Compulsory voter ID is a solution looking for a problem The Government’s plan to make it compulsory to provide photo ID before you can cast your vote would be a good idea if voter fraud was a problem and there is simply no evidence that it is. This would be flagged if people turned up at polling stations and found that someone had voted already using their name and address. In these cases this is all recorded and over the…
The Batley and Spen parliamentary constituency is the former seat of the Labour MP Jo Cox – who on 16 June 2016, died after being shot and stabbed multiple times in the street where she had been due to hold a surgery. In the ensuing by-election the main parties stood aside and Tracy Brabin retained the seat for LAB with an 86% vote share. Brabin is now stepping down after her election last Thursday as the Mayor of West Yorkshire…
One of the great things about completing elections is that we can examine the final result against what the pollsters were recording. Above is the Wikipedia table of the final polls for the constituency section. My reading is that the S Times Panelbase poll just about got it with Survation almost as good. YouGov and Opinium both had the SNP in the 50s with the latter’s Tory figure some way off. Savanta ComRes gets the wooden spoon after seriously understating…
Thursday showed a big divide between the politics of Remainia and Leaverstan We have not got a date yet but the Chesham and Amersham by-election looks set to be the next big political betting event and the Smarkets chart above shows the latest trend in the betting which has the Tories with a 91.7% chance. Inevitably the Tory victory in Hartlepool and the successes in the local elections have given the party and its backers a lot of confidence as…
The impact of Hartlepool and the locals In many ways it is quite extraordinary that for the first time since the general election in December 2019 the Conservatives are now betting favourite to win a majority next time. The betdata.io above shows how the mood on the betting markets has changed over the past year or so and now the money is going on the tour is doing it. Even though the polls have been showing double-digit leads for the…
I have to agree with Matthew Shaddick of Ladbrokes about moving the counts at the general election to 9am on the Friday. On administrative level it seems like a good idea as it would mean the counters aren’t pulling all nighters but are counting after a good night’s sleep. I postulate that it would make for a better environment for political gamblers to bet after a decent night’s sleep rather than pulling an all nighter. The fact we’d have a…
Regular readers of this website know that Mike Smithson and myself really value the various leader ratings and supplementaries as they are often a better pointer to election outcomes and these recent elections are further proof of that. Based on the tweets atop this thread I wrote a piece in March saying that Mark Drakeford’s Labour party were in a much better position than the voting intention figures suggested thanks to the munificent leadership of Mark Drakeford, it is clear…
Burnham’s margin over the Tory is incredible Nobody can argue that the local elections that have taken place this week have been anything but poor for the official opposition. Labour has done badly and no doubt this will renew speculation about the future for Keir Starmer who only became leader thirteen months ago. By far the biggest success story for the party has been from former failed LAB leadership contender and shadow minister, Andy Burnham, who beat the Tory to…