Historical precedent and British electoral prospects

Abstract

This article develops a crude but robust method for creating plausible future general election results on the basis of previous changes in the vote—that is, counterfactual future results. By matching constituencies from two elections according to the relative electoral performance of all the significant political parties, many of the practical problems of projecting previous changes in the distribution of votes can be overcome. The method is demonstrated using the example of recent general elections in Great Britain to create a number of projected outcomes for a fictional general election in 1996. The implication of these results is that, barring some strictly unprecedented transformation in the electorate, the parties, or the electoral system, no party other than the Conservatives can form a majority government at the next election. We can say this with some confidence, because testing the method using all the British general elections in the period of 1970 to 1992 shows it to produce a range of scenarios that have never been awry by more than eight seats.