Calculating Swings
A question that occasionally comes up in the comments here is how exactly you calculate a swing in an election. It obviously needs answering since the BBC managed not only to get it wrong on their coverage last night, but still had it wrong on the Today Programme this morning when they claimed there was an 8% swing to the SNP.
To calculate a swing, take the increase of the vote for the party you are calculating the swing to, then subtract the swing to the party you are calculating the swing from (if that party’s vote has gone down, then this means you will be adding it). Finally divide the total by two.
So, in this case the SNP increased their vote by 13%, Labour also increased their vote by 3% so the sum is (13-3)/2 which equals a five percent swing. Easy when you know how.
what was the labour tory and labour lib dem swing?
how does it match opinion poll figures. For Labour to be up on the last general election result in percentage terms is huge – certainly unexpected (turnout was not far off general election level). We were expecting an SNP win and Labour % to drop significantly.
I think, like the Glasgow East by-election this has little to do with independence politics and is about local issues (although the collapse of the Icelandic economy and the deep recession in Ireland will have made some think twice). The SNP have been in charge for a while now and have to deal with the necessary negative associations that brings – HBOS, Trumpgate, Gulf Oil loans.. The shine has come off King Alex a little.
I do feel it is a shame that labour had to run such a negative campaign though. It worked in this instance, but it is not a sustainable strategy, nor is it good for the nation.
The result of the Glenrothes by election has flummoxed everyone. I have never been so wrong myself. Still I’d say this:
1 Congratulations to Labour on a well fought campaign. To use their parlance it is ‘game on’. Regardless of whether local issues decided this astonishing result it is a huge boost for Gordon Brown and will be seen as such.
2 The SNP have come a cropper. Seen even by some of their own supporters as having become arrogant and in the instance of their reaction to the financial crisis just plain ludicrous the honeymoon is now well and truly over. It will be interesting to see how Alex Salmond in particular copes with the prospect of increasing unpopularity as seems likely to be the case
3 The Tories rose to third place but given the decline in their already tiny vote that is hardly cause for celebration. They can of course shrug this result off as not really concerning them but given the collapse of confidence among Tory activists in George Osbourne reported elsewhere David Cameron will surely have to move his pal to another shadow cabinet job.
5 The Lib Dems who polled a miserable 900 votes are the biggest losers here. Coming after their candidate made outlandish claims earlier this week about voters coming over from all the other parties in droves they really should get help over their addiction to magic mushrooms.
6 I still think that the next set of opinion polls will see the ‘Brown bounce’ start to fade and we have’nt even hit the recession depths yet so the chances of a fourth term for Labour are still odds against-but they are back in the game and even the Oracle should pause before making his usual pronouncements.
Labour won but the SNP vote improved by most (hardly a ‘cropper’); both can claim victory. I think the losers are also quite clear.
This result was pretty obvious from the moment the date was set to the same week as the US election – that at least showed Labour were in control of their own destiny.
Labour have looked much more coordinated since the reshuffle and Brown looked like he was happy to be on ‘home turf’ when campaigning in the constituency (and fully relaxed on reports).
I have to say I thought it was an amazing misjudgement by the SNP not to manage their expectations of victory. I also think the Trump announcement was badly handled – surely there was a risk it put off more voters than it won over.
It would be interesting to see internal polling done during the campaign as I would guess Labour can’t have been lagging far behind to send in the PM and the boost this must have given Labour surely solidified the camp over the final couple of weeks.
Peter – where are you? Don’t take it too badly! We need your insights.
peter- is crying somewhere say we should have won!!
the conservative vote fell -3% but they still over took the lib dems who fell -10% so it pritty clear where the snp vote came from on this and we can not take it as fact the conservatives would lose their only seat in scotland but would gain the lib dem seat of berwickshire roxbrough and salkirk labour would gain a few seats and the lib dems would lose 3 or 4
thomas:
“This result was pretty obvious from the moment the date was set to the same week as the US election…”
Well, it’s amazing that nobody else here (or in the country as a whole) shared your clairvoyance!
And, if I might say so, this is a rather churlish reaction. What you may have really meant to say was: congratulations Gordon Brown on pulling off an amazing victory against all expectations!
All easy assumptions made here about the General Election are off, and once again the game’s afoot.
Come on JohnH, let’s not get carried away – labour supporters are victims of their own hubris. The real story of this is “Labour regains very safe Scottish seat”. This would be like the Tory’s claiming a great victory if they regained somewhere in Surrey!!Let us wait and see whether this result reflects a nationwide recovery in the fotunes of Gordon Brown, where he doesn’t have the advantage of being right on his own turf. I would like to see what the next nationwide opinion polls are, before I start to worry that we might be in for another five years of incompetance! (apologies for that last bit of partisanship!!)
All this tells us is that the SNP’s decision to field a candidate who can be blamed for increasing charges on OAP’s was not the smartest.
Clearly the mood for independence has been eroded by the banking crisis. Brown has done a clever job connecting the two issues.
Does it tell us anything re the next GE? Almost certainly not. The next election will be won in the Midlands and the Tories should clean up there.
The only questions are when do the Tories win the next election and by how much?
jack
What planet do you live on? The only victors were Labour. The SNP clearly came a cropper having forecast that they would win– to quote Mr Salmond “Yes we can and yes we will”.The SNP allowed expectations to get out of hand and will now pay the price.
The issues upon which the SNP challenge collapsed included its performance at local and Holyrood level and the ridiculous postering over the banking crisis in stark contrast to the Westminster government which for once got its act together. As a result the liklehood of Scottish voters opting for independence has -for the moment-in my opinion receeded into the highland mists
Alasdair,
We made a number of mistakes and misjudged events.
Firstly Alex was right to say that we can win and will win, just as John McCain did. With a week to go and indications that it would be close it’s all about momentum even if you think things aren’t going your way.
So what the leader has to do is stand up and say what Alex did. True you run the risk of being wrong if you lose but the alternative appearing to concede defeat which pretty much means you will.
With less than two weeks to go in Dunfermline it was clear that we or the Libdems would be the peoples choice to kick Labour.
The LibDems got ahead and seemed most positive while we put out a leaflet that took a dig at Charles Kennedy who was seen by most people as a decent guy who shouldn’t be kicked when he was down. the end result was that the Libdems got the momentum and lose even our supporters who wanted to kick Labour backed them and they won.
Lesson, Gain the Momentum in the last week.
In Glasgow there was a similar anti labour mood and we were the main challenger. Alex lead from the front and said we would win and we did. Lesson learned.
In Glenrothes we suffered a set back and lost when we could have won and Alex admitted that on the radio today. We talked up the prospect of victory as we had to and the record of our government but in the last week or so the focus shifted to care charges which were pinned on the SNP council.
We failed to counter that effectively and they gained momentum with it shifting from a verdict on brown which would have been harder anyway after his bounce to a verdict on the SNP council.
To be honest that’s annoying because of Scotland’s 32 councils 30 use the same system, it’s a joint SNP Libdem council and it only effects 600 people at most and those only ones on above average incomes, and it was introduced in October last year (2007).
So with the means to refute it and so many people on the ground, not recognising it for what it was and dealing with it is a clear failure on our part.
But like Jennifer’s Ear these things happen it’s being responsive enough to deal with them that matters and on this occasion we stuck to firmly to a scripted that had worked well over the last few years and realised to late that the people weren’t listening.
It’s hard at this point to see what the outcome will be in the long term. I don’t think it will have a huge impact as Brown was well known and liked in the area and is in general in Scotland so it might over estimate his renewed popularity.
When you think about it Labour are claiming that retaining a seat with a reduced majority is a stunning result when on paper this should have been as safe as houses.
I think we can expect Labour throughout Scotland to focus on SNP councils as our Achilles heel from now on so it will put some pressure on us especially as the partnership the Government has established really makes councils key in delivering much of what we want to achieve.
Final on Swings hers how to spin last night,
Take the 2005 share and the new share and express the difference as a percentage of the 2005 share so since 2005.
Labour have gone from 52% to 55% an increase of 6%
SNP from 23% to 36% an increase of 50%.
The Tories have gone down from 7% to 4% a fall of 43% and
The Libdems from 135 to 35 a drop of 77%.
So claiming it as a 50% rise looks good even though we lost.
More seriously we have a few lessons to learn but I think it’s more bruised egos and anger at ourselves about simple mistakes than real damage done.
The other lesson of course is that the media and pollsters where to focused on what it could all mean in a broader context and failed to see what was happening on the ground till like us it was to late.
It would be interesting to see if a proper poll of the constituency would have picked up on the care issue and alerted everyone early enough to alter strategy.
Peter.
It’s horrifying that so many people are still willing to vote for Old Brown/New Labour.
And why were the polls so wrong on Glenrothes?
Im not sure the polls were wrong were they James? They possibly overestimated the SNP swing, but they still predicted a Labour win. The people that really got it wrong were the punters (see http://www.politicalbetting.com)
Thanks Peter, good thoughts as always. I don’t you can blame any leader for saying they are going to win, they always do. I do feel though that since Alex has been in charge he has gotten a little carried away with himself though… it is easy to be the romantic opposition, harder to actually govern
I saw somewhere that there was a massive increase in applications for postal votes for this by-election compared to the General Election. I wonder if the breakdown of those votes by party is available? It would be interesting to see if it had a significant effect on the result.
James – there was only a single proper poll during the whole campaign, carried out by ICM at the end of September. It showed the SNP and Labour exactly equal on 34%, but of course, it was 6 weeks ago so it could easily have been right at the time and public opinion changed since then (in this instance, that seems likely since national poll suggest public opinion has moved towards Labour since then.)
Could all the Labour supporters stop claiming this to be some awe inspiring moment.
When the Tories held Henley there was no pomp and circumstance. Winning safe seats is the political equivalent of showing you can tie your shoe laces! The only thing this shows is that the drubbing we all know Labour will get won’t be as bad as it was once suspected!
Can I restate the obvious- the two losers are clear; when you don’t hold your deposit then you big losers. But there are two ‘sort of’ winners
-Labour held on to one of their safest seats so they think that’s good. So, because it’s not an actual loss again, they think they are improving but that’s from being absolute rubbish, now they are an inch off the bottom. Not convinced of the logic. So they won, sort of…
-SNP, numbers voting for them went up greatly again, but not enough to overturn Labour in a major safe seat this time (so, they are expected to work miracles every time?) So, they didn’t do a miracle this time, so they came second, but sort of won as well as their numbers went up…
I think the key issue is the blitzing of the Conservatives and the Liberals. Will further polling and elections support this result of Scotland now choosing to be iether Labour or SNP, and everyone else is irrelevant?
Anthony; i thought you had reported on a poll for a scottish paper that put Labour about 3 percentage points ahead?
Jack,
In a two horse race the also rans always get squeezed so I think the collapse in the Tory and Libdem votes don’t tell us much in terms of trends.
I also think it’s to simplistic to suggest straight switches from one party to another, I think there was a lot of churn involved here.
Peter.
What would be interesting to see now is a poll that shows Scottish people’s views toward independance, and whether it has changed since Iceland etc – perhaps the fact that labour is the only supposedly unionist party with a chance of beating the nats may have helped them?
NigelJ – that’s why I said there was only a single *proper* poll. The Sunday Express reported what appears to have been a straw poll carried out in a shopping centre as if it were a proper poll
I was very surprised by this result and it represents a huge disappointment for the SNP. The terms of trade have changed hugely in Scotland since the financial meltdown and Scottish independence is now a dead issue for the forseeable future.
However there is one ray of light for the Nats. And it’s this. I don’t think these changing fortunes in Scotland will make an iota of difference in England. The Tories still stand to pulverise Labour south of the border – Glenrothes will make no difference there. Thus you see the continued development of two very different political cultures either side of the border. Ultimately this may lead to constitutional change but that will probably have to be left to another generation of politicians.
WillS “Could all the Labour supporters stop claiming this to be some awe inspiring moment…”
Having been told for weeks, here and elsewhere, how it was almost certain that Labour would lose with a humiliatingly low vote, and that it would be the last straw for GB (etc. etc.) surely you can survive a little quiet satisfaction from the few loyal Labour supporters who intrude on this mostly right-wing love-in
As a life long liberal, I am alarmed about the collapse of the liberal vote. I have to congratulate Labour for their win although if the conservatives get in south of the border then I can only see either Scottish Labour (led by possibly Gordon Brown, charging forward for Scottish Independance), or the Scottish Nationalist Party. However I was reading the Torygraph, sorry telegraph the other day as there were two articles that struck me…the rise of professional politicans (Hazel Blears), which included Several front bench politicans from both sides (David Cameron the Milliband Brothers etc), and also an article about the lack of an Obama character or leader. I had to agree with both statements, (boo and hisses all around I am sure), but is there a chance of any fresh leader who will strive to unite rather than divide like the current leadership does. Alex Salmon is always picking fights on westminister to futher his own aims,less concentraing on scotlands needs: gordon browns clear loathing of anyone who disagrees with him is clear whilst Cameron I am still trying to figure out what he stands for. Anyway totally of the subject…sorry
Anyone any thoughts?
A month is a long time in politics!!!! According to most views Labour were going to be thrashed in this election. Isn’t it funny that the clearly partisan Tory supporters amongst us seem a trife rattled! Whatever next – poor Mr Osborne will be getting the blame!
Labour actually increased their share of the vote by about 3% I think since the GE, which is pretty unusual mid term and in the midst of a recession. The excellent Tory leads in the polls over the last year or so could easily be overturned just like Brown’s were after the election that never was – events can change perception but it’s not usually a recession that proves positive for a Government.
With many people saving a few thousand pounds a year on their mortgage repayments over the next year or so (45% of mortgage holders are on trackers or SVR)people will ‘feel’ better off and if Brown has any sense he will also cut tax’s too and that will wrong foot the oppostion parties and leave them with nothing to offer. I appreciate the 3% of the populationm that have more than £50,000 in savings will not be happy bunnies at the interest rate cuts but after all they will not be Brown supporters anyway so nothing will be lost to him there.
The Libs have been squeezed lately but I can forsee the Tories getting a bit of a squeeze next with support moving back to the Libs. The Tory party really need to address the divisions that exist between Cameron/Osborne and their respective followers in order to solidify their support, if they fail to do that then is is highly feasible that Tory support could fall over the next year by 3 points or so to around 36%, if Brown can push his vote up by 3% to match the last GE’s 36% which isn’t impossible, it would definitely be game on for everyone!!
From a factual perspective rather than a partisan view, if Brown can scrape his vote up to 35% in a GE, the Libs 15% then the Tories would need a MINIMUM of 40% to have any hope of forming a minority Government in a hung Parliament, any less than that then the maths just dont work for them. I wouldn’t bet my house on 40% if i were a blue betting man for sure!
Realistically, I would say it’s not an easy time to be either a Labour supporter or a Tory supporter right now – the Lib’s could well have a bit of fun at either of the other parties expense, if I were a Labour supporter I would be a bit gloomy about the polls for sure but if I were a Tory, I certainly wouldn’t be thinking we’d got it in the bag – far from it I’d say and if I wre a Lib I’d be doing my best to claw back some of the support that Cameron has done well to claw off the Libs since he took over
A good result for Labour in the circumstances–full stop. In terms of polls, as Anthony mentioned, there was only one and that was ages ago so–no story. If I was Cameron I’d be a bit worried and certainly deal with Osborne ASAP–he looked particularly surly at PMQs on Wednesday.
It all seems a bit odd.
BBC TV News & the Brown Brussels Press Conference featured journalists claiming Labour Ministers told them they had lost Glenrothes as late as 10pm-and that GB had been alerted to it by text.How did they -& the gamblers on pb get it so wrong?
As has been said Labour won a safe Scottish seat;SNP got egg on their face-so what in a UK GE context?
However, Brown is on a role -no doubt.
The Banks are told to pass the interest rate reduction on -and agree. This is big potatoes for people on SVR ,or coming to the end of a Fix.
The CEO of LLoyds was on TV saying his forecast of house price falls next year was now probably over stated.
The Global Financial Regulation bandwagon rolls on to USA next week with GB in the thick of it.Whether it all
comes to anything remains to be seen-but GB looked pretty statesmanlike-and very confident in Brussels.
Meanwhile Osborne is saying nothing of significance. He has failed to pin any responsibility on GB.He has failed to expose the Brown untruth about being “best placed to weather the storm etc”;despite being handed the bullets by IMF.His Shadow position is being questioned.
Testing times for Cameron.
The next Polls will be very interesting.
Whilst the article is correct in determining the swing, which is more than the BBC managed, the swing from Labour to SNP doesn’t tell the story, does it?
A 5% swing from Labour to SNP would suggest that Labour lost votes to the SNP. It didn’t. The SNP were up 13%, Labour up 3%. The SNP got their 13% from the Tories and the Lib Dems, in a classic squeeze.
The Lib Dems should be very concerned that their new pseudo-Tory policy of tax cuts resulted in losing 10% of their support. The Tories, who lost their deposit just like Labour in Henley, presumably will be forgiven for this by the media because “it’s Scotland”, but what it says is that a future Cameron government might well be just an English Government.
Mid-term, as a recession starts, and with an unpopular PM and governing Party, yet the vote and share of the vote increases? When did that last happen then?
Considering this sites Predictor in Chief managed two own goals in just over 24 hours and now has gone to ground you would think the art of making rash predictions of future landslides and pulverizings would have ceased, however some seem a little perturbed about Labour actually holding onto the seat with an increased percentage. Maybe the fact that their own favoured party lost it’s deposit has upset them a little.
In the last 12 months the percentages of all the parties have swung wildly so trying to predict what the polls will show next month never mind the next elections seems rather foolish, unless of course you can continually boast that you have never got a single POLL prediction wrong.
Glenrothes was a surprise, and a disappointment, to me – an English nationalist. But not totally: I have always maintained that the Scots’ would only gain their independence with the will of England’s electorate.
The SNP are stuffed for a generation. Short of doing a Chavez – which I feel would revolt the likes of Peter Cairns – Scotland has to accept it is the second to her southern neighbours. We own your banks and, with oil trading at two-thirds of the [Sterling] value expected, the Westminster tax-tally is deeply in-the-red.
A fairly good result for Labour, in that we know from recent polling evidence that the core-vote holds up in safe-seats and is non-existent in key-marginals. No legacy will exist sans-2010 for either Blair or Brown….
@ John H – actually like many people I’m a swing voter, not a diehard Tory. So far I’ve never voted Tory but I intend doing so at the next election because this Labour government is so awful. Brown is weak, petulant, and past his sell-by date. The sinister Mandelson is back. Jacqui Smith just shouldn’t be in her job. And Labour’s authoritarianism is terrifying. We should vote for parties only if they deserve our support, not blindly cling to them out of tribal loyalty as is they were football teams.
Unfortunately Brown is coming across a lot stronger than Cameron at the moment.Cameron looks like Arsene Wenger and Brown like Alex Ferguson. Cameron needs to unleash the pit bulls. PS Has the Green Party disbanded? Or have they all signed up to the Gordon Brown fan club?
‘The SNP are stuffed for a generation’; wish fulfilment, a common failing here. The SNP vote went up 13% in this poll and they are in power. If that’s stuffed I’m sure many parties would like to be in that situation. As I have said, the losers in this poll are clearly the Conservatives and Liberals; both Labour and the SNP ‘won’, but Labour won more visibly by holding one of their safest seats (which ought not to have been the miracle it is being spin doctored as).
This has gone wildly off topic! I have heard of two types of swing;
Butler swing: increase in Tory vote + decrease in Labour vote divided by 2. As is customary, positive swings are to the Tories, negative swings to Labour.
Steed swing/two-party swing: difference between Tory % of two-party vote between one election and the election before.
I would be interested in Peter’s view of what would happen in Scotland post Alec Salmond. During his interregnum the SNP fared badly – he is popular, an effective communicator, and represents the SNP very well. When he goes, will there be a replacement who can lead the party as well as he has? If not, what would this mean for politics north of the border?
Hi Alec. I agree with that statement. Despite my opposition to partition (!) I have to concede that Alec Salmond is head and shoulders above most of the politicians in the Scottish Parliament, and is able to make most of them look pretty second rate. This is the SNP’s greatest asset, along with statement’s from those like Fluffy Thoughts. I would not agree that independence is off the agenda, as some have said, the SNP are still doing well, and who knows what could happen in a campaign in the future. There is everything to play for and the Union should not be taken for granted. Incidentally I feel the idea of a GB run Scottish-labour going for independence is highly unlikely. Believe it or not there are a lot of Scots who genuinely do not want the break-up of the UK (most of them). One of thing which has annoyed me most about the SNP cause is the assumption that all Scots are basically nationalists, but too scared. Not true. However, this is still not a terrible result for the SNP and no-one should take their ‘bubble bursting’ for granted.
I mentioned on an earlier thread that I felt the financial crisis was a death knell for independance for a long time. For many years Ireland (the ‘Celtic Tiger’), and latterly Iceland have been held up as examples of small countries doing well. We know now it was all based on paper money. I don’t know, but I suspect this had a major underlying impact on the by election, couple with an effective Labour campaign on disputed local issues. Remove independence from the agenda and the SNP will struggle. With the shock puncturing of Salmond’s invincibility my personal view is that the SNP are now in more trouble than they realise. The future for Labour in Scotland is better than anyone expected, and although this won’t necessarily help them win the next election it makes a complete route much less likely.
Has Peter’s car broken down again?
ICM Sunday Telgraph Poll:-
43/30/18
Jack you don’t seem to realise that in by-elections it is fairly normal that parties outside the top two get squeezed. It was generally expected and recognised in the bookies odds that the LD’s & the Tories would lose their deposits.