Talk:1993 Newbury by-election

Swing

A swing between Labour and the Conservatives simply doesn't make sense, it's a nonsense, please explain and justify it, I cannot see any sense in having it. Whether are the sources supporting it? -- Joolz 11:02, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You haven't read Swing (politics). Swing is only between Labour and Conservatives. There is no such thing as a Liberal Democrat / Conservative swing. Please stop vandalizing the page and suggesting there is. David | Talk 11:05, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Even David Butler (as in the inventor of the Butler swing) talks about a swing to the Lib Dems in the Newbury by-election - see p.69 of his book on the 1997 general election. If even the inventor of the term thinks it is ok to use in this context, you're not on very strong grounds saying this is all wrong surely? Mark 86.53.37.182 20:49, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your source is another wikipedia article, part of which you wrote? There should be plenty of other sources saying the swing in the Newbury by-election is -12.5 if that really is correct. However, I don't find them. I found on the other hand plenty saying the swing is 28.4: [1] [2] [3] [4]. And don't accuse me of vandalism, I find the accusation rather silly. - Joolz 11:26, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I can give you plenty of other examples where swing is defined as Conservative and Labour and no other party is mentioned. Your sources mean nothing: they are not experts at reporting elections. Swing is between Conservative and Labour only and to refer to it as anything else is vandalism. David | Talk 12:56, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

David, I can't comment on your expertise or otherwise on these issues, but I think you're being a bit overzealous here on the talkpage. "Vandalism" has a distinct meaning on Wikipedia, and it's very offensive to describe a bona fide contributor as a vandal. Joolz is merely another editor, whose POV differs from yours. Joolz is a reasonable man; if your POV has merit, you should be able to convince him through the power of reason and rationality; hurling insults and personal attacks will get you nowhere. --fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 17:46, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I 'hurled' no 'insults'. I made no personal attack. It's a personal attack on me to suggest that I did. Meanwhile, there is absolutely no way that a calculation of Conservative gain and Liberal Democrat loss can be made into a swing. Swing is between Conservative and Labour only. Absolutely no exceptions. David | Talk 19:40, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest that this discussion be taken to Talk:Swing_(politics), which is where it belongs--Po8crg 18:16, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is true that conventional swing is indeed calculated between Labour and the Tories. There are, however, plenty of exceptions in my experience provided that you actually specify who the parties involved are. This is produced by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, therefore I would suggest we take it as authoratitive since these are the elections to it. It defines conventional swing as I suggest (Lab-Con). Later in the article however, it produces multiple examples of swings between other parties, so I don't think including them is necessarily invalid at all.

I would suggest here that the swing is as follows:

Con to Lab swing: 12.5%

Con to LD swing: 28.3%

The four cited examples all directly specify that the swing is between Liberal Democrat and Conservative, so this is acceptable; I suspect that without an explicit specification as such the cite is ambiguous. I should also apologise for the fourth website (ukconstitution.net) as I actually am the webmaster, so being corrected is somewhat embarassing. --New Progressive 21:23, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The Standard Note you quote is just Adam Mellows-Facer's opinion. I think I sent in several corrections to Standard Notes and Research Papers over the years then I just got bored with it. To take just one example, the SN refers to the 1935-1945 swing as being meaningless because "National Labour candidates contributed 1.6% to the National total in 1935". True to say that but totally irrelevant: most voters in 1935 understood National Labour to be in effect Conservative, and it was only the Macdonald family which thought of it as being Labour. What the SN says when giving examples is no more definitive than a newspaper article and I absolutely refute that it is 'authoritative'.

The reason why swing is used for Conservative and Labour only and not for any other parties is that it doesn't work properly for others. The calculation is only any use if you can take the result and apply it elsewhere to compare and contrast, and that only works for Conservative and Labour in practice. Look at the distribution of the so-called "Conservative - Liberal Democrat swing' and it's completely random. David | Talk 21:51, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously I can't judge whether you've attempted to actually have this page corrected. Assuming good faith and that you have, then there is one of two possibilites:

They think you are wrong
They are lazy

If they think you are wrong, I'm inclined to accept their judgement. If they are lazy, it doesn't necessarily make you right. You may think Mellow-Facer's opinion is no more relevant than a newspaper journalists, but I would suggest that Parliament has employed the man and allowed his work to be published on their website - if that is not at the least a tacit endorsement of what he says, I do not know what could be.

Your point about the randomness of Con-LD swing is interesting, but I don't entirely know what practicality of comparison has to do with this. My understanding of swing (limited as it is) derives from the notion that it is a good indicator of the number of voters moving party between given elections. Obviously, the Con to LD swing of 28.3% shows us just how monumental the movement of voters was in this by-election, much more that the Con to Lab 12.5% swing, which is totally incidental in this case because there was no move of voters to Labour really - the voters were clearly moving from Con to LD - what caused the Con to Lab swing was the horrific drop in Tory support. --New Progressive 22:29, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Longest ballot paper?

I think the newbury it will continue to have been the longest ballot paper as the Haltemprice paper will probably be printed in two columns.