"We've searched dozens of these floor tiles for several common types of pheromone trails. If there were intelligent life up there, we would have seen its messages by now." The world's first ant colony to achieve sentience calls off its search for us.

After a month or more of campaigning, the Fishwick by-election concluded yesterday in a rather substantial victory for Labour county councillor Jennifer Mein.

It would be dishonest of me not to own up to feeling rather deflated but I’ve learnt a lot, received a tremendous reception from others on the ward and feel I can deservedly view the whole experience as a fine springboard for May, when the seat once again comes up for election.

To be beaten by Labour’s leader on Lancashire County Council and by the woman who, up until last year, represented the ward for the Liberal Democrats is no disgrace.

But next time I shall have to remind my agent to wear his lucky yellow socks.

Like I said, vote Lib Dem, get the Tories.

As I mentioned in a post over at the General Election blog, the BBC’s new election site includes Peter Snow’s Swingometer, which allows you to map swings between any two of the three main parties. Sadly, it doesn’t let you work out the cumulative effects of swing between all three, but for the purposes of this post, we don’t need to. After all, Tom says vote Lib Dem, get Tory not Vote Lib Dem, and if there’s also a corresponding rise in the Conservative vote, you may get a Conservative Government.

Now, you can see where Tom and all the others get their idea that a Lib Dem vote is a wasted one from looking at the swingometer. After all, there are only a few Labour-Lib Dem marginals, but let’s see what Mr Snow, using real facts and figures says is the effect of different swings to the Liberal Democrats from Labour (assuming the Conservative vote remains the same)

On a 5% swing, Labour have 375 seats, the Conservatives have 176, and the Lib Dems have 65. On this swing, Labour would still have a majority of 104, and would actually have the largest share of the vote, though below 40% of the total.

Now, let’s increase it to a 10% swing. Here, Labour and the Tories would be about level-pegging in terms of votes, the Lib Dems would be polling higher than the Alliance ever did (almost as high as the party has achieved in local elections) and about 1 in 4 Labour voters would have defected to the Lib Dems. But they’d still have a majority of 28 in Parliament, holding 337 seats to the Conservatives’ 199 and the Liberal Democrats’ 79.

Surely a 15% swing will deliver the Tory government Tom promises? Um, no. Despite a swing of this size meaning that the Liberal Democrats would receive the most votes, while Labour drop to third place, the position in terms of seats is reversed. Labour lose their majority but still have a plurality of 280 seats, the Tories are up to 230 and the Lib Dems are up to a massive 107.