As has been noted before on this site, the Tories are “uncoalitionable”. [uncoalitionable] A swing against the party at the next election and loss of seats could leave the Conservative Party still with most seats in a Hung Parliament and yet unable to form a government due to a lack of potential allies. Chesham & Amersham shows the Tories could be vulnerable to the Lib Dems in some seats in the South and a swing towards Labour could see the…
This is the second part of a thread on estimating Conservative seat numbers at the next election. It contains statistical analysis: those not interested can skip to the Conclusion. Model The data in the previous part of this thread does seem to support our hypothesis that extreme results for the Conservatives are unlikely: in all bar one of the twenty-two elections, they have won between 25% and 75% of the seats, and in fourteen of them, their share has been…
One of the interesting bets currently available is on the likelihood of a Conservative overall majority at the next election. The markets were pricing this at 36% on 19 November, down from evens in July. The general consensus is that an election is highly unlikely for eighteen months at least. Long-term readers of this site may recall me arguing that you can’t predict the result of an election from mid-term opinion polls or leader ratings. Nevertheless, the decline in the…
The Biblical parable of the mustard seed teaches us that even the tiniest beginnings can grow into something very large. An example from history of this is a man who didn’t want to buy new footwear. It led to his downfall and death, an inter-empire war, and played a significant role in the rapid early rise of Islam. Emperor Maurice of the Eastern Roman Empire had a surprisingly good relationship with his Sassanid counterpart Chosroes, having sheltered the young man…
The new premier cast her eye across the Cabinet table and took in the empty room. Soon her newly assembled cabinet would gather for the first meeting since the General Election of December 2024. Rachel Reeves allowed herself a few moments to take it all in and just briefly marvel at how she had somehow ended up as Prime Minister. The terrible winters of 2021/2 and 2022/23 were of course responsible for the Labour landslide that had followed the collapse…
Since 1979, British governments have tended to hold elections in the Spring. According to Nigel Lawson’s memoirs, this was because Mrs Thatcher, having won in the Spring of 1979, thought that May and June were her lucky months, but subsequent Prime Ministers continued the practice. Of the last 11 elections, only one (the most recent) was not held in April, May or June. Subject to the five-year limit, the Prime Minister controlled the timing of the elections until the passage…
He won’t be allowed back into the PLP Getting Jeremy Corbyn back into the Parliamentary Labour Party is the top aim for his supporters but, I believe the way they have conducted their campaign in Brighton last week, has made it impossible for Keir Starmer to restore the Labour Whip. Back in August, according to the Observer, the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (CLPD) was circulating a conference resolution which would have stripped the leader of his disciplinary powers and…
A quick guide to the parties may be helpful. As the system is modified PR, you get a greater choice of substantial parties than in Britain. The Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavarian (CSU) allies maintained a solid lead until quite recently, but their Chancellor candidate is seen as far less solid than Mrs Merkel, and in troubled times German voters really like serious gravitas. They’ve found it in the Social Democrat (SPD) Chancellor candidate, Scholz, who is agreeablymoderate and…