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Author: David Herdson

Labour’s melting firewall: almost a third of LD switchers have since left since 2012

Labour’s melting firewall: almost a third of LD switchers have since left since 2012

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Introducing the new swing voters: Purple Labourites and Rainbow Liberals For a long time it looked as if two factors were going to deliver the keys to Downing Street to Ed Miliband. The first was that in the first six months of the parliament, around two-fifths of the Lib Dems’ 2010 vote switched to Labour and appeared firmly embedded there. The second was that a little later, starting in 2012, an increasing share of the Conservatives’ 2010 vote was peeling…

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The Westminster Big Three: zen-like serenity or zombies in action?

The Westminster Big Three: zen-like serenity or zombies in action?

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pic.twitter.com/jIwcoQCiPR — PolPics (@PolPics) October 25, 2014 How come poor CON/LAB/LD polls are being accepted so readily? Time was when you could be reasonably sure that a party struggling in the polls would lead inevitably to speculation about its leader’s position.  The media would talk about it, backbench MPs would talk about it and cabinet or shadow cabinet members would let their friends talk about it.  What is remarkable about the last few years is that despite unprecedented combined unpopularity…

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A Con-UKIP electoral pact? Forget it. It isn’t going to happen

A Con-UKIP electoral pact? Forget it. It isn’t going to happen

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Too much pushes the blues and purples apart Split parties do not win elections, so the saying goes.  Nor, by extension, do parties whose natural support base is divided between parties, particularly under FPTP – which is why from time to time we hear calls from some on the right-of-centre for an electoral pact between the Conservatives and UKIP, who look at the 45-50% that the two parties poll between them and dream of landslide governments rather than impotent oppositions. …

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To Clacton and beyond, but just how far is that?

To Clacton and beyond, but just how far is that?

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David Herdson on Thursday’s dramatic elections Revolutions are best viewed through the wide-angled lens of history, not the microscope of journalism.  Even in the most turbulent times, occurrences that would have seemed literally incredible just a few years earlier are taken almost for granted after the conditioning of intervening incremental events. So it is with UKIP’s successes at this week’s by-elections.  Douglas Carswell’s victory was expected by all sides and duly delivered.  His colleague in Heywood and Middleton came very…

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Don’t write off an Autumn Election

Don’t write off an Autumn Election

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It’s still a possibility – by accident or design Lame ducks.  Britain’s not supposed to have them given that there are no term limits for ministers and for that matter, no formal terms at all as far as governments are concerned: they just carry on until they resign or are ousted.  Even so, final sessions of a parliament has rarely been particularly fruitful times, partly because the government’s main priorities will have already been dealt with but mainly because the…

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September’s pbc poll average: UKIP recovers ground, Lab and LD down, Cons steady

September’s pbc poll average: UKIP recovers ground, Lab and LD down, Cons steady

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For the yellows a record low – but no panic September might have been one of the most dramatic months in British politics since the last general election, with the near-dissolution of the three-centuries old Anglo-Scottish Union but you wouldn’t know it from the polls.  That the Yes and No camps crossed party lines and brought opponents together might have had something to do with it; more likely, it’s that the majority of the UK electorate, in England, have moved…

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David Herdson on whether Miliband can breeze to victory on the strength of not being Tory

David Herdson on whether Miliband can breeze to victory on the strength of not being Tory

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Is Labour keeping its powder dry or was that all there is? Like many a football team 2-1 up in a cup tie with ten minutes to go, a cautious defensiveness seems to have settled over the Labour Party, judging by their conference just gone.  The contrast with last year’s headline-grabbing energy price freeze policy was stark.  The big announcements were to increase the minimum wage by about 4p a year more than the average RPI rate for the current…

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English votes for English laws (EV4EL) – the question is whether Cameron is able to deliver

English votes for English laws (EV4EL) – the question is whether Cameron is able to deliver

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Election pledges won’t count after the Lisbon Treaty experience In 1787, a group of Americans came together and wrote a whole new constitution for their country from scratch in the space of four hot and humid months.  Two and a quarter centuries later, it’s still going strong.  True, they didn’t have the complicating factors of histories and traditions or established institutions that the UK has now but they did have to contend with other barriers to success, perhaps at least…

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