Talk:List of target seats in the 2024 United Kingdom general election

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UK Parliament constituencies

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Problems[edit]

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)[reply]

Requested move 23 June 2024[edit]

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– 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)[reply]

Support move. Bondegezou (talk) 12:45, 24 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support per WP:PRECISION. -- DeFacto (talk). 12:49, 24 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: 'marginal' is not well defined in this context so reduces WP:PRECISION.YorkshireExpat (talk) 14:34, 25 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How is "target" any better defined? Graham (talk) 05:22, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@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)[reply]
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)[reply]
@Moondragon21 what is the definition of marginal here? YorkshireExpat (talk) 21:05, 26 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@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)[reply]
@Moondragon21 but seats are listed on the page that clearly don't meet this definition. YorkshireExpat (talk) 18:42, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support per nom. Graham (talk) 05:23, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Update Labour targets[edit]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]