The tactical vote unwind – Labour style

With the Lib Dems stating that “replacing the Tory party as the opposition” is their current objective a remarkable piece of Labour campaigning has been reported by a correspondent on the site.

Villan sent us this message: “I live in a Tory-held Con/LibDem marginal. I was interested to get a Labour leaflet through the door the other day urging the “estimated 20-40% of Labour supporters who voted tactically for the LibDems in 2001″ (sic) not to do so again.

(paraphrased) “The LibDems can’t win here. They say they are the only ones who can beat the Tories here but in actual fact they never do, so vote for who you really want”.

If this is more than just a single constituency initiative then it reveals extraordinary thinking by the Labour hierarchy.

For it implies that Tony Blair’s party would much prefer the Conservatives to hold onto seats than to allow the Lib Dems to get a foot-hold.

But the boot could be on the other foot. If the LDs who switched in their hundreds of thousands in 1997 and 2001 to help Labour defeat Tories took the same advice about “voting for who you really want” then Labour’s in serious trouble. But there is certainly an air of panic apparent in the Labour camp.

The Indpendent has a report about Labour private polling painting that shows that about 7 per cent of the electorate who were natural Labour supporters will not bother to vote at the next general election because they feel neglected by Mr Blair. They are angry that foreign affairs have dominated his second term as Prime Minister.
Many of these key voters switched to Labour in 1997 and are middle-class people who did not oppose the Iraq war. Labour sources say they are a much bigger group than the professional AB1 voters who opposed the Iraq conflict and are now likely to support anti-war parties such as the Liberal Democrats.

The dynamics of real three party politics and the aftermath of the Iraq War are making the coming election very hard to call. The spread betting markets are back in business. Our calls are still SELL LABOUR – BUY LIB DEM. The prices are:-
LAB 340-348: CON 212-220: LIBD 67-71