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Category: General Election

Liverpool, Wavertree : A Historical Tale of Caution

Liverpool, Wavertree : A Historical Tale of Caution

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Constituency splits like this could make a LAB majority that bit more challenging http://t.co/ZnJKohMyZh pic.twitter.com/jzEreXoGgU — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) June 30, 2013 Harry Hayfield looks back at “breakaway” candidates Independents have had a remarkably successful run in the last few general elections. Despite the fact that both Dai Davies (Ind, Blaenau Gwent) and Dr. Richard Taylor (Health Concern, Wyre Forest) lost their seats at the last election, they have been the latest in a long line of Independents who have managed…

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Declining UKIP support in June sees the CON position improve In the Electoral Calculus monthly GE2015 prediction

Declining UKIP support in June sees the CON position improve In the Electoral Calculus monthly GE2015 prediction

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LAB majority prediction from Electoral Calculus down from 92 to 74 following 4% average decline in UKIP poll share pic.twitter.com/3UwLUREYmb — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) July 1, 2013 Martin Baxter’s “poll of polls” has UKIP down 4 Each month the Cambridge turned city mathematician who has been running Electoral Calculus since the mid 1990s, Martin Baxter, publishes his latest general election projection based on his polling average applied to his Commons seat prediction model. The latest is in the table above. He…

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Lord Ashcroft is on the look out for interesting ideas for polls

Lord Ashcroft is on the look out for interesting ideas for polls

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This is one I suggested this morning @LordAshcroft Polling suggestion CON-LAB marginals where the LDs had 15%+ share at GE2010 Seats like this pic.twitter.com/p8iotttWAg — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) June 30, 2013 In a Tweet before the weekend the biggest commissioner of private polling in the UK, Lord Ashcroft, suggested that he was looking out for interesting ideas for political polls. One I put forward is in the Tweet reproduced above – CON-LAB battlegrounds where the LDs performed well in 2010. Given that…

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Kellner says an overall LAB majority looks less likely after YouGov reports its lowest lead of the year

Kellner says an overall LAB majority looks less likely after YouGov reports its lowest lead of the year

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Why a 5% LAB lead might not be enough Today’s YouGov poll for the Sunday Times has the LAB lead down to just 5% it’s lowest point since November 2012. This has set off the talk once again that an overall majority for Ed Miliband in 2015 might be not as much in the bag as it appeared. For all though the shares in the poll should, according to the seat calculators, produce a comfortable majority there are reasons which…

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Leadership ratings: a good guide but not a magic measure

Leadership ratings: a good guide but not a magic measure

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And in any case, it’s too close to call right now It’s sometimes said that oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them but that’s only true to a degree.  A popular and effective government will always win re-election because in such circumstances, the swing voters in the electorate will have little reason to listen to the opposition, little to gain and potentially much to lose by voting the government out no matter how good the opposition, and in all probability…

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Lord Ashcroft’s mega poll suggests that Boris NOT the magic bullet that would win GE2015 for the Tories

Lord Ashcroft’s mega poll suggests that Boris NOT the magic bullet that would win GE2015 for the Tories

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“In his London campaigns Boris undeniably attracted voters who usually support other parties. As our research shows, this would be less likely to work in a general election. Otherwise Labour and Lib Dem supporting voters backed Boris as Mayor on a personal mandate and a personal manifesto; for many, the fact that he was a Tory was incidental. Asking them to vote for a Conservative government, inhabited by the Conservative Party and implementing Conservative policies but with Boris at the…

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Revised seat projection approach from Martin Baxter points to UKIP starting to win Commons seats on a 16% share not 23%

Revised seat projection approach from Martin Baxter points to UKIP starting to win Commons seats on a 16% share not 23%

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Electoral Calculus's Martin Baxter now projecting that UKIP could start winning seats on 16% http://t.co/Bpu0246QfP pic.twitter.com/svyj94JJOA — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) June 26, 2013 Time to look at UKIP seat betting? As has been highlighted a fair bit recently UKIP have a real challenge converting the substantial poll shares now being reported into seats because of the way the first past the post system operates with the smaller parties. Now Martin Baxter of Electoral Calculus has published a revised approach to…

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New ComRes phone poll sees UKIP dropping 3 and LAB extending lead to 6

New ComRes phone poll sees UKIP dropping 3 and LAB extending lead to 6

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The changes in the chart are with the ComRes phone poll last month. I treat ComRes phone polls as a separate series from ComRes online. A majority of people aged 65 and over believe that pensioners should not be immune from public spending cuts, according to the poll. They are more likely than any other age group to think that pensioners should not enjoy special protection from the cuts. Amid an intense political debate over whether pensioners’ benefits such as…

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