It isn’t true that elections are always won from the centre

Last week, the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt argued that the Tories shouldn’t pitch to the right in response to Nigel Farage and Reform, because ‘elections are always won from the centre ground.’

It is one of the most widely-repeated ideas in political analysis that elections are won from the centre. It isn’t really true, but it isn’t a silly idea and it’s interesting to understand why so many people believe it and the reasons it’s wrong.

Its origins lie in economics, and in particular a model produced by an American economist called Harold Hotelling. That model is usually illustrated using the thought experiment of two ice cream sellers on a beach. The people on the beach are either distributed fairly evenly or tend to crowd towards the middle. To attract the most customers, the two ice cream sellers will set up almost next to each other in the middle of the beach, with one attracting all the customers from one side and the other the customers from the other half.