Talk:List of marginal seats before the 2024 United Kingdom general election

Problems

We've had long discussions over target seat lists at previous elections. There is a concern that they are WP:SYNTHy. I was tempted to WP:PROD this. This is not a list of seats that parties are targetting. It's mainly a list of seats by marginality based on notional results calculated for the last election, with a few extra additions. It is unclear why certain lists are longer than others. Many of the lists are clearly preposterous: e.g. the Greens are definitely not targetting all those seats.

While I see some value in lists by marginality, it would be better if we could cite sources as to what the actual seats being targetted are. Bondegezou (talk) 08:52, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 23 June 2024

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. Consensus to move, although only a weak consensus for the proposed title. Editors who prefer a title other than "target seats" and "marginal seats" should feel free to open a new RM at any time. (closed by non-admin page mover) BilledMammal (talk) 23:43, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

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• List of target seats in the 2024 United Kingdom general election → List of marginal seats before the 2024 United Kingdom general election
• List of target seats in the 2019 United Kingdom general election → List of marginal seats before the 2019 United Kingdom general election
• List of target seats in the 2017 United Kingdom general election → List of marginal seats before the 2017 United Kingdom general election
• List of target seats in the 2015 United Kingdom general election → List of marginal seats before the 2015 United Kingdom general election

– These are lists of seats with small majorities, calculated from previous results. They are not lists of any party's target seats, which are the seats a party chooses to focus its funds and energies into contesting, as shown by headlines such as "Labour increases Scottish target seats to 36", and by the lead of the 2024 list. Simply changing "target seats in the nnnn ... election" to "marginal seats in the nnnn ... election" would result in ambiguity as it would not be clear whether these were marginal seats before or after the said election, hency my suggested new title of "marginal seats before the nnnn .... election". There may be better alternatives. PamD 22:59, 23 June 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. Safari Scribe^{Edits! Talk!} 17:03, 1 July 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. BilledMammal (talk) 09:28, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

@SafariScribe, what happened here - why did you close the discussion, move the page, then change your mind and revert both? -- DeFacto (talk). 18:20, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

• Support move. Bondegezou (talk) 12:45, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
• Support per WP:PRECISION. -- DeFacto (talk). 12:49, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose: 'marginal' is not well defined in this context so reduces WP:PRECISION.YorkshireExpat (talk) 14:34, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

  How is "target" any better defined? Graham (talk) 05:22, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

  @Graham11 'marginal' implies some percentage swing is required for a party to take the seat. It's defined this way in Australia. This page lists some seats that aren't identified by that metric (which, for the UK, would be arbitrary) with references (you can argue the quality or legitimacy of those), so the fact that there are seats not listed where smaller swings are required means those other listed seats can only be described as 'target' but not 'marginal'. YorkshireExpat (talk) 18:42, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

• Comment: "before the" could be substituted by "in the" like Marginal constituencies in the 2005 United Kingdom general election and Marginal constituencies in the 2010 United Kingdom general election in the "Category:Lists of marginal seats in the United Kingdom by election". Moondragon21 (talk) 21:19, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

  @Moondragon21 what is the definition of marginal here? YorkshireExpat (talk) 21:05, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

  @YorkshireExpat marginal in this case would mean the seats with the smallest majorities going into an election based on the results of the previous election. They were the seats most likely to change hands. Moondragon21 (talk) 22:10, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

  @Moondragon21 but seats are listed on the page that clearly don't meet this definition. YorkshireExpat (talk) 18:42, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

  @YorkshireExpat Pure semantics; target seats, marginal seats, election battleground etc. As long as people are able to understand what the list actually is, it shouldn't really matter what the name is. I agree with you there is a grey area and that 'marginal' is not well defined in this context. In previous elections the lists have included fewer "marginal seats". I believe the purpose of these lists is to show where the election was won and lost, and which constituencies were outliers in the election. Moondragon21 (talk) 13:53, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

  @Moondragon21 if move discussions aren't concerned with semantics then I'm not sure what they are concerned with. YorkshireExpat (talk) 17:48, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

  @YorkshireExpat Move discussions can be about other things like controversies, specificity or spellings. Back to the original debate, there are pros and cons to "target" and "marginal". I agree that they shouldn't be used as synonyms as they are different. Moondragon21 (talk) 18:55, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

  @Moondragon21 so on that, Wellingborough and Rushden is listed as a target for Labour with a required swing of over 17%. Could that reasonably be described as 'marginal'? YorkshireExpat (talk) 21:52, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

  @YorkshireExpat I would say perhaps as even safe seats are marginal to a certain extent. It depends on the results too. Also the byelection win means that it may be considered a labour hold or a tory (gain back). Moondragon21 (talk) 14:37, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

  @Moondragon21 If you're wanting the title to include 'before' I'm not sure it makes sense to say it depends on results. Also, you seem to be starting to argue that all seats are marginal. If they're all marginal why is it necessary to use that word at all? YorkshireExpat (talk) 19:48, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

  @YorkshireExpat I believe that is why the newer lists have used the word target instead. You are correct to point out the Australian articles, where the word pendulum is used eg Pre-election pendulum for the 2022 Australian federal election and Post-election pendulum for the 2022 Australian federal election. These seats are also listed by marginality. Moondragon21 (talk) 00:46, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

• Support per nom. Graham (talk) 05:23, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

• Support per nom

Kowal2701 (talk) 19:59, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose: a marginal seat is not necessary the same as a target seat. Look at some of the target seats in this list - there is no way they can be described as marginal. If the title is changed, so is the premise of the list and the contents need serious revision. 81.132.105.141 (talk) 12:23, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

  Comment how about battleground seats? Kowal2701 (talk) 12:30, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

  Most of this article is just a list of marginal seats (that is, seats defined in terms of what swing on the 2019 result is required), but a few actual target seats have been tacked on. It's a mess. If you want lists of lots of seats, call them "marginal" and stick with that. If you want actual target seats, you need citations for everything. Bondegezou (talk) 14:57, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

  Move to something as the current title is just incorrect (Finchley and Golders Green was not a Lib Dem target seats). Given the current scope of the article the best title would probably be List of second-place finishes in the 2019 United Kingdom general election by notional results under 2023 boundaries but the fact that topic is so niche hints that serious thought should be made to changing the scope of the article in general. Chessrat ^{(talk, contributions)} 08:34, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

• Comment (From proposer of move) I think our problem is the ambiguity of "target seat". My background is in the Lib Dems, who famously focus their limited resources on a small number of seats, described, and specified to the supporters, as "target seats". Other parties may or may not (though the snippet I can read (paywalled Times) of "Labour increases Scottish target seats to 36" suggests that Labour, at least, has its own list of target seats, and one which can change mid-campaign). The media produces lists of "target seats" as "the ones a party would need to win to get a majority". These Wikipedia lists seem to be based on an algorithmic version of "target seats". Their current titles are misleading, as pointed out by Chessrat above. PamD 10:01, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

  @PamD my issue is that we don't have a definition for 'marginal'. As pointed out somewhere above, using 'target' is doable, but means that every seat listed would need a reference, and those would probably be from some sort of third party publication assuming a given seat is somewhere a party would put its resources. I don't think parties list their target seats anywhere public!? YorkshireExpat (talk) 17:46, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

  "Marginal" could at least be defined and calculated in an algorithmic way: "target" is likely to be confidential within each party, with exceptions like the Times/Labour thing above. These lists don't seem particularly useful, really. Perhaps someone needs to take them to AfD. PamD 20:18, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

  @PamD yes, probably. To define it ourselves would violate WP:OR. YorkshireExpat (talk) 17:24, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

  It's an ambiguous term. We should not use it without stating exactly which definition of it we are using. That isn't OR, it's clarifying what we are saying. PamD 18:36, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

  Well if you want to propose one that has wide acceptance that's fine. The sources I've seen seem to talk about 'most marginal' or something like that, which I wouldn't deem acceptable. I'd support deletion I think. YorkshireExpat (talk) 18:22, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

  @YorkshireExpat An interesting quote here: "Labour’s target seat list is not public, but this seat ranks 14th on LabourList‘s unofficial list of targets –". So Wikipedia just cannot produce a list of target seats. At best we can offer a list of marginal seats, where"marginal" is clearly defined (e.g."for the purpose of this list a seat is considered marginal if it would change party on a swing of less than x% from the notional 2019 general election result " or whatever.) Or we just take it to AfD. PamD 11:36, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

  @PamD yeah, I wouldn't expect it to be. That would be giving away their tactics, but you've found that in black and white. So how to define it? Is it reasonable to use the Aussie definition for the purposes of argument? YorkshireExpat (talk) 19:06, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Relisting comment: While there is a consensus against "target seats", there also isn't a clear consensus for "marginal seats" based on weight of argument, with editors raising issues with those. Relisting for additional discussion of "marginal seats" or alternatives like "battleground seats" BilledMammal (talk) 09:28, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Update Labour targets

Can whoever created this list update it to extend to 200 or even 250 for Labour and maybe 75 for Lib Dems just to catch the outliers on election night? Labour could win 450 seats, so this page might not cover the seats with the most dramatic swings. 81.106.46.246 (talk) 18:48, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

• Hi. I did consider this but guessed that 150 for Labour and 50 for LDs were a safe end point as outliers will be highly difficult to predict. Adding more seats is a possibility either before or after the election though. Moondragon21 (talk) 21:22, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Not if the name gets changed (unless you define 'marginal' as requiring a 25% swing)! YorkshireExpat (talk) 22:29, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Copied from my talk

List of marginal seats before the 2024 United Kingdom general election;So, before I go to AfD, what to do about this? It's not a good article at the moment. YorkshireExpat (talk) 18:21, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

WP (especially lists) is chock-full of not good articles. It could do with a little post-election analysis, & removing the many hundreds of overlinks to parties would reduce the length a bit. Don't try Afd on notability - that won't fly. Johnbod (talk) 21:29, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

I'd far prefer something on the lines of 'Seats that changed hands in the 2024 UK GE'. That is factual and easy to reference. The words 'marginal' and 'target' both have problems. YorkshireExpat (talk) 16:05, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, but not all of them did. I'm copying this to the article talk. Please continue there. Johnbod (talk) 17:43, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

It's pretty straightforward. In its current state the article is unencyclopaedic, but not sure I have the energy to sort it out. YorkshireExpat (talk) 21:51, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

I've tried to revise the lead paragraph to match reality, as a first attempt. PamD 17:54, 24 July 2024 (UTC)