab	Lab	Lab
Dartford	Con	Con	Con
Derbyshire Mid	Con	Con	Con
Derbyshire South	Lab	Con	Con
Dewsbury	Lab	Lab	Lab
Dorset South	Lab	Con	Con
Dover	Lab	Lab	Con
Dudley South	Lab	Lab	Con
Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale	Lab	Lab	Lab
Ealing Central and Acton	Lab	Lab	Lab
Elmet and Rothwell	Lab	Lab	Lab
Enfield North	Lab	Lab	Lab
Enfield Southgate	Con	Con	Con
Erewash	Lab	Lab	Lab
Filton and Bradley Stoke	Lab	Lab	Con
Finchley and Golders Green	Lab	Lab	Con
Forest of Dean	Con	Con	Con
Gillingham and Rainham	Con	Con	Con
Gloucester	Lab	Lab	Lab
Gravesham	Con	Con	Con
Great Yarmouth	Lab	Lab	Con
Halesowen and Rowley Regis	Lab	Lab	Lab
Harlow	Lab	Con	Con
Harrow East	Lab	Lab	Lab
Hastings and Rye	Lab	Lab	Lab
Hendon	Lab	Lab	Lab
Hertsmere	Con	Con	Con
High Peak	Lab	Lab	Lab
Hornchurch and Upminster	Con	Con	Con
Hove	Lab	Lab	Lab
Ilford North	Lab	Con	Con
Ipswich	Lab	Lab	Lab
Keighley	Lab	Lab	Lab
Kensington	Con	Con	Con
Kettering	Con	Con	Con
Kingswood	Lab	Lab	Lab
Lancaster and Fleetwood	Lab	Lab	Lab
Leicestershire North West	Lab	Con	Con
Lincoln	Lab	Lab	Lab
Loughborough	Lab	Lab	Lab
Meriden	Con	Con	Con
Milton Keynes North	Lab	Con	Con
Milton Keynes South	Lab	Lab	Con
Monmouth	Con	Con	Con
Morecambe and Lunesdale	Lab	Lab	Lab
Newark	Con	Con	Con
Northampton North	Lab	Lab	Lab
Northampton South	Lab	Con	Con
Norwich North	Lab	Lab	Con
Nuneaton	Lab	Lab	Lab
Old Bexley and Sidcup	Con	Con	Con
Pendle	Lab	Lab	Lab
Peterborough	Lab	Lab	Con
Plymouth Sutton and Devonport	Lab	Lab	Lab
Portsmouth North	Lab	Con	Con
Preseli Pembrokeshire	Lab	Con	Con
Pudsey	Lab	Lab	Lab
Putney	Con	Con	Con
Reading West	Lab	Lab	Con
Redditch	Lab	Con	Con
Ribble Valley	Con	Con	Con
Rochester and Strood	Con	Con	Con
Rochford and Southend East	Con	Con	Con
Romford	Con	Con	Con
Rossendale and Darwen	Lab	Lab	Con
Rugby	Lab	Lab	Con
Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner	Con	Con	Con
Scarborough and Whitby	Lab	Lab	Con
Selby and Ainsty	Con	Con	Con
Sherwood	Lab	Lab	Lab
Shipley	Con	Con	Con
Sittingbourne and Sheppey	Con	Con	Con
Somerset North East	Lab	Lab	Lab
South Ribble	Lab	Con	Con
Stafford	Lab	Lab	Con
Staffordshire Moorlands	Lab	Con	Con
Staffordshire South	Con	Con	Con
Stevenage	Lab	Lab	Lab
Stockton South	Lab	Lab	Lab
Stourbridge	Lab	Lab	Con
Stroud	Lab	Lab	Lab
Sutton Coldfield	Con	Con	Con
Swindon North	Lab	Con	Con
Swindon South	Lab	Lab	Lab
Tamworth	Lab	Con	Con
Thanet North	Con	Con	Con
Thanet South	Con	Con	Con
Thurrock	Lab	Lab	Lab
Uxbridge and Ruislip South	Con	Con	Con
Vale of Glamorgan	Lab	Lab	Con
Warrington South	Lab	Lab	Lab
Warwick and Leamington	Lab	Lab	Lab
Warwickshire North	Lab	Lab	Lab
Waveney	Lab	Lab	Lab
Weaver Vale	Lab	Lab	Lab
Wellingborough	Con	Con	Con
Welwyn Hatfield	Con	Con	Con
Wirral West	Lab	Lab	Lab
Wolverhampton South West	Lab	Lab	Lab
Worcester	Lab	Lab	Lab
Wrekin, The	Con	Con	Con

5 thoughts on “Did The Lib Dems Cost Labour The Election?”

2010-05-08 22:24

Katie Sutton says:

Even if Lib Dem voters cost Labour the election... I don't care. We are now without a party who destroyed civil liberties, gave us SOCPA and all the other awful anti-terrorism legislation, drove us into two illegal wars, removed the commitment to socialism from their own manifesto, cut services to the homeless, introduced ID cards and the database state... I could go on but my dinner's ready and I really don't give enough of a toss about Labour to bore you with any more of their shit...

2010-05-09 00:42

Chris Applegate says:

A better source of data would be to base it on Lib Dems' actually known second preferences - not all Lib Dems are left leaning and many would resort to the Conservatives if there were no Lib Dem preference.

From this Channel 4 News article based on a poll by comRes: http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/vote_2010/poll+of+polls+election+race+tightens/3627192 Lib Dem voters' second preferences nationwide were: 34% Labour and 26% Conservative. It would be interesting to see what figures your calculations are based on the (obviously error-prone) assumption these proportions would be applied in each constituency.

(As would the figures for what Labour & Conservative voters' second preferences would be as well in constituencies that their candidates had lost)

2010-05-09 13:27

anonymous says:

Labour is naive if it thinks that its the next choice for every Lib Dem supporter. I could never vote for such an authoritarian party. And one could also argue, that Labour has costed the elections for Liberal for decades, after all the Liberal Party was there first.

2010-05-09 15:31

Gonçalo Valverde says:

One thing that I find amazing is how british people loose their time discussing if this party cost another the election or not instead of talking about the intrissencal anti-democratic electoral system based on the uninominal process where a lot of votes are set to /dev/null. How is it even possible to consider democratic a system where one can get 35% of the votes and the majority of the seats in parliament? How come you can even consider this democratic??

2010-05-09 20:26

Terence Eden says:

I've updated the post with the stats for those who are interested.