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Category: General Election

The failure of the Tories to do a deal on MP pairing will make life miserable for ministers and CON MPs alike

The failure of the Tories to do a deal on MP pairing will make life miserable for ministers and CON MPs alike

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Get ready for ambushes and unexpected Commons defeats For me the biggest UK political news this week has been the FT’s report that the Tories have failed to reach agreement with Labour at Westminster on MP pairing. This is the long standing practice that allows government MPs to miss a Parliamentary votes because an opposition one agrees not to take part as well. For ministers the ability not to have to be in the Palace of Westminster during a specific…

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The next election will be decided in Britain, not Venezuela

The next election will be decided in Britain, not Venezuela

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The public is not bothered about Corbyn’s past endorsements (even if it should be) Unless Theresa May or her successor can overturn over a trend well over a century old, Labour will form the next government. Quite simply, once governments start losing seats from one election to the next, they continue losing seats until they’re in opposition. And not only did the Conservatives lost seats at the last election but the result was so tight that any further loss would…

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The BES data that appears to show the impact of the CON manifesto/dementia tax and TMay skipping the debate

The BES data that appears to show the impact of the CON manifesto/dementia tax and TMay skipping the debate

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Day by day percentage age saying something happened that changed their view (BES) From the Manchester University write-up of their latest findings “Towards the end of the questionnaire, we asked our respondents a new question that we asked for the first time in wave 12: ‘has anything happened in the last few days that has changed your view of any of the main political parties?’ Most respondents had clearly made up their minds about the parties well in advance of…

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The BES polling chart that surely means that GE2017 was TMay’s first and last election as leader

The BES polling chart that surely means that GE2017 was TMay’s first and last election as leader

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How voters learned to like JC and dislike TMay. From BBC commissioned academic study of what happened at GE2017. https://t.co/CdPw6Vn8tz pic.twitter.com/MWwDSSXR34 — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) August 1, 2017 The blues can’t be lumbered by such an electoral liability again There’s a new academic study, commissioned by the BBC, that uses the latest BES data to try to track what actuully happened. Given the presidential nature of UK general elections the above chart appears highly significant. The more people saw of…

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How general election turnout has changed by age group – 1964-2017

How general election turnout has changed by age group – 1964-2017

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Commons Library Research briefing The chart above is from another excellent new research paper that’s just been published by the Commons library. It looks at election turnout which, of course, was one of the big drivers behind the GE17 outcome. While the big story from June 8th was the increase in the youth vote the 25-34 years olds also saw a significant increase Fewer oldies bothered to vote and we had the first downward movement with this segment since GE2001….

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A week goes by and the main polling news is that Remain voters are much more relaxed about gay sex than Brexiters

A week goes by and the main polling news is that Remain voters are much more relaxed about gay sex than Brexiters

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Wikipedia Am I the only person who yearns for the YouGov daily poll? Given the precariousness of the government’s parliamentary situation and the massive challenge of Brexit we’ve just gone through a whole week without a single published voting poll. Just about the only survey that’s been published was the YouGov poll for Pink News on attitudes to gay sex with the cross tabs broken down by voting intention. Not surprisingly Remain voters (64%) were much more likely to agree…

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Thirteen Saturdays ago the money was going on TMay’s Tories getting 400+ seats

Thirteen Saturdays ago the money was going on TMay’s Tories getting 400+ seats

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Commons spreads from Spreadex sees CON at 400+CON 402-408LAB 145-151LD 21.5-24.5UKIP 0.25-1.25SNP 43-46https://t.co/m9B2DFvQv3 … — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 5, 2017 A journalist called me to ask what was the peak position that the Tories reached in the GE2017 campaign. I dug bag into my historical Tweets and referred him to the one above when Tories were clearing the 400 mark on the spread markets and LAB was struggling to hold onto 150. That was, of course, after the local…

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If CON, LAB, and the SNP each got 30% of the Scottish vote Sturgeon’s party would be down to just 6 MPs

If CON, LAB, and the SNP each got 30% of the Scottish vote Sturgeon’s party would be down to just 6 MPs

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The Times Why the SNP could be in trouble There’s a fascinating analysis in the Times by James Kanagasooriam of Populus of what would happen in Scotland’s 59 seats if the hree main parties there CON, LAB and the SNP each secured 30% of the vote. The projected seat totals are in the chart. The balance of the 59 Scottish seats would go to the LDs which would once again return to its historical position as the third party st…

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