old Scots tote

[calimac]

Surely somebody has calculated this already, but if they have, I haven't seen it.

Scotland is holding a major referendum on Sept. 18, to determine if the government should secure independence from the UK, a union officially sealed as long ago as 1707. The political impetus for this has been the chafing of Scotland, which mostly votes Labour in national elections, at the doings of Conservative governments. How an independent Scotland would vote may best be guessed at by examining the results for the Holyrood parliament over the last 15 years, but what would happen to the rump UK? Without Scottish Labour MPs, would it be doomed to eternal Tory domination? Let's find out.

       actual results   notional results
year   Con  Lab  oth     Con  Lab  oth     real winner         notional winner
1945   213  393   34     184  356   29     Labour              Labour
1950   298  315   12     266  278   10     Labour              Labour
1951   321  295    9     286  260    8     Conservative        Conservative
1955   344  277    9     308  243    8     Conservative        Conservative
1959   365  258    7     334  220    5     Conservative        Conservative
1964   304  317    9     280  274    5     Labour              Conservative
1966   253  363   14     233  317    9     Labour              Labour
1970   330  287   13     307  243    9     Conservative        Conservative
1974a  297  301   37     276  261   27     Labour (min.)       Conservative (min.)
1974b  277  319   39     261  278   25     Labour              Labour (min.)
1979   339  269   27     317  225   22     Conservative        Conservative
1983   397  209   44     376  168   34     Conservative        Conservative
1987   376  229   45     366  118   24     Conservative        Conservative
1992   336  271   44     325  222   32     Conservative        Conservative
1997   165  418   76     165  362   60     Labour              Labour
2001   166  412   81     165  357   65     Labour              Labour
2005   198  355   93     197  315   75     Labour              Labour
2010   305  258   86     304  217   69     Conservative (min.) Conservative

So there's the answer, all other things being equal. A Labour blowout would be preserved, but a narrow victory like 1964 or 1974 would be lost, and in the current term, Cameron's Tories would have won outright: no need for a coalition deal with the Liberal Democrats. Scotland's secession would give the Conservatives a leg up in the rump UK, but not a total command.

Comments

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

That piece is pretty funny, though!