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March 30, 2005
Howard's End
It’s a great title for a tactical voting (vote swapping) campaign! This one targets the Tories with the long term (medium term?) aim of eliminating the Conservatives and making the Liberal Democrats into the second party.
Notably targeted are : Michael Howard (Folkestone & Hythe maj: 5,907), Oliver Letwin (Dorset West maj: 1,414), David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden maj: 1,903), Theresa May (Maidenhead maj: 3,284), Caroline Spelman (Meriden maj: 3,784), Tim Collins (Westmorland & Lonsdale maj: 3,147), and David Willetts (Havant maj: 4,207). All except Spelman and Willetts face Liberal Democrat challenges.
However despite the report in the Independent, Howard’s End seems to have no presence on the net, or if they do they are in desperate need of a search engine optimizer! (Thanks to Murky.org for this story).
news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=624488
www.murky.org/archives/2005/03/vote_swap.html
UPDATE 31 March 05
Thank to Amy for discovering that the Howard’s End site is in fact called Tactical Voter. Here is the address:
Posted by Simon Holledge at March 30, 2005 09:48 PM
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The Help Beat Howard website is designed simply to act as a catalyst to the removal o... [Read More]
Tracked on April 1, 2005 12:11 PM
» Tactical Voter from Murky.org
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Tracked on April 6, 2005 03:17 PM
Comments
Hi Simon,
Thanks for the info. I googled "howard's end"+"non-profit", and found them at http://www.tacticalvoter.net.
Looks like the site won't get properly underway until the election is officially called. There is a blog on the site, but it hasn't been updated since 2nd March.
I also found this separate site: Help Beat Howard.
I owe you an email - coming soon! (Right now I'm having a good laugh at George Galloway on Question Time.)
Posted by: Amy at March 31, 2005 11:31 PM
That's very clever of you to find the Tactical Voter site! It seems they named the website before they chose a name for the company behind it.
I can't help thinking that everybody is going to get very confused by all these tactical and strategic, vote swapping and whatever schemes.
Posted by: Simon Holledge at April 1, 2005 12:04 AM
That's very clever of you to find the Tactical Voter site!
Eh... I hate to blow my own trumpet (actually, I love it), but I think that you will find that Independence blog has listed Tactical Voter for about two months now. See my General Election 2005 - Tactical Voting Websites links section, on the left-hand sidebar.
I noted at the time that they said: "not making recommendations in Scotland this time".
Posted by: Stuart Dickson at April 1, 2005 11:52 AM
Right. I thought I'd seen it before. The Independent referred to it as Howard's End, a much wittier and more distinctive name, and that confused things. (Incidentally the Independent are now charging a pound to view the piece!)
Posted by: Simon Holledge at April 1, 2005 12:26 PM
Quoting Simon:
I can't help thinking that everybody is going to get very confused by all these tactical and strategic, vote swapping and whatever schemes.
I agree. People can just about cope with the concept of voting Lib Dem where there is no chance of Labour winning. These schemes look like the kind of thing only political junkies will really follow.
Posted by: Amy at April 2, 2005 01:00 AM