Tactical voting in focus as UK general election nears

With polls still showing Labour and Conservatives neck and neck, attention is turning to whether tactical voting could help either side gain an advantage in Thursday's UK general election.

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg could be rescued from defeat by Labour in his Sheffield Hallam seat by a "breathtaking" surge of Conservative tactical votes, according to an ICM poll.

Meanwhile there are attempts to co-ordinate pro-union voters north of the border to prevent the Scottish National party winning a landslide.

But electoral experts have dismissed the idea that Britain is facing unprecedented tactical voting. They point to the late 1990s and early 2000s, when many anti-Tory voters switched their support to either Labour or the Liberal Democrats depending on whot had the best chance locally.

Anthony Wells, director of political polling at YouGov, said that historically the biggest wave of tactical voting came when Tony Blair and Lord Ashdown were in charge of the two left-leaning parties.

"We'll see some happening in places like Sheffield Hallam and in Scotland but overall I don't think the scale of it compares to what we had in 1997," he said.

"Now that you have 'Clegg's Lib Dems' who have been in government with the Tories, there are many natural Labour supporters who won't tactically support them."

Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, said that in theory people could find it easier to vote tactically because of a plethora of local polls.

In reality however the huge "progressive anti-Tory alliance" of 18 years ago has since unwound. "Now there is a lot less love between the Lib Dems and Labour," he said

The Sun and Telegraph have made a last-ditch attempt to persuade their readers to abandon Ukip and vote tactically for David Cameron's Tory party.

But Mr Wells of YouGov said that Ukip's vote had remained stubbornly strong because many of its supporters disliked Mr Cameron almost as much as Mr Miliband: "They think the LibLabCon are all the same and are all awful."

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Similarly, several publications - including the Financial Times and Economist - have advised readers to support both the Tories and Lib Dems in an implicit encouragement of tactical voting.

In Scotland there are efforts to muster anti-SNP tactical voting, but so far none of the three big pro-union parties have been willing to step aside even where they have no hope of victory.

John Boyle, an entrepreneur who backed the Better Together campaign, said Labour and the Tories should have stepped aside in Gordon to help stop the election of former SNP leader Alex Salmond.

But the Labour and Conservative candidates have both dismissed any suggestion their supporters should switch their support to the Lib Dems, who won in Gordon in 2010.

Analysts say there is some evidence that Conservative votes could help Labour's Scotland leader Jim Murphy in East Renfrewshire - but elsewhere tactical voting is unlikely to be widespread enough to hold back the SNP surge.

On Tuesday, members of pro-tactical voting group Forward Together were out delivering the latest in nearly 50,000 leaflets that show the Tories as best placed to oust the SNP incumbent in Perth & North Perthshire and Labour best placed to hold on to Ochil and South Perthshire.

Forward Together member Victor Clements, a former Liberal Democrat candidate for the Scottish parliament, said there was no way to say how big an impact tactical voting would have across Scotland, but that many voters he talked to were very receptive to the idea.

"Our indications are that it is a fairly easy sell … [the SNP] has pushed things too hard - they have got people's backs up," Mr Clements said.

Marie McVicar, a Tory-supporting teacher who lives north of Glasgow in East Dunbartonshire, dismissed David Cameron's plea to Scottish Conservatives not to vote tactically.

She has voted Tory in the past even though she has been aware the party has little chance of winning the local seat. But she says the stakes are higher this time, so wants to make her ballot count.

"It's really the unity of the country - that's what I'm frightened for. It's so important to keep the SNP out."

She considered Labour, but believes her incumbent Lib Dem MP - the minister Jo Swinson - has a better shot of beating the SNP locally.

"I wouldn't normally vote for Nick Clegg, although Swinson has been quite active here."

"I don't want to take the risk of Labour. I think their vote will come down and the SNP vote will come up."

Additional reporting by Alistair Gray

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