General elections
I though this chart on Chris's site was an interesting way of displaying election results (Cambridge parliamentary in that case) so I thought I would reproduce it to show post-1945 general elections. The quality is a bit crappy but you should get the point. The x axis is the Labour share of the vote, the y axis the Tory share of the vote. By assuming that those two parties plus the Lib Dems take 100% of the vote it also shows the Lib Dem share of the vote (shown by the lines marked Lib Dem 40%, LIb Dem 20% etc).The coloured areas represent where the parties have a plurality of the votes (it says majority -- I can't be bothered to change it now), not importantly of seats. The squares show election results. Clearly one can see how badly Labour did from 1979 to 1992, how the Tories held their share of the vote over that period, and how they've slumped since.
ps I have now added the seats won at elections. It's even more confusing because the Tories' disastrous showing in 1997 and 2001, and Labour's near disastrous showing in 1983 require a large scale, but most results are quite close together. Nevertheless it confirms Chris Brooke's point about Labour making some gains between 1983 and 1987 whereas William Hague in 1997 didn't.
pps Following Chris L's comments I have now adjusted the seats chart to show actual majorities -- ie where the parties got more than 50% of the votes, wiht the bit in the middle showing hung parliaments. Chris also points out that in reality there are more than three parties, though for seats at least I don't think this is a major problem because they get so few seats (particularly if you exclude the N.Irish parties).
posted by Matthew @ 11/06/2003 01:01:00 PM
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