If the LDs hold on to as many seats as the latest polling suggests then Clegg should thank NO2AV
Remember when FPTP was seen as way of preventing coalitions?
Just looking through the latest constituency polling from Lord Ashcroft and one thing is apparent – the LDs look set to hang on to so many of their CON facing marginals because the AV referendum in 2011 produced a NO victory.
In almost all of the seats the yellows look set to retain their vote share will be in the thirties. They’ve lost a lot of votes since the heady days of May 2010 but the Tories have lost nearly as many in these seats because of the huge seepage to UKIP.
The fact that there has only been a 2% LD to CON swing in these seats is down mostly to the losses that the Tories have suffered to UKIP .
Looking at the details of the switching it is not hard to extrapolate what things might have been like with AV. Many more of the UKIP voters would have made CON their second choice rather than the LDs thus boosting the blue totals in these battlegrounds.
The converse of this is, of course, that in the current electoral environment the Tories would have benefitted strongly from a change in 2011.
I think the term they use is irony.