The Alliance was a different kettle of fish in ’87 being an unresolved and incoherent rump of discontents and should be treated as two halves of the party it essentially developed into. Therefore the logic which should prevail is that the the general rule of the third party to which I allude above would be inverted as the incoherence was exposed to the public and proved a vote loser.

My interest in minor parties stems from how they change the dynamic of electoral calculations and turn a duopolistic zero-sum game into a valid competition, which the traditional big-two should ignore at their peril, though I suspect you and they each secretly habour conflicting viewpoints about how to deal with the reality of their existence and the additional complexity they provide.

Thus subjects such as sleaze, corruption and institutional bias/failure should be treated as doubly risky by potential parties of government in that they undermine the basis of established norms and wider civic society – which can be seen in the growth of ‘others’. Any political capital which is gained at a competitors expense is a short-lived gain more akin to debt to be repaid with interest than any credit due to their own efforts.

Anything less than a wholly accurate disinterment of fact is simple distraction from truth.

Labour actually entered the 1987 campaign from a lower position than in 1983, after Greenwich and a fall in the local government elections from 34.5% to 31%.
The Alliance was about 25%, maybe a bit more, at the start, drifted down to 21% and ended up on 23.1

That statement is uncalled for – in fact it is part of my job. Thomas should stick to facts and avoid abuse.

On that basis, probably the majority (but not all) of LD ratings in the 1992 campaign from I think 15 to 21% were within a margin of error.
The LDs started the 1992 campaign on 15-17% and ended on 18.3, which is still an increase, within a margin of error,
but there was a clear point in the campaign when they reached 20-21 for a while (not just the odd rogue), and were squeezed at the end.
(Robert Waller, who I have huge respect for, verbally told me he thought the LDs would [I think probably] reach 23% about 2 weeks before the 1992 election day].

As for the local elections, we saw Lib Dems losing heavily in a number of authorities where they had done considerable damage to the Tories in 2003. They were lucky that the large 2007 round wasn’t fought in 2008.

I too can read the historical statistics provided as a resource here and interpret them independently, but you seem incapable of accounting for normal statistical problems such as margin for error and selectivity.

Surely you accept that over the course of the 1992 campaign third party popularity did in fact match the general rule that it increased as the campaign wore on – or are you trying to propagate confusion and roguery by claiming exceptionalism as a more accurate rule? If so, please could you provide some evidence to support your otherwise obviously biased and inaccurate theory?