Lord Adonis is not the most well-known figure in Gordon Brown’s administration. However, a letter he wrote to the Independent newspaper, which called on Liberal Democrat supporters to vote Labour in those constituencies which are battlegrounds between the Conservatives and his party, became headline news for both that publication and many news bulletins on Friday morning.
So-called tactical voting is one major reason that Uniform National Swing (UNS) calculations are not necessarily reliable in translating shares of the vote in opinion polls into parliamentary seats, in spite of their lazy usage throughout the media.
The impact of tactical voting has long been considered by psephologists (election statisticians) to have a significant impact in the UK. In 1997, the Conservatives’ crushing defeat was augmented by tactical voting, with Labour and Lib Dem shares of the vote in seats in which they were not the Tories’ main challenger being squeezed.
Indeed, this was the case to such an extent that the Lib Dems actually lost three quarters of a million votes (dropping from eighteen to seventeen percent) in comparison to the previous election in 1992, yet gained 26 seats. In other words, they tended to only gain votes in seats where they could beat the Conservatives.
Adonis is clearly hoping that some of that spirit of 1997 still exists. Labour and the Liberal Democrats, he argues, have far more in common in terms of core values than do the Tories (although, perhaps hypocritically, Adonis was careful to advocate that Labour voters do not switch to the Lib Dems in constituencies where his party were in third place last time).
But has Adonis got this right? In 1997 there was a desire from vast swathes of the country to throw out the Tories, in power for eighteen years, and insert Tony Blair into Downing Street.
Now, though, the Conservatives have been relatively ‘detoxified’ under David Cameron. Indeed, it is Gordon Brown and the Labour Party which provokes far more hostility. Lib Dem voters are far more equally split as to whether they would prefer a Gordon Brown or David Cameron-led administration although most probably hope that a hung parliament means they themselves will be able to taste power).
A poll this week showed that Brown has an approval rating of minus 28, while Cameron’s is seventeen points positive. Although there is much less of a gap with regard to which party, rather than leader, is preferred, Adonis is wrong to presume overwhelming Lib Dem backing for his party. Two thirds of those intending to vote Liberal Democrat have a negative perception of the government’s record.
Issues such as the Iraq War and the flirtation with identity cards are likely to have irked Lib Dems. Adonis may even be wrong to presume that Lib Dems would necessarily prefer a Labour victory.
The tactic suggested by Adonis is neither new, nor confined to Labour; here in Durham City, the Liberal Democrat challenger has encouraged Conservative supporters to back her party, distributing a leaflet warning that ‘Voting Conservative will only let Gordon sneak back in’.
Yet such an open pronouncement by a senior member of the cabinet smacks of Labour desperation. Labour has been in power for thirteen years, so the decision to appeal – if not beg – for Lib Dem votes on just the fourth day of the campaign suggests that Labour is rattled by their deficit, which has increased over the past week to 10 points, according to two polls published on Friday.
It is curious, to say the least, for the party to appear to be fighting on an anti-Conservative ticket in place of a positive campaign supporting (or should that be defending?) their time in government.
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