Learning from the 1997 Blair-Ashdown tactical voting deal

Start: 2021-06-24 19:00:00 UTC British Summer Time (GMT+01:00)

End: 2021-06-24 20:30:00 UTC British Summer Time (GMT+01:00)

This is a virtual event

Compass executive director Neal Lawson will be our Zoom session guest on 24 June when we take a behind-the-scenes glimpse at how a tactical voting “project” between Labour and the LibDems worked during the 1997 general election. To be very clear, tactical voting was NOT the main reason that Tony Blair and Labour triumphed; they won a total of 418 seats to end 18 years of Tory rule.

But this tactical voting project is said to be the most comprehensive – and SUCCESSFUL – electoral pact in recent British political history. And it is appearing more and more likely every day that some type of well-coordinated tactical voting system will be required to triumph over the Tories, as well as to bring in a far fairer proportional representation (PR) voting system. Winning PR is the main (and sole) objective of GET PR DONE!

Paddy Ashdown and Tony Blair

Of course, the political situation in 1997 was very different from the one today. And no one is suggesting that the highly-secretive project of then party leaders Tony Blair and Paddy Ashdown could be or should be reproduced in the next election. But some elements may be very useful if we want to bring in PR and if we realise that this objective is hardly at the top of Boris Johnson’s wish list.

In the 1990’s, Neal Lawson was a proverbial Labour “backroom boy” and wrote speeches for then shadow chancellor Gordon Brown. Today, Neal and the pressure group Compass are leading proponents of the concept of the “progressive alliance”. Tactical voting would undoubtedly be part of any such alliance.

So we can’t think of anyone better than Neal to help us figure out:
  1. how did this 1997 tactical voting pact work?
  2. how did it operate “on the ground” and between local – and normally competing – parties?
  3. what did voters make of this unusual voting arrangement?
  4. perhaps most importantly, what lessons can we draw for future elections?

BACKGROUND READING

As already mentioned, this Lab-LibDem pact was largely a “behind closed doors” affair. However, Duncan Brack, a former senior LibDem official, has unlocked some of its intricacies in a chapter called “Lessons from the Ashdown-Blair ‘Project’” in a 2016 book.

We STRONGLY recommend this chapter as pre-session background reading.

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FORMAT

Alan Story, a retired journalist and GET PR DONE! co-founder, will interview Neal for the first 25 mins or so of the session as he goes through and comments upon Duncan Brack’s chapter (see above).  

Then we will open up the session for Q and A with the ZOOM audience.

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A word to ALL campaigners for PR: this is a session you will not want to miss!

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HOUSEKEEPING

This Zoom session is sponsored by the IN PROPORTION blog that was set up in February 2021 by the cross party/no party campaign group GET PR DONE!

GPRD! is a member of the 11-member alliance, Labour for a New Democracy.

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