Quite sensibly, the bulk of the discussion of the coming election has focused on the vote share the two main parties can expect – and the size of the gap. But does the number of actual votes by which a party wins tell us anything?
The table below shows the number of votes by which the party with the most votes beat the second placed party in each election since the Second World War.
Unsurprisingly, we see differences in the millions in years of
electoral landslides and much smaller differences for very close elections. But just as striking is how difficult it is to spot consistent
rules. Does a big victory in one election help in the election that follows? It
certainly looks that way for 1945, 1979, 1983, 1987, 1997 and 2001, when the
winning party won big – and went on to be re-elected a few years later. But the
Conservative victory in 1992 was on a similar scale. It didn’t help much in
1997. It is also worth noting of 1945 that Labour's huge margin of victory did not lead to a long
period in power. Nor is examining narrow victories very telling for future elections. The parties that won by margins of about 1.5 million in 1950, 1959 and
1966 were defeated at the election that followed, but much narrower victories
have set the scene for long periods in power. The Conservatives actually took
224,000 fewer votes than Labour in 1951, then governed for the next 13 years. Labour
did poorly in 1964 and February 1974 but went on to win by much greater margins. What will be the difference in 2010? If you're interested in making a guess, my employer is offering
two cases of champagne to whoever guesses most accurately – with one case of
champagne also going to the best guesses made in March and April. I’d like to
see some of the winners be ConservativeHome regulars.
