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A few weeks ago I wrote about the Smarkets market on whether the government would reimpose covid restrictions before the new year. The market, put up shortly prior to the end of restrictions in July, is called ‘Any Covid restrictions to be re-introduced in England during 2021‘. The ‘subheading’ then reads ‘Will the government re-introduce any legally enforceable restrictions on social contact in England before the end of 2021?‘ There have been three clarifications in the detailed rules provided by…

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Thanks to leading political academic, Paula Sturridge, for highlighting this – what those who told pollsters six months before an election actually did on the day. Based on the extensive British Electoral Study data she has produced the above chart which really is quite revealing. People might say they are going Green six months before polling day but a majority in the case of each of the three elections did not end up voting for the Green Party. The reason,…

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Since 1979, British governments have tended to hold elections in the Spring.  According to Nigel Lawson’s memoirs, this was because Mrs Thatcher, having won in the Spring of 1979, thought that May and June were her lucky months, but subsequent Prime Ministers continued the practice.  Of the last 11 elections, only one (the most recent) was not held in April, May or June.  Subject to the five-year limit, the Prime Minister controlled the timing of the elections until the passage…

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In one or two posts this week I have been critical of Tory MPs for, in the main, not wearing masks in the chamber. Well things seem to be moving but why has it taken so long? Let us hope that in the meantime none of the earlier maskless Tories has caught COVID. Mike Smithson

I was part of the YouGov sample for this polling question and when it was up on the screen I found myself taking several minutes rather than the usual few seconds to answer it. The first process in my thinking was who I should exclude and I concluded that all the men would have been too conscious of short-term political considerations to have acted in a proper and timely manner when in February and March last year COVID was upon…

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There will come a time, I am sure, when the fight against COVID doesn’t dominate the news but we are a long way off that. The sheer scale of the latest numbers is a sharp reminder that now is not the time to relax as appeared to be happening. Ministers seem to be trying to ensure that we continue to take a lot of precautions so that “normal”, whatever that means, life can continue. Maybe we’ll never fully get on…

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Ex-PBer and now Ipsos-MORI polling director, Keiran Pedley, made this comment: Looking at the trend, the net score of -25 is not as bad as the -35 this time last year. But the direction of travel is negative – question is what happens from here…things recovered slightly in Nov last year & then more as vaccine rollout landed in 2021. Last year this tracker predicated several LAB leads in VI polling. Could we be about to see the same happen…

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This is in spite of what ministers are saying