Living in a marginal constituency: C or D?

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this could apply to politics in any country of course, though my experience is obviously of the British situation.

my verdict since 1997: CLASSIC (though obv frustratingly so when the other side is just ahead, but classic nonetheless) because you feel you're at the hub of the really important issues: the people you know will have higher than average significance balancing how things are done, what the worldview is, who makes the laws etc etc

also I've experienced it both when the other side is ahead and (currently) when something closer to my side has the advantage

― robin carmody (robin carmody), Saturday, 5 October 2002 23:29 (twenty-three years ago)

also: a friend was living in Peterborough at the time of a very famous 3-vote Tory win in 1966 after Labour had been 163 votes ahead in the first two counts (there are a number of reasons for me to believe it might have been nobbled to keep Labour out, though I can't find anything about it in the usenet archives), and has since become an incorrigible believer in establishment conspiracy theories: somehow I never ask him whether the P'boro experience made him so

― robin carmody (robin carmody), Saturday, 5 October 2002 23:32 (twenty-three years ago)

How can it be anything other than classic? Your vote, in our electoral system, counts for more than most people's. That can't be bad.

― Eyeball Kicks (Eyeball Kicks), Sunday, 6 October 2002 00:29 (twenty-three years ago)

Lived in marginal Southport in '92, a Tory gain from Lib Dem, + most frustratingly I wasn't on register + unable to vote. Lived mostly in rock solid Labour country, find 'Safe Seat' rather symptomatic of FPTPs flaws. Labour actually won less votes in '97 'landslide' than Tories in '92.

No such thing as a constituency in Dutch system. All votes counted nationally and seats divided on proportional basis.

― stevo (stevo), Sunday, 6 October 2002 07:50 (twenty-three years ago)

I support proportional representation, as you should know by now

I remember what it was that made me glad I *didn't* come from a Labour heartland: Nicky Wire saying that Neil Kinnock (his constituency MP) should have taken Labour *further* to the left after the 1983 disaster, the vested interests of the "safe seat" mentality writ large. You can't justify that sort of statement on a national perspective: it would only have prologned the Tory years.

― robin carmody (robin carmody), Sunday, 6 October 2002 23:34 (twenty-three years ago)

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