United Kingdom General Elections: December 12th, 2019

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Looking at cumulative swings, here is a map showing the accumulated Tory-Labour swing from 1997 to 2019. Have only included England & Wales, given the rise of the SNP in Scotland.



Here's one illustrating the accumulated swing as it differs from the overall national swing over the same time (12.3%):

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Here are swing/trend maps for all six elections (2001 through 2019) that were represented cumulatively in the previous maps.


2001 - overall swing 1.8% to Conservatives


2005 - 3.2% to Conservatives


2010 - 5.1% to Conservatives (Scotland saw a small Labour swing, which meant that most areas in England & Wales saw above-average Tory swings)


2015 - 0.4% to Labour


2017 - 2.0% to Labour


2019 - 4.6% to Conservatives



East Sussex & Merseyside trended toward Labour each time, while Essex & Lincolnshire trended away.

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Here are ones for 1983 through 1997:


1983 - 4.1% overall swing to Conservatives


1987 - 1.8% to Labour


1992 - 2.1% to Labour (as with 2010, Scotland swung in the opposite direction to the rest of Britain, so most of England & Wales gets an above-average swing)


1997 - 10.3% to Labour

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One more swing chart - this one compares the overall national swing figure with the swing in Labour-Tory marginals.

Once again, not a huge difference between this chart and the others, though the 2001 & 2015 figures are much further below the line here than on the others. For that matter, 2017 is much higher than on the others (the swing in Labour-held marginals was higher than in Tory ones, so fewer gains were made), while 1992 is a little lower (it was the opposite of 2017, with Labour getting bigger swings in Tory targets than in their own seats).

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Looking at cumulative swings, here's a map showing the last three elections (2015 through 2019):




If you just want to see the last two, post-referendum, elections, here are cumulative swings for those:

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So just to be clear, the first one is 2010-2019 swing and the other 2015-2019?

Yes (that is, 2010 results compared with 2019, and 2015 compared with 2019).



For further comparison, here's a constituency-based (as opposed to the local authorities) map of the 2016 referendum results:

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Here's another cumulative swing map, combining the last four elections (that is, swing from 2005 notionals to 2019):

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Looking at the 2005 notional results, there are eight constituencies that the Tories held then that they do not at present:

Lost in 2015
Enfield North (voted 50.8% to remain in 2016)
Ilford North (voted 52.5% to leave)
Wirral West (voted 55.3% to remain)

Lost in 2017
Canterbury (voted 54.7% to remain)
Enfield Southgate (voted 62.1% to remain)
Reading East (voted 61.8% to remain)

Lost in 2019
Putney (voted 73.2% to remain)
St. Albans (voted 62.6% to remain)

Breaking them down, there are four in London, three in the South East and one in the North West; seven voted to remain (four of those with more than 60%) and one to leave. Seven are now held by Labour, and one by the Liberals (St. Albans).


The other party to have had a dramatic rise in its vote from 2005 to the present is the SNP, which doesn't hold two ridings that it had fourteen years ago:

Banff & Buchan (voted 54.0% to leave)
Moray (voted 50.1% to remain)

Both were lost to the Tories in 2017 (after being won in 1987) and held two years later; Banff & Buchan was actually held with an increased majority, while Moray was nearly won back by the SNP. They were also the two most pro-leave constituencies in Scotland.

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If one widens the scope a bit to look at Conservative constituencies in the 2010 minority Parliament that they don't have now, there are twelve more:

Lost in 2015
Brentford & Isleworth (voted 56.7% to remain in 2016)
City of Chester (voted 57.3% to remain)
Ealing Central & Acton (voted 70.9% to remain)
Hove (voted 66.1% to remain)
Lancaster & Fleetwood (voted 50.9% to leave)

Lost in 2017
Battersea (voted 77.0% to remain)
Brighton Kemptown (voted 57.6% to remain)
Croydon Central (voted 50.3% to leave)
Plymouth Sutton & Devonport (voted 54.4% to leave)
Warwick & Leamington (voted 58.9% to remain)
Weaver Vale (voted 50.1% to leave)

Lost in 2019
Richmond Park (voted 73.3% to remain)

Breaking these down, five are in London, three in the North West, two in the South East, one in the South West & one in the West Midlands. Eight voted to remain (four with more than 60%) and four to leave (two in the North West, one in London & one in the South West). Eleven are held by Labour, and one by the Liberals.

[DistingFlyer]

To look at things from the opposite view of the earlier list (Tory seats held in opposition but not now), I see that, of the 52 constituencies held by Labour in their big 1931 defeat, 17 are not held by them now:

Broxtowe (now Conservative)
Clay Cross (Conservative)
Don Valley (Conservative)
Dumbarton Burghs (Scottish Nationalist)
Glasgow Bridgeton (Scottish Nationalist)
Glasgow Gorbals (Scottish Nationalist)
Glasgow Govan (Scottish Nationalist)
Glasgow St. Rollox (Scottish Nationalist)
Glasgow Shettleston (Scottish Nationalist)
Hamilton (Scottish Nationalist)
Leigh (Conservative)
Mansfield (Conservative)
Newcastle-under-Lyme (Conservative)
Rother Valley (Conservative)
Rothwell (Conservative)
Spennymoor (Conservative)
Workington (Conservative)

Of these, seven are in Scotland (and now held by the SNP), six in the North of England (now Conservative), and four in the Midlands (also Conservative). Most, but not all, were lost in the last three elections (the Scottish ones in 2015, the rest mostly in 2019).


[Should probably note that the old Broxtowe constituency is mostly modern-day Ashfield & Sherwood, while the new Broxtowe is largely cut from Rushcliffe.]

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On a similar note, Don Valley then was a little more like Doncaster North than Don Valley, though that probably wouldn't have changed either the 1931 or the 2019 result.

Yes, the old Don Valley encompasses most of the current constituency as well as Doncaster North, with Doncaster Central being similar to the old Doncaster seat. As you say, though, this still probably wouldn't make much difference here.

On a similar note, the clean SNP sweep of the Glasgow area made it very easy to determine who currently holds Labour's 1931 Scottish seats; the 2017 results might have made that a bit trickier.

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Rothwell is an oddity for different reasons. There's just no point even in making comparisons. Long ago and far away, a very different Yorkshire:

Yes, a very tricky one to judge indeed.