Antifrank on the GE2020 prospects for Tim Farron’s Lib Dems

Antifrank on the GE2020 prospects for Tim Farron’s Lib Dems

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The Lib Dems had a disastrous election in 2015, tallying just eight seats.  Where do they go from here?  Is the only way up? Well, actually, no.  There is a serious possibility that things could get worse for them in 2020.  Of their eight seats, only one of them looks truly safe on current boundaries: that of their leader, Tim Farron.  Three of their four most marginal seats look as though they may well lose their Lib Dem incumbents: Southport,…

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London might be a Labour city but it has only won the mayoralty once

London might be a Labour city but it has only won the mayoralty once

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Contenders need to be able to reach out beyond their party bases One of the biggest UK political battles and what will certainly be a big political betting event will be next year’s race for the London will between Zac Goldsmith for the Blues and Sadiq Khan for the Reds. This will be the fifth time there’s been such an elections and so far CON has won two, LAB one and independent one. The latter, of course, was Ken in…

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Rubio the big betting gainer and Bush the big loser after a week that saw the 3rd Republican nominee WH2016 debate

Rubio the big betting gainer and Bush the big loser after a week that saw the 3rd Republican nominee WH2016 debate

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Because there is a general clampdown down in the US on online betting many US observers are having to look at what is happening on the UK markets in order to get a sense of the betting sentiment on the White House Race. A new American site has just been established, which is monitoring this daily and producing regular reports on how things are being seen. It is covering three elements, the Democratic nomination, the Republican nomination and of course…

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John Bickley looks set to be UKIP’s choice in Oldham & Royton

John Bickley looks set to be UKIP’s choice in Oldham & Royton

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UKIP set to choose John Bickley for Oldham & R by election. He came within whisker in Oct 2014 Heywood by-election pic.twitter.com/h99YY4SzvR — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) November 3, 2015 Can he repeat his Heywood & Middleton magic? One of the huge shocks, and what in retrospect turned out to be a good pointer to GE2015, was the way that UKIP ran LAB so close in the October 2014 by-election Heywood & Middleton which is very close to Oldham. This, like…

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The referendum: The last two months’ polls provide two very different pictures of what voters think

The referendum: The last two months’ polls provide two very different pictures of what voters think

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2 months of EU referendum polling. Notice how YouGov – subject of complaint from LEAVE, has had best OUT figures pic.twitter.com/DqQsWw5Csy — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) November 2, 2015 The phone surveys are best for IN online ones for OUT Trying to come to any conclusions from the referendum polling is difficult because there’s such a different pattern with the phone surveys painting a totally different picture of the race than the online ones. So in the past two weeks we’ve…

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Boris the favourite as betting opens on who’ll lead the EU LEAVE campaign

Boris the favourite as betting opens on who’ll lead the EU LEAVE campaign

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Ladbrokes betting on who will lead the LEAVE campaign pic.twitter.com/3eTZQK2Yc8 — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) November 2, 2015 Boris trails Nigel and Theresa in the polling As the referendum gets closer a key decision which could have huge impact on British politics in all sorts of ways is is who will lead the OUT campaign. Survation carried out some polling for LEAVE.EU and found:- Theresa May 22% Nigel Farage 18% Boris Johnson 14% These findings are somewhat surprising. I’d have expected…

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The Tories would be in a stronger position over the Lords if at GE2015 they’d attracted more than 36.9% of the vote

The Tories would be in a stronger position over the Lords if at GE2015 they’d attracted more than 36.9% of the vote

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@LordAshcroft Given the 36.9% national CON vote share at GE2015 that seems quite reasonable. — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) November 1, 2015 National vote shares at GE2005 & GE2015 levels do matter Yesterday afternoon the Cameron biographer, pollster and former Tory treasurer, Lord Ashcroft, made the above perceptive Tweet about the limitations of the current government’s power. While in the 2010-2015 parliament this had been because of the Lib Dem coalition the reality now is that the Cameron government’s main limitation…

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