Bad Spreadsheets Part II: Horse and Hound edition

So: despite the extraordinary Sturm and Drang over the Tory leadership, the Boris-ing and the coming Brexit rebellions, it seems that the return of two-party politics in the UK has got us stuck in a kind of cold war. Both parties appear to be electorally maxed out at over 40% (let's not forget that on 8 June although Labour got its best vote share since 2001, the Tories got their best vote share since 1992). David Runciman, amongst others, thinks there's "no reason to suppose either party is capable of making big advances from its current position: both may be close to the limits of their appeal." Despite public Tory meltdown, neither side is moving very much. And Labour are still 60-odd seats away from a majority.

If, then, I said I thought we were a whisker away from a progressive government (assuming we can get an election) you'd be forgiven for scepticism. Needless to say, I -- like everyone else -- was wrong about the last election. So why believe me, when six months ago, right before Seven Nation Army and a 10% swing, I was arguing obstreperously that the young simply aren’t numerous enough to propel Labour anywhere close to winning?

But in fact, as the post-election surveying has shown, most pundits' first diagnosis of the Corbynite 'youthquake' was also wrong. Although turnout was up massively amongst under-25s – from around 43% in 2015 to at least 54% in 2017, and perhaps as much as 58% – it seems clear that they weren’t numerous enough to deliver Labour's big gains. [Jan 2018 edit: in fact the authoritative British Election Study now shows under-25 turnout was barely up at all -- the margin of error means it could even have decreased]. Very substantial boosts in Labour support amongst 30-44 year olds were equally if not more important. My piss-poor spreadsheet was wrong not because I overestimated the electoral stranglehold of older voters, but because I hadn’t imagined there could be anywhere near as big a shift in the voting intentions of middle-aged cohorts as there was between April and June this year. The underlying demography, however, is still there. Indeed, it’s extraordinary testimony to the demographic dominance of the elderly electorate that Labour can have a majority in every age cohort under 50, and still be 56 seats down. 

Paradoxially, though, Labour’s reliance on 8 June on a middle-aged swing, rather than massive youth turnout, is good news for the potential power of the youth vote. Because it suggests that, whatever Runciman et al may say, Labour still has some powder dry. Nearly half of Labour's most supportive demographic constituencies still aren't turning out to vote. Meanwhile Tory-dominated age cohorts are already giving it everything they’ve got. Turnout amongst over-55s was pushing 70%. Amongst the Conservatives’ shock troops, the over-70s, it was around 84%, and surely can’t go much higher. 

The middle-aged swing, in other words, gives the under-30s the electoral space to be truly influential. Which in turn suggests a strategy, says my friend Mika Mino. 

Let's assume that age-specific voting intentions stay roughly the same (a heroic assumption, of course, and precisely what everyone was wrong about before; but I find it very hard to believe that under-25s will swing significantly towards the Tories any time soon). In other words, assume that around 62% of under-30s are going to vote Labour again, about 22% will vote Tory again, and that those who didn’t vote this time round have roughly the same voting intentions as those who did (another heroic assumption). 

In that case, maybe just going down to knife-edge marginals and helping register new under-30 voters (and who, left-wing or right-wing, could argue with youth voter registration as a democratic pursuit) would generate enough new Labour votes to tip us over the line next time round? 

Mika has been having a look at how the maths stacks up. At the risk of well-deserved ridicule, I’ve extended the thought by tabulating the numbers for Tory marginals with the slimmest majorities (many thanks to BritainElects.com for spreadsheeting the GE2017 results).

Assume that a working majority, taking into account Sinn Féin empty seats, is still 322, and that we’re after a Lab-SNP-LD-Green pact – currently on 310 seats. Labour therefore needs to win at least another 15-odd seats. And the numbers in the top 15 Tory super-marginals are pretty striking.

The six most-marginal Tory seats each need less than 1000 new under-30 voters, in theory, to fall to Labour. These are not all new Labour voters, remember, just new voters for all parties in that age-range. Across all 15 seats, we need just 21,200 new under-30 voters to come out and vote. That’s about 0.2% of the 18-to-30 population. More people bought Horse and Hound magazine last month. Seriously - we're talking about a number of people smaller than that proportion of the population for whom "Can You Prove You Own Your Horse?" is clickbait.

This is, of course, a reductio ad absurdum. It doesn't take into account age-specific variations in voting intention between constituencies (because we don't have the data, for the most part). And it's built on huge assumptions, at a time when the only rule in British politics is, of course, that all assumptions are wrong. This isn't a static fight. The Tories will seriously up their offer in the next election. There will be many, many other things to be done. Nonetheless -- to completely reverse my previous argument -- it does look like a targeted youth registration drive might be a significant component of bringing a progressive government to power.

If only we could have another election sometime soon.

Which is the thing the Fixed-term Parliaments Act seems to make impossible. That's a subject for my next post. But for now, have a look at these lovely numbers...

Constituency	2015	2017	2017 Result	Con majority 2017	Number of new under-30 voters needed for Lab majority
Middlesbrough South & East Cleveland	Lab	Con	Gain	1,020	2,550
Bolton West	Con	Con	Hold	936	2,340
Broxtowe	Con	Con	Hold	863	2,158
Northampton North	Con	Con	Hold	807	2,018
Telford	Con	Con	Hold	720	1,800
Stoke-on-Trent South	Lab	Con	Gain	663	1,658
Aberconwy	Con	Con	Hold	635	1,588
Calder Valley	Con	Con	Hold	609	1,523
Norwich North	Con	Con	Hold	507	1,268
Chipping Barnet	Con	Con	Hold	353	883
Hastings & Rye	Con	Con	Hold	346	865
Thurrock	Con	Con	Hold	345	863
Pudsey	Con	Con	Hold	331	828
Preseli Pembrokeshire	Con	Con	Hold	314	785
Southampton, Itchen	Con	Con	Hold	31	78