ABSTRACT
Labour has suffered a loss of seats in the two General Elections since 1974 as a direct result of this. In the future Labour and others will have to look at this whole question again to ensure that boundaries fairly reflect political support in the country. The task facing the Labour Party at the next General Election in the late 1980s is formidable. To win an overall majority Labour would need to capture 116 seats, assuming the Speaker remains Conservative. The starting point of a rethink of Labour’s position is to recognize that electoral dealignment does not necessarily mean electoral realignment. The argument that Labour’s campaign should have been much more positive derives from an analysis of voters’ affective evaluations of the party. The survey showed that 37 per cent of the electorate who supported Labour in 1979 switched their votes in 1983.
