Tory-Labour gap quite narrow since 1945

[blake]

not having anything better to do in the past 30 minutes I decided to make a list of the leads in percentage points the Conservatives or Labour have enjoyed in parliamentary elections since 1945.

 

it comes out like this :

 

1945 LAB 11.6

 

1950 LAB 6.1

 

1951 LAB 0.8

 

1955 CON 3.5

 

1959 CON 5.6

 

1964 LAB 0.7

 

1970 CON 3.3

 

FEB 1974 CON 0.7

 

OCT 1974 LAB 3.4

 

1979 CON 7

 

1983 CON 14.8

 

1987 CON 11.4

 

1992 CON 7.5

 

1997 LAB 12.5

 

2001 LAB 9

 

2005 LAB 2.8

 

2010 CON 7.1

 

the total aggregate of the Tory leads is 60.9

the total aggregate of the Labour leads is 46.9

that is a gap of exactly 14 points.

there have been 17 elections.

 

meaning that in an average election, the Tories can be expected to win, and beat Labour, by a margin of 0.82 points.

 

that is quite close really. It means that if it were a two horse race, the Tories would only win by 51-49.

 

I did the same calculation with American presidential elections too, since 1948. The conservatives or Republicans 'win' there too but by a much higher margin, of almost 3.5 points, which is 53.5-46.5, much more decisive.

 

---------- Post added 02-10-2013 at 18:30 ----------

 

just realised I missed out the 1966 election which Labour won decisively by a 6.1% margin so the new 'gap' is a lower 7.9 points and the number of elections has increased to 18. So the gap per election is in fact not 0.82 points, but 0.43 points.

 

practically neck and neck.[