What happens in the absence of political news It is always interesting to see the first polling of a New Year because it generally follows a period when there have been very few political developments over the preceding two weeks. Undoubtedly the period leading up to Christmas was dreadful for the Tories including losing a by-election to a party that had been more than 50% behind at GE2019. The question now is will it last. I’ve just had a small…
The preferred PM/Chancellor team question is not one that gets included much in political polling but it was part of the latest MoS/Deltapoll at the weekend. To put the latest findings in context, I thought it useful to look back at previous Deltapolls where this has been included. As can be seen there has been a huge switch from plus 15% for Johnson/Sunak in September to a deficit of 5% in the latest polling. It should be said that there…
After a period last month when the betting was that Johnson will be out in 2022 the money has now moved back to him surviving till 2024 or later. This was a very active market in the run-up to the holidays when there was one development after another, including a massive by-election defeat, that looked bad for Johnson’s survival chances. Over the holiday this has moved back and as can be seen a 2022 exit is now rated as a…
Previously, I examined how conception and maternity rates had changed in England and Wales during the 2010s. Now for the tricky part – should the government seek to alter demographic trends, and if so, why, and how? In September 2021, the Social Market Foundation (SMF) published a briefing paper titled Baby bust and baby boom: Examining the liberal case for pronatalism. I’d recommend reading it in full as it provides a very good assessment of this subject. The paper assesses…
The ONS reported in October 2021 that “the total fertility rate for England and Wales in 2020 fell to 1.58 children per woman, the lowest since records began in 1938.” Contrary to predictions of a baby boom, conceptions during the first COVID lockdown fell and didn’t begin to pick up until after restrictions were eased. What happens to fertility rates post-COVID remains to be seen. As a student of politics, it’s a subject that I’ve always been curious about. To…
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2021 was a great year for Westminster by-elections with five contests taking place in England and three of them resulting in the incumbent party being defeated. In overall terms the Tories and LAB have come out with one fewer seat each while the LDs have gained two. Arguably the most significant result was not one of the seats to have changed hands but Labour’s successful defence, by a small margin, of Batley and Spen. Given that they’d lost Hartlepool to…
As regular readers will know, I’m very much a disciple of Philip Tetlock and his Superforecasting approach. Forecasting is hard, and human beings are bad at it. But we can get better and more clear-eyed about the future by following a proper approach. If you read Superforecasting, Tetlock’s book, news articles he’s contributed to, or listen to the numerous podcast appearances he has made, you cannot fail to note his #1 rule of becoming a better forecaster: Keep score. By…