LShift swing visualizer

Welcome to the Swing Visualiser. This is an animated representation of the swing between the three major UK political parties between consecutive General elections.

If you like it, if you think it's pretty or even useful, do tell friends and colleagues!

Change between 2001 and 2005 (updated live)
Change between 1997 and 2001
Change between 1992 and 1997

Instructions

You need Java applets enabled for this to run
Internet Explorer users, and some Firefox users, will need a newer version of the Java plugin than the one that ships with the browser

What you see

You may find it easiest to understand what this illustrates by starting it and playing with it.

Each dot in the triangle represents a single constituency.
Put your mouse over a dot to see the details for that constituency.
Click to fix that selection; click away in the window to release it.
Each constituency travels along a track from the old results to the new, illustrating how they have changed. If you highlight a constituency, you can see the track.
The starting point of the track represents the balance between the three parties at the earlier election, and similarly the end point is the balance at the end. The more Labour votes received, for example, the closer to the "Labour corner" of the triangle.
The colour of the dot reflects the control of the constituency at the earlier election.
The colour of the track, when shown, reflects the control of the constituency at the later election. So a red dot on a blue track represents a Conservative win of a Labour seat.
The triangle is divided into three areas. If, for example, a constituency is shown in the Labour zone, then Labour has more votes than either of the other two parties shown.
In a constituency which is a three-way battle between the three parties shown, a constituency starting and finishing in the Labour zone is one held by Labour.
Similarly, a constituency which crosses the central boundaries is one that changes hands between parties.
This illustration may be misleading if a fourth party has a significant effect; for example, in a constituency where the SNP or Plaid Cymru have a strong showing. You can change which three parties are used to illustrate the change using the selectors below the triangle.
Above and to the right of the main triangle, a smaller diagram show hows swings are distributed. You can move the mouse over the constituencies in this diagram and see where the biggest swings in a particular direction can be found.
The slider below controls how fast the constituencies move along their tracks.
You can choose whether to show
- All constituencies
- Constituencies for which both the old and new results are Known
- Gains: constituencies which changed hands
- Holds: constituencies which did not changed hands
You can select a particular constituency in the selector below to see how it changed.
No account is taken of by-elections.

If you have any comments or questions, please mail election@lshift.net.

This tool was built by Paul Crowley and Matthew Sackman at LShift. Historical data provided by Electoral Calculus. Source code is available under the MIT license.