Thursday, May 22, 2008

More Labour Crack-Up

Big defeat in traditional Labour stronghold in the North, but is it enough? Apparently a 17% "swing" -- meaning % improvement in vote share over previous elections, an important metric in a proportional representation system -- isn't actually that huge compared with Labour's swings in by-elections in the mid-1990s (up to 29%) before Blair's ascendancy in 1997.