Labour targets tactical votes
Here’s the postcard Labour is sending to 850,000 homes in Lab/Con marginals over the next couple of days. Does it look desperate or focused?
Peter Hain has hardly been off the 24-hour news channels this morning repeating his message that voters should vote “intelligently” – i.e. you may prefer the Lib Dems but if you’re in a Lab/Con marginal lend us your vote one last time.
It’s “not orchestrated” according to Mr Brown’s team and he as leader of the party can’t go near it, but with Ed Balls sending out signals as well (in his New Statesman interview) this is not something the leadership is unhappy about.
Prof John Curtice estimates that tactical anti-Tory voting got Labour an extra 20 or so seats in 1997 and possibly more in 2001.
More recently, everyone could see it was “unwinding” as the psephologists put it and now Labour needs to wind it up again. But the Lib Dems have never had more at stake, coming second in the poll is a prize beyond their dreams only a few weeks ago but, they think, now within their grasp.
(Tories, by the way, tell me that West Worcestershire, Wells and Eastbourne may have fallen to the Lib Dems already.)
To find out how the Lib Dem votes would fall if their vote fractured you normally look at their second preferences in polls where the question has been asked – they fell about 46 per cent Labour second preference to 31 per cent Conservative second preference in one recent poll…. but these times are unusual.
The Labour postcard in full:
There are 26 comments on this post
It says it all.A policy endorsed by Labour to keep Brown in power .Proof if ever it were needed that the Liberals and Labour are one partyHow can any voter with a shred of conviction ,now vote for either the Liberals or Labour.What A fraudulent set of politicians now run the Labour party, and if the Liberals go with it they will be no better.
I’m not really sure what you mean. Talk me through it very slowly.
Yellow smurf.When most of us vote tomorrow we vote for the party we support for whatever reason ,and we are voting to put a government in place to run the country for the next 5 years..
The Labour party is so unpopular , they know if voters vote for their preference , they (including cabinet ministers) will be out of office and maybe for a long time .
In a bid to stop the main opposition , at the moment the Tories,from getting rid of them , they are seeking an alliance with the Liberals to save their skins.
In a seat where the main contenders are Tory and Liberal , they are saying to their own voters , go and vote with the Liberals to stop the Tories winning the seat, and where they and the Tories are the main contenders, asking Liberal voters to vote for them. A cynical move to try and stay in office.
If it works it will backfire on the Liberals , because their share of the vote will be lower and they will have kept Brown in office .They may gain the dubious honour of a hung Parliament , they can share with Labour
Labour conceding defeat, but not in so many words?
Labour, are running scared. . They are also, as I’ve said elsewhere, insulting the intelligence of the voter, if they think we have to be told how to make the most of our vote.
As an old labuor voter (in both senses of that phrase), I am sad to see a great party on its knees. I hope it can recover but I fear it may have become so Blairite (i.e Thatcherite) that it will need to be split up and reformed.
Another reason for those on the left to produce a parliament that will bring about voting reform.
Saltair two disagreements .Blair certainly wasn’t Thatcherite .She believed in sound money and protecting British interests and he was a lying spendthrift.
I wouls say another reason for those on the left to be thrown out of power for a generation
She believed in money in the city and the south east at the expense of manufacturing in the north. She was a disaster who was only saved from an early exit by the jingoism surrounding the Falklands war. Presumably that was one of the reasons Blair went into Iraq, but like everything else he did, it backfired.
Its ok Saltaire , they can relabel themselves Liberal Labour, which of course aught to suit you asit would be even further to the left, but does it become looney then ???
What I think will be fascinating is to see who ends up where. I think several of the current labour cabinet would find themselves quite at home in a centralist party with many of the current tory front bench.
I hazard a guess, Adrian, that you would be a bit to the right of that in theWhite Cliffs party, desperately fighting off the advances of Europe, even though China is the main threat to our economy
I, of course, would be in the sweet meadowland of reason on the left, where every man’s work is considered worthwhile and worthy of decent pay, where children make the most of their potential in classes of no more than 20, taught by inspirational teachers, and where every family is guaranteed apple pie.
I would call it the Camelot party but, just as the far right have stolen Churchill and the union flag, the capitalist hordes at the lottery with their fat salaries have nicked the word. So maybe the summer of love party
Saltaire i like the name of our new party , but what are we going to do in the winter of our discontent
Adrian, we could always smoke pot, listen to 60s music, watch tapes of Martin Luther King’s dream speech and wait for the sun to come out. Cos whatever we do, the rich will get richer, the poor will pick up the tab and politicians will say they are working for us, while lining their own pockets.
Peace and love, brother. It’s been great jousting with you
It’s sensible for Parties to advise voters of the realistic options they have.
In my constituency (a marginal), our MP worked harder than the average, had to avoid any risk of scandal and was much appreciated by all. Alas Ann’s retiring.
It’s also sensible to reflect that our voting system is now so undemocratic that such deviousness is needed at all!
Pity Cameron is set against change: but that’s what his label says: conservative.
I.E., the party that would conserve the old status quo.
Andrew how can you be so disingenuous .Are you sure you are not one of Browns backroom boys??
The voting system is so undemocratic that it favours Labour above both the other main parties.That is why despite only having a marginal percentage advantage , Labour had a landslde majority.The Tories would need a 10% advantage to even obtain a majority and the Liberals even more .The voting system clearly favours Labour,
As for change , it is only the Tories and Liberals promoting change .The only party that wants to preserve the status quo is Labour
This, and a few other masterpieces from a few other protagonists in the mix, local and national, have at least and at last made my decisions a lot easier.
If this is the best those who would seek to lead can manage…
DREAM ON CONSERVITIVES JUST BECOUSE YOU DONT HAVE AMY FRIENDS TO YOUR RIGHT BIG ENOUGH TO HELP YOU . ITS COMMON SENCE FOR LAB AN LIB DEM VOTERS TO VOTE TOGETHER TO KEEP THE THATCHERITES OUT . IM VOTEING LIB DEM IN EASTBOURNE TO GIVE THE SEAT TO THE LIB DEMS . ID ENTHUSEASTICLY VOTE LABOUR IN A LAB CON MARGINAL . YOU WOULD BE NUTS NOT TO .
Peter that says it all.The Labour Party and The Liberals are only one party giving neither a legitimacy.In reality your candidates should be standing as Liberal/Labour Party , with no true identity , but might i suggest a new party title of ZONKY, a cross between a Donkey and Zebra.
labour are not admiting defeat this is to make the base feel they must turn out , its brilliant .
a bit like the Sinclaire C5
Wasn’t he a tory, caught up in Maggie’s ‘we are all entrepreneurs now’ – not forgetting ‘there’s no such thing as society’
Adrian, nice to see your conversion to fair play. Does this apply to electoral funding where the tory pot, funded by those few percent of people who cream off the wealth of this country, is more than labour and lib dems put together? Do you approve of Lord Ashcroft spending the money he should be paying in taxes, to skew the result of the election instead?
It is a deeply unfair voting system to all parties except Labour. But the tories doen’t want to make it fair to all, they want to change it, so it’s fairer for them but disenfranchises a huge number of people.
This election of more than 600 seats, is in reality being settled in fewer than 150. In the remainder a chimpanzee would get in for the dominant party.
Yet this morning, Michael Gove wouldn’t even agree to a referendum to allow people ot have a say.
That’s how much the tories believe in democracy.
Saltaire, i am not a true Tory just a right winger who believes in this country and yes democracy, but if you go back through many blogs i would change the system completely , which in an age of technology should be easy to do.I would rule by referendum, and ensure our MP’S voted not on their beliefs , not on conscience but on what the majority of us the people they represent want
Saltaire , welcome to the Flying pig party .
Yes i believe elections should be funded by those willing to pay because the state can not afford to pay for elections.It would be easier to put the Tories into power permanently and let their paymasters fund them .
That at least would release Unions from paying the Labour party.They could use their funds to finance more strikes, to save their workers having to spend so many hours at work
In reality Saltaire the funding and influence is diabolical, why the Labour party is subservient to the Unions and the Liberals have to rely on stolen goods .I make no excuse whatsoever for the Tories .I do not believe they should be bankrolled by those seeking inflence.I do think there should be a limit and it should be state funded
I’m just outraged at the patronising attitude of people like Ed Balls – the poor ignorant voters need to be told where to place their cross – how dare he!!!
Kevin , his private voting must show he is on his way out .If so his wife aught to join him .They are the two most arrogrant relations i have come across in a long time
I’m hoping Ed Balls will be this election’s Portillo moment. Poor dear, what will he do then? Maybe become a bouncer outside a nightclub