Being Policed? Or Just Pleasing Themselves?
Electoral Rewards and Punishment for Legislative Behaviour in an
Era of Localized Campaigning Effects: The Case of the UK in 2005
PHILIP COWLEY
University of Nottingham, UK
Normal practice on election night is to deny furiously the outcome of any result
until every vote is counted, no matter what pundits and pollsters are predicting.
It is always too early to say. The only votes that count are the ones in ballot
boxes. Not going to speculate. Let’s wait and see.
Election night 2005 saw one Labour MP adopt a very different approach. Bob
Marshall-Andrews, the Labour MP for Medway, and one of the most rebellious
members of the Parliamentary Labour Party, became his very own Prophet of
Doom, popping up on assorted TV and radio shows, confidently predicting his own
demise. He laid the blame for this at the feet of Tony Blair, and especially his
policy over Iraq, something Bob Marshall-Andrews had voted against. Marshall-
Andrews claimed to have received a stack of letters and messages during the
campaign from ex-Labour voters, all of which argued that whilst they would like
to vote for him as an individual they couldn’t bring themselves to vote Labour
whilst Tony Blair was still in charge. His basic argument was that he – and other
defeated MPs like him – constituted Tony Blair’s collateral damage. The national
picture had triumphed over the local, exactly as generations of British political
scientists and psephologists would have expected.
Several hours later, however, and Marshall-Andrews was once again all over the
airwaves, having held his seat. He had beaten the Conservative candidate, the
unfortunately named Mr Reckless, by just 213 votes.
Marshall-Andrews’s
impression of Lazarus led some to claim a different interpretation of the election
results: that those candidates – like Marshall-Andrews – who had defied the Blair
Government performed better at the polls, in several cases saving themselves in
the process. Or, in other words, the local picture has the potential to triumph
over the national – a conclusion that would fit in neatly with more recent electoral
studies in the UK.
The purpose of this paper is to see which of these versions of the 2005 election is
valid. If we find evidence of differences in electoral performance based on
legislative behaviour it will be both a reinforcement of, and a new dimension to,
models that argue for the importance of local effects in British general elections.
Moreover, because it will become clear that the public can – under specific
*
Paper for presentation at the American Political Science Association Annual
Conference, Washington, DC, September 2005. It draws on research funded by
the Economic and Social Research Council, available from www.revolts.co.uk. For
comments on an earlier draft I am grateful to Sarah Childs, Justin Fisher, Gemma
Rosenblatt, Meg Russell, and Mark Stuart. Please do not cite without permission
from the author, as this constitutes work in progress.
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Reckless must surely be one of the worst surnames to have if you are an
election candidate. Vote Reckless! Vote Conservative!
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