Does marriage matter more in the marginals?
Could getting this right secure the key to Downing Street?
Occasionally we get real gems on the PB threads and there was a great one this afternoon from Blair Freebairn – the geographer who produced that classic guest slot a couple of years ago on the prevalence of English towns amongst the marginals. This was Blair’s latest thinking sparked off by the LAB-CON spat on marriage:-
“Labour are totally buggered if they go on anti-marriage.
1 – Of the 100 Constituencies with lowest married population rate only 4 are currently held by Conservatives (and they are grey coastal or uber trendy/affluent London). Anti marriage is core votes only for Labour.
2 – Safe labour seats married pop rate ~ 48%, marginal labour seats proportion rate ~56%. The more marginal the more marriage
3 – Lowest marriage rates are Vauxhall, Manchester Central, Liverpool Riverside, Islington North, and Southwark and Bermondsey (you get the picture) and the highest are Amersham, Buckingham, vale of York
Very roughly the adult population breaks down like this:-
7ml in Single person 17m in Married and together 5m as Cohabiting 5m as Lone Parent 4m as Other (All student, multi family etc)”
I don’t know whether any of the parties have dissected the issue in this way but yet again Blair looks at things from a very different standpoint and adds to our understanding.