Transforming the mosaic - The Visualization of Spatial Social Structure - page 154

was in the early 1920s (especially 1923 12 ). Those commentating were often
most concerned with the issues of the day, but between these issues were other
debates, questions of whether all people should be treated equally or if there
were deserving rich and undeserving poor.
In considering voting in general elections, because they are held so infre-
quently it is necessary to go back in time before the era covered by most of this
work to see how the changes of one period compared with other years. Ten gen-
eral elections were held between 1995 13 and 1987 inclusive. By-elections have
not been included here, but they have never altered which party became the gov-
ernment in power. What are of interest here are the changes that occur at all-out
elections, those votes that change governments and how the political landscape
slowly changed. Just as the housing market and economy goes from bust to boom
and back again, those viewing these images want to be in a position to guess
what they will see next. What was on view in the late 1970s and early 1980s
was the building of the foundations for growing social and political polarisation.
Images can be produced showing which parliamentary constituencies changed
hands between each contest (Figures 5.15 and 5.16). These are most important in
showing the geography of political success. Only those seats that changed hands
are coloured; on the outside of their symbols they are coloured by the colour
of the former party holding the seat, inside by the new holders. Between three
parties there are six possible colourings (between six different parties there are
thirty). Here, the results of those changes, and something of what lies behind
them, can be seen (Figures 5.17, 5.18 and 5.19).
Showing the changing proportion of votes is more problematic than simply
showing who wins or loses outright. The British electoral system is dominated
by three major parties. It is the swings between these which are of most
interest. 14 The swing between three choices is a two-dimensional object (just
as the simple swing between two choices, a basic change, is one-dimensional).
A two-dimensional change can be shown in various ways. Some pictures
(Figures 5.20 and 5.21) use arrows, the direction of which indicates the direction
12 'The February 1974 election was one of the most peculiar, and perhaps one of the most
important, in British electoral history; ... It was called as a referendum on a specific policy issue
for the first time since Stanley Baldwin did so - also unsuccessfully - over the tariff issue in 1923.
As all know, the election not only stimulated the highest voter turnout since 1951, but also a mass
exodus from both major parties - towards the Liberals in England and the Scottish Nationalists north
of the Tweed' (Burnham, 1978, p. 280).
13 'It may be hard to believe nowadays, but during the 1955 general election campaign television
news broadcasts made no references whatsoever to the election because the broadcasting authorities
feared they would be in breach of laws regulating the conducts of elections' (Denver, 1989, p. 50).
14 The ratchet was also seen to slip in both 1959 and 1983: 'The decline of loyalism within both
major UK parties in the 1970s is well attested. Less obvious is the slip in support of 1959, linked
to the resurgence of the Liberals in that year' (Budge and Farlie, 1983, p. 126).