The biggest obstacle to a Tory majority
Even after the boundary changes, the Tories will need a seven point lead for a majority.
By George Eaton Published 02 March 2012 14:35
Here's one fact that anyone interested in the outcome of the next election should permanently keep in mind. Even after the coalition's proposed boundary changes (now potentially threatened by the Lib Dems), the Tories will need a lead of seven points on a uniform swing to win a majority (compared to one of 11 points at present), while Labour will need a lead of just four. As things stand, the likeliest outcome of the next election is another hung parliament.
Myself and ConservativeHome's Paul Goodman noted these figures (calculated by YouGov's Anthony Wells) when they were published last month, but they've yet to appear in a national newspaper. As a result, there is still a casual assumption among most commentators that the boundary changes will all but ensure a Tory majority at the next election.
The reason Labour retain their electoral advantage is that the electoral bias towards the party owes more to differential turnout (fewer people tend to vote in Labour constituencies) and regional factors (the Tory vote is poorly distributed) than it does to unequal constituencies (the coalition plans to fix constituency sizes at around 76,000 voters).
Thus, the biggest obstacle to a Tory majority at the next election may not be the NHS or the economy but the British electoral system itself.
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20 comments
Serves them right. The Lords knew this during the AV fiasco!
Well, that's cheered me up
I think the best course of action for the Labour Party would be to form an electoral pact with the Greens. It has two advantages: one it forces the LDs into the Tories fatal embrace and secondly it helps motivate ex-LD voters that there is a valid alternative to the ConDems.
An unelected government based on lies and a massive fraud on the electorate - has no chance whatsoever of being elected. Playing around with boundaries will be understood by voters as another attempted fraud.
And now those who were stupid enough to believe Cameron and Clegg will know better.
Completely correct
Which is why at the next election the most likely outcome is a hung parliament. Which means the Lib Dems will be in play again, despite losing votes.
So the only questions are 1. will Labour, unlike 2010, get enough seats to be capable of forming a majority with the Lib Dems? 2. what will Labour and the Tories each offer the Lib Dems to win them over?
The second question is particularly ironic since the Labour party from the leadership down to members has spent the best part of time since the 2010 election slandering Lib Dems and declaring how they would exterminate them like vermin. Remember Ed M declaring that he would eject Clegg personally from any future Lib-Lab pact?
I wonder when the penny will drop for Labour that the only way they can get into government in 2015 based on current polling is if they get the Lib Dems to trust Labour. Because guess what? Right now they don't.
yes, i read or heard somewhere that the real problem was that tory voters tended to all live near each other, so the tory votes pile up in their safe seats, rather than being more evenly distributed, and so the benefits of the redistribution were limited.
still if the media keep on telling them it will be better than it is it should, with any luck, lull them into a false sense of security.
though a mansion tax may well be to the tories advantage, especially a very high one, it might redistribute their vote.
in fact, higher taxes on the wealthy would do wonders for redistributing the tory vote, as they would find it harder to afford expensive housing.
there. sorted out george osbornes problems for him.
though, to be honest, there is no substitute for trying to be a nicer party, that would work wonders for their electoral chances.
and of course their changes to housing benefit will also force potential labour voters out of tory constituencies, and further concentrate tory voters in tory constituencies.
they really are losing the next election without any help.
Phil
The Lib Dem leadership. Remember them? They 're the guys whom you so irrationally hate it impairs your powers of logic.
It's perfectly possible that the Nats and NI parties will be larger than the Lib Dems. Do you really think the Nats will provide better terms thn the Lib Dems to Labour? Nats can never offer viable terms which a mainstream unionist party can tolerate and Nats are incentivised to break any coalition pact.
Bill
Is this comedy hour? UKIP support never holds up past mid-term polls. And even if it did UKIP can barely get any seats. Look up a concept called voter geography.
I personally think the most likely scenario is Labour and the Tories each getting approx 280 seats and the LibDems getting about 20 odd seats.
Ed Miliband still thinks he can win with defecting Lib Dems. Hence the attempt to destroy House of Lords reform to make Clegg look bad.
Is anyone doing the calculations around the next (nearly) national election in November yet?
When PCCs are elected - all but London, Scotland and NI will be voting. What the psephologists predicting for this election (which will be a 1 & 2 voting system - as with the London Mayoral election)?
The Lib Dems don't trust Labour? Which Lib Dems are those? You must mean the 1/3 or so of 2010 LD voters who have yet to change their allegiance.
A hung parliament could well be on the cards, but I expect that the SNP and NI parties will both have more seats than the LDs next time around.
What's the potential outcome at the next general election in the highly probable of Cleggy and crew joining the tories?
The Conservatives, and Wild Bill Haigh in paricular, are more concerned with Arabs exercisiing their mandate than ensuring democracy in the UK is alive and well.
Read my post you simpleton Inastew.
Do you really want 500,000 tax cheats to benefit from a tax cut?
With .....
1. Scottish independence.
2. Capped housing benefit.
3. Capped trade union donations
4. Individual voter registration
5. Redrawn constituency boundaries
Labour will be in the political wilderness for generations!!
Stop trying to kid yourselves, without Scotland Labour will not be forming any kind of government in England for a very long time; if ever. Few in England wish to see the return of one of the most economically incompetent governments in living memory. Labour’s betrayal of the English working class will not be easily forgotten or forgiven. Labour constantly finds itself on the wrong side of public option; whether that’s the resent riots, welfare reform, taxation or immigration. He’s the scary bit for Labour: if the Tories embrace Liberal taxation policy and remove the low paid from taxation altogether and follow their own instincts and slash the top rate of tax and cut public spending accordingly. With a booming economy and falling unemployment; welfare reform and with education back in our schools, what would be the point of voting for one of the most economically incompetent governments in living memory?
FA, Why do believe the lib dems will be the 3rd party? From information at the moment UKIP are 1% behind the Libs, what if we had
Cons 33%
Labour 33%
Ukip 16%
Libs 15%
other 3%
Who would offer UKIP the best deal?
Luddite - the current government's economic incompetence is staggering. They have made things worse not better and attack the most vulnerable in the UK with their cuts even although the richest caused the collapse. ConDems don't know what they're doing with constant u-turns - they lied to the elecorate over things like NHS and the greenest government ever !! - did the Tories really say that???
Since they have been in power unemployment has grown, the economy has shrunk - they're leader couldn't win a majority against a deeply unpopular pm after a deep recession - hence the need to try and fix the next election
@matt
Are you a socialist? If so then shouldnt we be conceding to the French way?
Wasnt it Ed Balls who said it doesnt matter if we lose our AAA like France?
Booming economy and falling unemployment Cloddite is talking about America.
Strange how didn't do a Osborne and run Plan A, that is a capital A for Austerity.
Cloddite wants a tax cut for 500,000 tax cheats who have Swiss Bank Accounts.
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