We are now just over 3.5 weeks away from the first round of the French presidential election and already the pollsters are testing the water with the possible two contenders who will make it through to the final round. On April 10th a total of 12 different candidates will be on the ballot which decides which two will go forward to the second round of voting two weeks later. All the polling suggests that the incumbent French President, Macron, will…
If Johnson does not go to the country early then in two years’ time we would be just about to start the general election campaign. One thing that is hard to see happening is the Tories being as dominant in the polls next time as they were at GE2019. Then Johnson got what was a near landslide with his party securing a lead just under 12% of the GB vote. The latest polls have LAB 2%+ ahead so there has…
One of the more interesting bets that will see an outcome this month is the above from Smarkets on whether the Tories are are going to get a poll lead in March. I know a couple of PB Punters who have bet on the Tores doing and it has been fun to watch them as they see the possibility of another poll coming out and they can speculate whether this one will be the one. At the weekend their hopes…
This should be worrying for LAB At the weekend Opinium became the second pollster to report that Johnson had retaken the lead over Starmer on the best PM question. This was the first time this had happened since last November. What I would find troubling if I was a Labour strategist is in the chart above showing the regional splits. In Scotland and Wales Starmer just about always has the edge but it is what is happening in England where…
But could there be an earlier general election? My only worry about betting on a Johnson exit in 2024 or later is that he might just call a general election next year. This would make sense and fits with the pattern of previous PMs who did not have to operate within the confines of the Fixed Term Parliament Act. Getting rid of that legacy from the coalition is not far off and choosing the date would be entirely in Johnson’s…
TSE
This finding by YouGov about consumer confidence falling to an all time low in this near decade long series is quite illuminating. Consumer confidence is much lower now that any time since the start of the pandemic. Many of us have been saying for a while that the cost of living crisis, something that is going to get much worse, will be very damaging to Tories, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak in particular. YouGov note The cost of living crisis…
I recently looked at Labour/Lib Dem tactical voting since 1983 and noted that the analysis didn’t work quite so well for 1997. In 1997, the Lib Dems won 46 seats. This was up 26 on their total of 20 in 1992 and was achieved despite their share of the GB vote falling by 1.2 percentage points (pp). To what extent was this made possible by tactical voting? Boundary changes for the 1997 general election make this a little tricky to…