In the final edition of our election analysis series, we will be looking at those seats where the winner last time out holds a lead of at least 40% over the second placed candidate. In other words, today we’ll be looking at what seem to be Westminster’s safest seats, and just how safe they really are.

We therefore have six seats to look at today, and also two caveats.

Firstly, these are seats where endorsements and tactical withdrawals - to use a charitable term - have had a major effect. We will call these out where we can, but in the topsy-turvy Westminster world, these factors are more than a little arcane and almost always inconsistent. However, in a couple of constituencies we can still see what appear to be interesting trends.

Secondly, we will be focusing mostly on the raw numbers from this and the two previous elections. Where relevant we will call out polling figures, but we only have so much paper available to print today’s edition of The Times, so we shall mostly be looking at numbers we can be sure about.

For reference, here is the list of constituencies ordered by percentage lead.

Cambridgeshire

GEIX-GEX-GEXI party performance chart for Cambridgeshire.

Seat summary:

• GEIX: Conservative Party (14.5% lead over Liberal Democrats)
• GEX: Liberal Democrats (33.5% lead over Conservative Party)
• GEXI: Conservative Party (71.3% lead over Independent)

Historically, Cambridgeshire is a seat for which both the Tories and Liberal Democrats compete; and, of course, one that frequently flip flops between the two parties.

This time, however, the Liberal Democrats extraordinarily abandoned the seat in which they were not only the incumbents, but also by some distance the second-strongest party in the pre-election polls. The result is that long-time Cambridgeshire candidate, /u/purpleslug, took the seat by a huge margin, one perhaps unprecedented in the post-rotten boroughs history of the House of Commons.

Perhaps the Liberal Democrats’ not even contesting the seat is due to their own long-time candidate, /u/thechattyshow, retiring from party politics, but one wonders what conversations in Liberal Democrat HQ led to their abandonment of a seat in which they are clearly still rather strong.

Despite the Conservatives’ 71 point lead in Cambridgeshire, we do feel that this constituency is not quite that safe; it was not that long ago that the Liberal Democrats held a 33 point lead here, and they were only 6 points down on the Tories in the pre-election polling. A series of peculiar circumstances have led to a lead of this size, and the Tories mustn’t be complacent.

Whether or not next time the Liberal Democrats can woo the voters they abandoned this time remains to be seen, but they may find hope in the post-Government malaise most governing parties find themselves in.

Manchester City and South

GEIX-GEX-GEXI party performance chart for Manchester City and South.

Seat summary:

• GEIX: Classical Liberals (1.1% over Labour Party)
• GEX: Classical Liberals (21.1% over Labour Party)
• GEXI: Classical Liberals (60.3% over Green Party)

This is another seat - one of many in this list - where constituents only had two candidates to choose from. In this case, the choice was between the Classical Liberals and the Green Party.

The Green Party hadn’t competed in this seat since GEVIII, when they gained 42% of the vote and won the seat. Why they didn’t compete in the seat in GEIX is not clear, but the Classical Liberals surged from zero votes to a 1.1% lead and haven’t relinquished the seat since.

The Labour Party made a good fist of fighting this seat in both GEIX and GEX, but as we’ll see throughout this list inexplicably elected to abandon the seat and focus their efforts elsewhere. We say this decision is inexplicable because the Classical Liberals held a lead of only 1% in polling, and Labour - rather than the Greens - clearly have the second-largest base here.

Much has been made of the so-called TLC electoral pact, and yet here it simply did not apply. The Classical Liberals benefited from endorsements from Labour, Liberal Democrats, Tories and the Libertarian Party. The Green Party stood alone against this tide, and the result was a mere 19% of the vote, down from Labour’s second-placed 26% in GEX. We would have all expected Labour to endorse a Green candidate against a Classical Liberal incumbent, especially where there was no right-wing candidate and therefore no danger of splitting the vote, but they did not, and the reasons for that are not at all obvious.

We should also mention the impact of the NUP’s collapse. This is not something we covered much in the analysis of the nine most marginal seats, but here it seems that the NUP’s 25% of the vote from GEX was there for the taking; perhaps with a more energetic campaign from a Labour Party candidate, the Classical Liberals would not now be sitting on a 60 point lead.

As it happens, a combination of party apathy, endorsements and Classical Liberal strength in this seat led to a huge Classical Liberal victory. All things being equal, we would expect the Classical Liberals to hold this seat next time, too. One interesting statistic is that turnout actually increased in this seat despite fewer candidates, which seems to be testament to the popularity of the Classical Liberals in Manchester City and South.

Surrey

GEIX-GEX-GEXI party performance chart for Surrey.

Seat summary:

• GEIX: Conservative Party (10.2% over Libertarian Party)
• GEX: Libertarian Party (2.2% over Conservative Party)
• GEXI: Libertarian Party (55.5% over Green Party)

As you can see from the chart, this seat was once hotly contested. We had four parties in with a shout in Surrey: Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, Labour and the Libertarians.

The Libertarians’ incursion into this seat is quite remarkable, and they seemed to take votes off all the other parties in both GEIX and GEX, the latter of which when they won the seat by a whisker.

And once again, this time we see parties abandon constituencies where they appear strong in order to focus their efforts elsewhere. The other three parties of strength in Surrey did not stand here, and - again! - the Green Party popped up to show the other parties how it should be done.

Nothing could stop the Libertarian freight train, however, even though the endorsements were much more evenly-distributed than we saw in Manchester. The TLC pact did apply here, with Labour and the Liberal Democrats backing the Green candidate, while the Tories and Classical Liberals backed the Libertarian candidate. Solely on raw polling numbers, this still gave the Libertarians a healthy lead before campaigning even begun, and the crushing victory isn’t even that much of a surprise.

Much of this is due to Surrey’s profile, which traditionally is a safe (small c) conservative seat that makes it difficult for parties to the left of the Liberal Democrats to make inroads here. But the rest is due to the Libertarian Party’s ruthless targeting of this seat and strong national profile.

We cannot see anything but a Libertarian victory in Surrey next time out, unless, of course, the governing Tory-LPUK coalition goes sour just before the election. A strong Tory campaign allied to a liberal or TLC presence in the next election will eat into the Libertarians’ lead, but even then it’d take a colossal effort to crowbar the Libertarian Party out of Surrey.

Buckinghamshire

GEIX-GEX-GEXI party performance chart for Buckinghamshire.

Seat summary:

• GEIX: Libertarian Party (1.1% over Conservative Party)
• GEX: Libertarian Party (4.3% over Conservative Party)
• GEXI: Libertarian Party (49.7% over Labour Party)

The party performance chart shows a simple story in Buckinghamshire. Labour consistently get around 25% of the vote, while the Tories and Libertarians hover around the high 30s. This time, the Tories didn’t run, despite a polling lead, and endorsed the Libertarians instead. And so the Libertarian vote nearly doubled.

This is not the complete story, of course. The Labour Party didn’t show up to the campaign, while the Libertarians’ campaign was typically energetic on the site of their first constituency seat victory. Even without endorsements from the Tories and Classical Liberals, we’d have expected the Libertarians to have held this seat given its binary nature and Labour’s profligacy.

As with Surrey, the key factor here - albeit to a much lesser extent in Surrey - was the absence of a Tory candidate to split the right-wing vote. While Surrey can rightly be considered pretty safe Libertarian territory with or without a Tory candidate, Buckinghamshire is much less clear-cut. And the fact that the Labour vote held at just under 25% despite a poor campaign shows that there is a dangerous latency to Labour’s strength here.

The Libertarians really benefited from poor Labour campaigning and the fact this was a two candidate seat. The 50% lead is flattering, and whether or not it falls next time will be mostly dependent on Tory-LPUK relations over the next six months.

West Yorkshire

GEIX-GEX-GEXI party performance chart for West Yorkshire.

Seat summary:

• GEIX: Labour Party (3% over Libertarian Party)
• GEX: Libertarian Party (11.4% over Labour Party)
• GEXI: Libertarian Party (42.4% over Liberal Democrats)

We can see a trend with the Libertarian seats on this list. Surrey is the least amenable to the trend, but what we see in both Buckinghamshire and West Yorkshire is a link between a declining Tory vote and an ascendant Libertarian vote. In some cases this manifests in a straight endorsement from the Tories to the Libertarians, which, given the similarity between the bases of the two parties, realises a significant boost for the latter.

West Yorkshire also follows the trend we’ve seen so far in this list for binary elections. Only two candidates stood, one of which wasn’t even present in the previous two elections. And that candidate wasn’t even a Green candidate, but instead from the Liberal Democrats.

The strange thing with this seat was that in the pre-election polls, the Labour Party held a one point lead over the Libertarians, but the Liberal Democrats stood anyway. As with many other seats, the other parties lined up behind the candidates in two blocs - Labour and Greens behind the Liberal Democrat candidate, Classical Liberals and Tories behind the LPUK candidate - and the Libertarians won a huge victory, thanks in part to the Liberal Democrat candidate not turning up to campaign. That the Liberal Democrats gained nearly 30% of the vote is thanks entirely to neighbouring candidates visiting the constituency.

West Yorkshire looks good for the Libertarians, but, again, it is somewhat dependent on Tory decision making and sensible decisions from the other parties. This is not to say the Libertarian Party was lucky here, as you can only beat what’s put in front of you, and they’ll be very happy indeed with their 42 point lead.

Gloucestershire and Wiltshire

GEIX-GEX-GEXI party performance chart for Gloucestershire and Wiltshire.

Seat summary:

• GEIX: Conservative Party (4.8% over Liberal Democrats)
• GEX: Liberal Democrats (33% over Labour Party)
• GEXI: Liberal Democrats (40% over Conservative Party)

The Liberal Democrats gained this seat from the Tories in GEX, when the Tories made the curious decision to sit on the candidate list but not to campaign for the seat. The result was a massive Liberal Democrat gain; their lead even increased this time, albeit with a decreased vote share.

Gloucestershire and Wiltshire bucks the trend shared by the other five seats on this list, in that more than two candidates stood here; we saw a Liberal Democrat, a Classical Liberal and a Tory. The presence of a Classical Liberal candidate probably explains the dip in the Liberal Democrats’ vote share, although that was likely shored up by receiving an endorsement from Labour, who last time came second with 33% of the vote.

The Liberal Democrat hold here seems strong; endorsements in this election were switched from last time, when they had the benefit of Classical Liberal and Libertarian support. This time, both Labour and the Greens backed the Liberal Democrats, and in the end the result was very similar. Even with a Classical Liberal endorsement of the Tory candidate, it’s very unlikely that the Liberal Democrats would have lost this seat.

As with every other seat on this list, the safety of this seat is dependent on the majority party gaining sufficient endorsements and not alienating its partner parties. However, assuming something approaching a stability of endorsements the Liberal Democrats will be confident that with a solid campaign they will hold this seat in six months.