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Daily catch-up: How the Tories got their vote out where it counted in May

Plus Michael Gove, hero of the left, and more from Alastair Campbell

John Rentoul
Wednesday 14 October 2015 09:06 BST
Comments

Here is an important graph for anyone wanting to understand British elections. It shows how the Labour vote used to be distributed more efficiently than the Conservative vote – an advantage worth 140 seats to the Labour Party in 2001 – but that this pattern reversed in the 2015 election. In May, the distributional advantage was worth 50 seats to the Conservative Party.

The study, by Charles Pattie and Ron Johnston of the Crick Centre, breaks down the advantage into three components: constituency size effects (which benefits Labour: its seats tend to have smaller electorates), third-party effects (the collapse of the Lib Dem vote and rise of the SNP were both at Labour's expense) and targeting effects (the Conservative effort in marginal seats was more effective).

Pattie and Johnston describe these effects as "bias". I think that is the wrong word, because it implies that the electoral system is unfairly tilted in the Conservatives' favour and was in the previous five elections unfairly tilted in Labour's favour. Labour and Conservative voters tend to behave differently. For a long time, Labour voters were more pragmatic, in that they turned out in marginal seats but tended not to in safe seats, whereas the Conservatives piled up votes where they didn't need them from people who regard voting as a civic duty. That seems to have changed, largely because of Lynton Crosby's effective targeting operation. Nor are the rise of the SNP and the collapse of the Lib Dems instances of "bias": they are choices that voters made that happened to work to Labour's disadvantage.

The pro-Tory effects will probably still be working at the next election. The (smaller) pro-Labour effect of unequal constituency sizes will be eliminated by boundary changes. Lucky George Osborne (or Boris Johnson).

• All those right-on types who thought Michael Gove the most evil man alive for trying to raise educational expectations of working-class children were generous in their praise for him in his new job as Justice Secretary when he cancelled the Saudi prisons training contract yesterday. Presumably some of the praise is due to David Cameron, who must have sided with him in the Whitehall struggle so well detailed by Rachel Sylvester (pay wall) yesterday. Credit also to David Allen Green and to Jeremy Corbyn, who have also pressed the case.

This gesture will probably put some pressure on the Saudi government to do more to respect human rights, but I have my doubts about a policy of isolation rather than engagement generally. Anonymous Mugwump set out the difficult argument well in August:

1. These regimes will exist without us. They will commit human rights abuses without us. We do not cause or contribute in any critical way.

2. Having a relationship with them allows us to tame them – even when we aren’t intending to – and leads to the following better outcomes: slightly more democratic, slightly more liberal, slightly less likely to kill protestors, significantly more helpful for our vital geopolitical ends.

3. Having no relationship with them not only leads to a withdrawal of benefits obtained from the relationship but opens space for Black Knights which have worse outcomes.

If you didn't have enough of Alastair Campbell talking to David Axelrod on Monday, there is another hour of them on the Axe's podcast, which I found just as interesting. They talk about mental health: Campbell gives a full account of his breakdown, and Axelrod talks about his father's suicide. Campbell says: "I still get a bad press [in Britain], but in this area, the press has been good."

Jim Pickard of the Financial Times reports another U-turn from the practitioners of straight-talking honest politics:

During the Labour party’s leadership contest this summer, Jeremy Corbyn said he wanted the government to buy back a stake in Royal Mail to ensure a “public influence” over it. However, he has apparently shelved these plans — one of several policy U-turns since becoming leader — with Labour aides saying the idea would would merely be part of a wider review over the coming years. “It’s on the backburner,” said one.

• The latest bulletin from the Corbyn Jokes Twitter account:

"This is the new politics. If we're going to have a war, at least make it civil."

And finally, thanks again to Moose Allain ‏for this:

“…and we’ll be joining them after the break.” Orthopaedic Surgery Live.

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