ElectionLeaflets.org

I was out yesterday morning putting this leaflet out around the parts of the St Michael’s Ward that actually turned out to vote. I believe boxcounts were noted during the overnight count to provide more granular information than at the ward level.

You can see the breakdown in performance below. The LibDem vote utterly collapsed here as in so many other places across the Merseyside region.

The turnout has dropped from a general election to a local election year. Nevertheless the green vote went up. Clearly they took some of the 1600 LibDem votes that were going spare. Where did those votes go?

The Labour votes went down too. There’s no reason for them to have converted to Green votes (or they would have voted that way in 2010), so that’s at least 400 Labour voters that didn’t turn out. Some of those 2011 Labour votes must have been picked up from the LibDem collapse, so there is likely to be even more missing Labour voters who didn’t come to the polls this year.

It’s easy to imagine at least 600 votes available for the Labour party to call on to come out to the polls, if they so choose (by motivating them with the right campaign). And under this brutal FPTP electoral system it won’t matter how consistent and strong the Green party support is from year to year. They will be swamped.

What this means is that the Labour Party on the council could call on the Green councillor’s support if they needed it by threatening to deploy a serious campaign in this ward at the next election. The numbers make that threat possible.

The voters can be counted on to act like a bunch of cattle, to be herded from field into stockyard, without the slightest comprehension or interest in the strategic numbers in the game.

If you all go stand on that weigh-bridge there it will tilt the scales just right to open this door for me. Pay no attention to the game that’s going on. Just keep munching the hay.

In this particular case no deals are likely to be called on because the Labour party has such a huge majority on the council now that they can ignore all the smaller parties and let them get on with their business.

Over in Southport, which I reported on earlier, the Labour party campaign succeeded in flipping a LibDem seat into a Tory seat.

As you can see, there is, was, and remains no reason for the Labour party to deploy any resources into this ward for the purpose of winning. The numbers are crystal clear: a strong Labour campaign in this ward can lead directly to a Tory party victory over the LibDems. It is entirely up to them to do it or not do it.

Because the voters are — as usual — fundamentally unaware of the critical calculus that is played at this level with their votes and intentions.

In another year or two the real business is going to start happening for all the exposed MPs in the Westminster Parliament.

For example, specific LibDem MPs may do deals with the Tories to cover for some outrageous and otherwise inexplicable position in return for the free ride they need at the next election depending on their specific circumstances.

If we wanted to we — the public at large — could tell from the poll numbers who was exposed to this type of threat. And then examine evidence from the campaign on the ground in terms of leaflets and literature whether they got a serious campaign or not.

And if they received a disproportionately weak campaign we could then challenge them in the hustings to explain what deal they made.

But this would require a proper public election campaign monitoring effort involving research, education, detectivework and conferences. Not some tiny frayed piece of shoestring like we have here at ElectionLeaflets.org.

Thanks to all who uploaded leaflets! Keep them coming! It’s all good stuff!