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Harry Hayfield’s historical prespective The main news narrative over in recent days has been “Britain is a four party system country” following the success of UKIP in the county council elections, I, however would counter that by saying “Britain is in fact a thirteen party system” and hasn’t been a four party system for well over twenty years Parties that have scored more than 1% of the national vote at a UK general election since 1950 Great Britain only 1950:…

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Farage’s party hits record high with any pollster This evening ICM phone poll for the Guardian is the first survey we’ve had from any firm other than YouGov since Ukip performance in the May 2 local election. The figures above are sensational. ICM the firm that had Ukip with the lowest shares now has them with the highest. Each of the three main parties drops 4% compared with a month ago. The firm has confirmed to me that there has…

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Nadine says Dave should dump LDs &get into bed with Ukip.Only problem: LDs57 MPs, UKIP 0. goo.gl/IwfWg. twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/st… — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 12, 2013 If Dave followed Nadine & dumped LDs for Ukip then Nick could do reverse. CON MPs+Ukip MPs=305. LAB MPs+LD MPs=313. — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 12, 2013

After all the excitement of last Thursday, which saw the worst Conservative performance in a set of local elections since 1995 (25% national projected vote share), Labour make no change on their 2010 local election performance (29% national projected vote share), the Liberal Democrats see thirty three years of local election advances wiped out (14% national projected vote share, only 1% higher than their tally in 1980) and with the help of UKIP, the Others “win” the local elections with…

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Ukip now odds-on favourite to win most votes at Euro2014.Best price Ladbrokes 4/5. bit.ly/c5gpH6 twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/st… — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 7, 2013 My money would be on the 6/4 LAB bet The multi-member party list electoral system used in the European elections is ideally suited to Ukip where it’s party brands that matter over the individuals who get elected. It is no surprise that in the elections that have been held under these rules that the purples have done well….

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We were so swamped with reaction to the locals on Saturday that I missed what appears to be a new polling series from YouGov for the Times. Rather than the weekly YouGov “like/dislike” “doing well/badly” ratings the Times questions askes whether people have a positive or negative view if the named leaders. I think this format is a much better guide and it an approach is used quite widely in the US. Let’s hope that the Time/YouGov continues with it….

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Can Blue Labour beat Back the purple onslaught? Two and a half of years ago when the ‘Blue Labour’ group of thinkers in the party first made their mark there was quite a bit of a stir. The ‘blue’ in Blue Labour was ‘small c’ conservativism among working class voters – it was blue collar. But in a party that wraps itself in all things red, even the name raised eyebrows. At its heart, leading proponents Jon Cruddas took to…

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Dramatic story breaking on Sky about the deputy Speaker, Nigel Evans. goo.gl/gxmBS twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/st… — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 4, 2013