Monday, February 05, 2007

Luke Akehurst: Spinning Rallings and Thrasher


Luke Akehurst spins the Rallings and Thrasher calculator on the BBC web here like there's no tomorrow, no yesterday and no today.

In essence the calculation projects what may have happened with the exact same votes cast in 2005 if the boundaries recommended by the various boundary commissioners were in place. Luke suggests that David Cameron is in the same shape as Michael Foot was all those years ago. But I don't think there's much point in providing an overspun analysis.

The figures show that Michael Howard was in similar shape to Michael Foot, though Mr Foot had thirteen more Scottish seats to shoot at back in the day. So Foot was arguably even worse off.

The numbers are quite encouraging and the loss to Labour's majority is less than the 20-plus that had been reported but 20 months, and two leadership changes with a third on the way, and events dear boy events mean that the table for 2005 on the new boundaries still leaves everything to play for.

The BBC say it's good news for Cameron, the Akehurst says it's good news for Labour. The truth is perhaps somewhere betwixt and between.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

We've been grafting away for years. And we've finished. But the BBC piece says our recommendations have yet to be approved. If John McDonnell was asked to form a stop gap government next week and called an immediate election would that take place on the old boundaries?

Luke Akehurst said...

If necessary we'll throw everyone to the wolves, rebrand ourselves as "Brighter Labour", put a lesbian anti-war woman in charge and surge back into No. 10. Don't let anyone tell you we didn't learn a thing or two from the Tories.

Chris Paul said...

Didn't they put in John Major? You're not holding back on me are you LA?