Divide and Rule

Apart from the obvious defeat here in West Dorset how did this happen and why did we not see it coming?  Here is a breakdown of the results, 2015 compared with 2010.

Chart 1. General election votes compared. Colours represent parties; blue -Conservative, yellow - Lib Dem, purple - UKIP, red - Labour, green - Greens, white - Didn't vote.

The chart above shows where the Lib Dem vote went.  First note that the reason the charts were drawn this way is to illustrate that more people voted against Oliver Letwin than for him, which has been the case since 1997, but no more. The Conservatives totalled 200 votes more than all the rest put together.

The Lib Dem vote collapsed as the electorate switched away from tactical voting, all the other parties increasing their vote share. Note that the electoral roll increased by ~1,545 (final 2015 data not in yet) but the Abstainers increased by 2,424 (the white column).  It would be surprising for people to newly register then not vote, so Oliver Letwin picked up 1,042 extra votes and the other parties all increase their share taking 550 new votes between them, but all the rest, 11,165 votes, came from the Lib Dems.  I have shown this with the  yellow and colour hatching with previous election tally shown in a solid colour.

The assumption that 4,859 Lib Dems switched to UKIP is of course bizarre but however it was done; Lib Dem voter switches to Labour while Labour voter switches to UKIP or Lib Dem voter switches to Tory while Tory switches to UKIP the net result is the same.  The Conservatives held firm and added a little (+1.8%) while the Lib Dem vote halved to bring  UKIP up 320%, Labour up 147% and the Greens a whopping 480%.  All stunning increases but the whole opposition tally decreased by 1,921 to give Letwin a lead over all the rest by 200 votes.  Unfortunately his majority is not counted that way and increased from 3,923 to 16,130 making West Dorset a safe seat.

UKIP fit much more snugly on the right of the Conservative party though UKIPpers presumably didn't vote for them as they were too progressive, but it is really surprising that they appeared out of nowhere, not taking any votes from the Tories.  If there is one thing that the Tories understand is divide and rule, they don't divide and end up ruling. This election shows exactly what happens when voters do not vote tactically.

Though it is profoundly depressing to have a Conservative majority they only increased their voter numbers by 600,000 to ~ 11 million, Labour added 700,000 to reach ~ 9 million, UKIP are the most cheated adding 3 million votes to come third nationally but ending up with one seat.  The Lib Dems were decimated losing ~ 4.5 million votes out of ~ 7million and the BNP were also wiped out from fifth place last time with 560,000 votes now polling 1,667 behind Cannabis is Safer than Alcohol, The Monster Raving Loonies and the Workers Party.  No surprises there as the much bigger party scoops up the fascist vote.