Swingometer - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The swingometer is a graphics

Graphics

Graphics are visual presentations on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, computer screen, paper, or stone to brand, inform, illustrate, or entertain. Examples are photographs, drawings, Line Art, graphs, diagrams, typography, numbers, symbols, geometric designs, maps, engineering drawings,or...

device that shows the swing

Swing (politics)

An electoral swing analysis shows the extent of change in voter support from one election to another. It is an indicator of voter support for individual candidates or political parties, or voter preference between two or more candidates or parties...

from one party to another on British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

election results programmes. It was invented by Peter Milne, and later refined by David Butler and Robert McKenzie.

The first outing on British television was during a regional output from the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

studios in Bristol

Bristol

Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...

during the 1955 general election

United Kingdom general election, 1955

The 1955 United Kingdom general election was held on 26 May 1955, four years after the previous general election. It resulted in a substantially increased majority of 60 for the Conservative government under new leader and prime minister Sir Anthony Eden against Labour Party, now in their 20th year...

(the first UK general election to be televised) and was used to show the swing in the two constituencies of Southampton Itchen and Southampton Test.

Following this use in 1955, the BBC adopted the swingometer on a national basis and it was unveiled in the national broadcasts for the 1959 general election

United Kingdom general election, 1959

This United Kingdom general election was held on 8 October 1959. It marked a third successive victory for the ruling Conservative Party, led by Harold Macmillan...

. This swingometer merely showed the national swing in Britain but not the implications on that swing on the composition of parliament. These issues were not addressed until the 1964 general election

United Kingdom general election, 1964

The United Kingdom general election of 1964 was held on 15 October 1964, more than five years after the preceding election, and thirteen years after the Conservative Party had retaken power...

.

The swingometer for that election showed not only the national swing, but also the implications of that national swing. So for instance, a 3.5% swing to Labour

Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

would see Labour become a majority government whilst any swing to the Conservatives would see Sir Alec Douglas-Home

Alec Douglas-Home

Alexander Frederick Douglas-Home, Baron Home of the Hirsel, KT, PC , known as The Earl of Home from 1951 to 1963 and as Sir Alec Douglas-Home from 1963 to 1974, was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from October 1963 to October 1964.He is the last...

reelected as Prime Minister

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...

with a huge parliamentary majority. In the end the result was a Labour overall majority of 4, and so when the 1966 general election

United Kingdom general election, 1966

The 1966 United Kingdom general election on 31 March 1966 was called by sitting Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Wilson's decision to call an election turned on the fact that his government, elected a mere 17 months previously in 1964 had an unworkably small majority of only 4 MPs...

came around, a new element had to be added (namely the prospect of a hung parliament

Hung parliament

In a two-party parliamentary system of government, a hung parliament occurs when neither major political party has an absolute majority of seats in the parliament . It is also less commonly known as a balanced parliament or a legislature under no overall control...

).

At the 1970 general election

United Kingdom general election, 1970

The United Kingdom general election of 1970 was held on 18 June 1970, and resulted in a surprise victory for the Conservative Party under leader Edward Heath, who defeated the Labour Party under Harold Wilson. The election also saw the Liberal Party and its new leader Jeremy Thorpe lose half their...

, the swingometer entered the age of colour television and showed the traditional party colours of red for Labour

Labour Party (UK)

and blue for Conservative

Conservative Party (UK)

The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...

and had to be extended due to the success of the Conservative party at that election.

However, following the success of the Liberals

Liberal Party (UK)

The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...

in the by-elections held between the 1970 and February 1974 general elections, the swingometer was reduced in scale to just a small standby as the computers used by the BBC were deemed more reliable. As the Liberal Party reduced in importance the swingometer was brought back for the 1979 general election

United Kingdom general election, 1979

The United Kingdom general election of 1979 was held on 3 May 1979 to elect 635 members to the British House of Commons. The Conservative Party, led by Margaret Thatcher ousted the incumbent Labour government of James Callaghan with a parliamentary majority of 43 seats...

but for the 1983 and 1987 general elections computers were introduced to show changes in support in both map and graphic form.

The swingometer was brought back for the 1992 general election

United Kingdom general election, 1992

The United Kingdom general election of 1992 was held on 9 April 1992, and was the fourth consecutive victory for the Conservative Party. This election result was one of the biggest surprises in 20th Century politics, as polling leading up to the day of the election showed Labour under leader Neil...

covering the whole side of the election studio and also had to be manhandled by at least four technicians as well as Peter Snow

Peter Snow

Peter Snow, CBE is a British television and radio presenter. He is the grandson of First World War general Sir Thomas D'Oyly Snow, and cousin of Jon Snow, the main presenter of Channel 4 News, nephew of schoolmaster and bishop George D'Oyly Snow, and the brother-in-law of historian-writer Margaret...

who had taken over the election graphics role following the death of Bob McKenzie. This swingometer was too big for comfort and in 1997 started on a shrinking process and was changed from an actual swingometer to a virtual reality swingometer. For the 2001 general election

United Kingdom general election, 2001

The United Kingdom general election, 2001 was held on Thursday 7 June 2001 to elect 659 members to the British House of Commons. It was dubbed "the quiet landslide" by the media, as the Labour Party was re-elected with another landslide result and only suffered a net loss of 6 seats...

the graphic was reduced further. Following a few experiments in the United Kingdom local elections in 2003 and 2004 the swingometer for the next election in 2005 was held on virtual structs as well as swingometers for the Labour and Liberal Democrats parties.

An online version of the swingometer, featuring Labour and the Conservatives only, was introduced on the BBC News website at the 2001 general election. In 2005 the online swingometer was substantially re-designed to include versions featuring the Liberal Democrats, plus information on specific constituencies - including "VIP" seats - won/ lost on different swings. For the 2010 general election, the swingometer was placed in a completely virtual environment and repositioned to appear on the back wall of the virtual studio, with named constituencies as opposed to virtual MPs. All three swingometers were updated (Con / Lab, Con / Lib Dem, Lab / Lib Dem) in this manner.

3D Swingometer

The 3D swingometer is used to illustrate the shift in election results from the previous election in a three-party system. It is similar to the '2D' swingometer used in two-party system

Two-party system

A two-party system is a system where two major political parties dominate voting in nearly all elections at every level of government and, as a result, all or nearly all elected offices are members of one of the two major parties...

elections, but uses the extra dimension to allow swings to occur between three parties.

The sum of all the swings between parties must equal zero. In a three party system, the most complicated swings will involve a major swing either to or from one political party

Political party

A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...

, with this swing being made up of two components from each of the other two parties. For instance there may be a 3% swing towards the Purple party, consisting of a 2% swing from the Orange party and a 1% swing from the Brown party. Alternatively, there may be a 5% swing from the Orange party, of which 3% is towards the Brown party and 2% towards the Purple party.

It is possible to split the swing space up into different regions indicating what the result would be if the swing indicated occurred linearly across the electorate. This gives rise to four regions: one each indicating overall control for each party, and a fourth region indicating no overall control.

Where there are swings directly from one party to a second party with the third party's vote remaining unchanged, the 3D swingometer clearly indicates that the third party also benefits slightly from the reduction in vote of the first party.

The three dimensions

Dimension

In physics and mathematics, the dimension of a space or object is informally defined as the minimum number of coordinates needed to specify any point within it. Thus a line has a dimension of one because only one coordinate is needed to specify a point on it...

consist of the two used to create the swing space and the third for the pendulum

Pendulum

A pendulum is a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely. When a pendulum is displaced from its resting equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate it back toward the equilibrium position...

to swing in.

Parodies

During the 2010 UK General election race, the *Slapometer website allowed voters to slap along to the live TV debates between party leaders Gordon Brown

Gordon Brown

James Gordon Brown is a British Labour Party politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 until 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour Government from 1997 to 2007...

, David Cameron

David Cameron

David William Donald Cameron is the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service and Leader of the Conservative Party. Cameron represents Witney as its Member of Parliament ....

and Nick Clegg

Nick Clegg

Nicholas William Peter "Nick" Clegg is a British Liberal Democrat politician who is currently the Deputy Prime Minister, Lord President of the Council and Minister for Constitutional and Political Reform in the coalition government of which David Cameron is the Prime Minister...

. Rather than showing a swing in votes it merely gave feedback about the number of slaps each politician was receiving each second.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.