A forecast from Robert Let me start by saying this is not an election I have much confidence in predicting. But because that makes for an uninteresting article, I will make some forecasts. Currently the LDs are polling about 16-17%, which is about five points down on the peak they achieved after the European elections earlier this year. I think there’s around a 40% chance that they end up in the 14-19% range at the coming elections. I reckon there’s…
Today’s big election is the voting by MPs on which of them should be the next Speaker to succeed John Bercow. The strong odds-on betting favourite is the current deputy, Lindsay Hoyle MP for the Lancashire seat of Chorley. One factor that might work against Hoyle is that his seat could be regarded as a target for the Tories. Back in 2010 LAB held it with a margin of just 5.2% which means it would have gone on a 2.6%…
So the argument would be between two leavers I alway felt a bit sorry for ITV at GE2017 when the leaders’ debate it got was the one without TMay or Corbyn. Maybe because of that it has sought to push forward with its Johnson-Corbyn clash without anybody else. This means excluding Jo Swinson and Nigel Farage of the two most electorally successful parties currently in the UK. In the May 23rd elections the Brexit Party and the LDs came away…
Let’s take a step back from the day-to-day swings and look at the overall picture, focused on the likelihood of a Conservative overall majority (I’m not going to look here at changes between the opposition parties). The result at the last election was Con 42 Lab 40 LD 7 UKIP 2 Green 2 others 7 The current polling average is Con 37 (-5) Lab 25 (-15) LD 17 (+10) BXP 11 (+9 over UKIP) Green 4 (+2) I’m taking here…
A recovery for Corbyn is no foregone conclusion; it may get worse for Labour This is not a prediction as such. There are plenty of counter-arguments to the points I’m about to make, some of which will almost certainly turn out to be true. It would be equally possible to write an article with 10 reasons why the Tory lead may well slide again. All the same, to keep things simple, let’s keep the focus on this side of the…
A much better way of looking at each constituency The chart above is based on projections from Prof Chris Hanretty of Royal Holloway on how each Westminster constituency in the Euro elections on May23rd – the most recent election when the whole nation voted. I like to take the aggregate of LD/GRN/CHUK/PC to get a sense of the remain vote in a seat. Likewise taking CON+BREX gives you a sense of the leave side of the equation. The LAB vote…
So here we are and a third Brexit deadline is about to be missed in spite of Johnson firm assertions that we would be leaving tonight when he first became PM. This has been a very active betting market with on Betfair alone £7.2m of bets being matched. The Betdata.io chart of Betfair prices really follows what has been happening. My own view is that Johnson won’t suffer any real political damage from failing to get the UK out by…
New YouGov Times pollCON 36% =LAB 21% -2LD 18% =BRX 13% +1GRN 6% = — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) October 31, 2019 Survation Mail poll "favoured stance on Brexit"Johnson 41%Swinnson 23%Corbyn 15% — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) October 31, 2019 From Survation/Mail poll42% of LAB supporters say they would be more likely to vote for the party if Corbyn stepped down; 18% say they would be less likely to vote LAB. — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) October 31, 2019 LAB's equivocation stance on…