Where the General Election is Won and Lost | British news

As voters cast their ballots on July 4, Tories and Labor will go head-to-head in key battlegrounds.

The main objectives for the general election are based on how easy or difficult it would be for a seat to change hands.

This is done by calculating the change in vote share in each seat, or swing, that would be required for a party to make a profit: the smaller the swing, the higher the seat is on the list.

Labor only needs a swing of 0.13 percentage points, or 0.2 if written to one decimal place (as 0.1 would not be enough), to win Burnley from the Conservatives.

The Tories would take Warrington South – which will be treated as a Labor defense at the next election due to boundary changes – to an even narrower swing of 0.06 (or 0.1) points.

Five other seats in Labour's top 10 would go to the party with a swing of 1.0 points or less, all of which are defended by the Conservatives: Leigh & Atherton in Greater Manchester, High Peak in Derbyshire, Bangor Aberconwy in Wales, Wolverhampton West in the West Midlands and Bury South in Greater Manchester.

Bury North and Bolton North East in Greater Manchester, Watford in Hertfordshire and Chingford & Woodford Green in North London complete Labour's top 10 – all Tory defences.

Key battlegrounds for Labor and Conservatives

The data shows that of Labour's top 50 targets, ten are in North West England, seven in Wales, six in the East Midlands and five each in the West Midlands and Yorkshire/Humber, with the rest spread across the rest of Britain. .

These will all be treated as Conservative defense mechanisms at the election – and all would fall prey to local swings from Tory to Labor at a rate of up to 5.4 percentage points.

However, Labor would have to perform much better to have any chance of forming the next government.

The party needs a uniform national swing from Conservative to Labor of 8.3 points to become the largest party in a hung parliament, and an even bigger swing of 12.7 points to win an overall majority – more than the change from 10.2 points achieved by Tony Blair in 2011. 1997.

Two key constituencies that Labor should pay attention to are Chelsea & Fulham in London and Buckingham & Bletchley in Buckinghamshire.

Of the Conservatives' 50 main targets, eleven are in Yorkshire/Humber, seven in North West England and five in the West Midlands and Wales – all areas high on Labour's list.

In North East England there are only two of the Labor top 50, but nine of the Tories top 50 – all of which are championed by Labour.

Along with Warrington South, the Conservatives' top 10 are all Labor and include two other seats in the North West: Wirral West in Merseyside and Heywood & Middleton North in Greater Manchester.

In the West Midlands, Coventry North West, Coventry South and Warwick & Leamington are Labour's strongholds.

Others include Alyn & Deeside in Wales; Kensington & Bayswater, Beckenham & Penge and Dagenham & Rainham.

Boundary changes – what do they mean?

Leigh & Atherton, Bangor Aberconwy and Wolverhampton West are all examples of new seats at the general election, part of an effort to redraw constituency boundaries, carried out to reflect changes in the size of the local population.

This is also why Bury South will be treated as a Conservative defense at the next election, even though the current MP, Christian Wakeford, defected from the Tories to Labor midway through the current parliament.