Following the comment by Ann Clwyd on BBC News 24

[Harry Hayfield]

When interviewed by BBC News 24 this afternoon, Ann Clwyd (Lab, Cynon Valley) said "Divided parties lose elections, need I remind you of Election1997?" and that got me thinking. So I looked at the percentage change at Election 1997 and applied to the tallies at Election 2005 and you know, she's right:

Conservatives 45% (+12% on Election 2005)
Labour 25% (-11% on Election 2005)
Liberal Democrats 23% (Unchanged on Election 2005)
Others 8% (Unchanged on Election 2005)

Lab to Con swing of 12%
Lib Dem to Con swing of 6%
Lab to Lib Dem swing of 6%

My question is though, is that sort of suggestion feasible and if so, what impact would such a result have on the Lib Dems? Gain as many as they lose or lose all their Lib Dem / Con marginals and gain very few Lab / Lib Dem marginals?

[afleitch]

If we are even close to 97 style tactical voting (and that's far from the current reality) it's always best to play with regonal breakdowns and 'class' breakdown (in a similar style to how the Fabian Society suggested that the 'E' voter shifted significantly to the Lib Dems in 2005 IIRC) We need to look at the 97 stats, then see what happened in 2005 and project or guess what could happen next. It's all rather complicated. Predicting tactical voting is a fools game That makes me a fool too!

If we take the last populus poll (36:32:20) and put it into the 'electoral calculus' we get

LAB 292
CON 278
LIB 47

If we reverse what happened in 1997 in order to help the Conservatives in the same way Labour were 'helped' in 1997 we get

CON 316
LAB 252
LIB 49

If we add into the mix, Conservative voters voting Liberal Democrat in seats where the Lib Dems are second to Labour we get

CON 316
LAB 247
LIB 54

If we do it all over again, but for the ICM poll (40:31:22) we get:

CON 330 (MAJ 10)
LAB 233
LIB 55

and with tactical voting

CON 364 (MAJ 78)
LAB 192
LIB 62

All 'just a bit of fun' of course