Quote Originally Posted by pipster View Post
It may have been a record 'swing' but the Labour vote count shifted by about 100 votes in the by election a fortnight ago. All that tells you is that the conservative stayed at home - whilst the same people that voted Lab last voted Labour this time. If the 'missing' conservative voters come out it's a different picture.
It doesn't tell you that though. It might tell you that but you don't have enough information to be able to say and you are effectively saying there is no such thing as a swing voter which we know to be false. 1960s to 1980s there was far more party loyalty with about 20% of people reporting that they voted for a different party from one election to the next but this has been steadily increasing and is now in the 30-40% range every election.

Blair/Cameron were successful because they could win votes from the other side. Boris managed it from a combination of Brexit and Corbyn.