The general election result will be made up of the results of 650 individual battles. Some will be very predictable. Here are twelve seats that will help to determine how the next Parliament will be comprised. Norwich South As a proud Norfolk boy, I can say that there’s something funny in the water in this constituency. It had been held by the Lib Dems until 2015, and Clive Lewis made an instant impact on his election. He is already regularly…
CON psephologist, Lord (Robert) Hayward on how things are developing One of the striking aspects of this year’s election is the different constituencies over which this campaign is being fought. 1997 was the last time there was such a new geography as Labour made massive incursions into Tory territory. I am not suggesting that there will be a similar landslide, just that for 20 years the battle has, essentially, been in London, the Midlands and the North West. Individual battles…
Fox hunting is one of those issues which a small number of people on either side of the argument feel very strongly about. It is something could change votes for those with firm views. The poll findings above from today’s ComRes survey for the Daily Mirror shows that across the political divide the ban on foxhunting is strongly supported even by CON voters. So TMay’s comments that she is in favour of hunting and will allow a free vote, assuming…
Fairstead on King’s Lynn and West Norfolk (Lab defence, death of sitting member) Result of council at last election (2015): Conservatives 50, Labour 10, Independents 2 (Conservative majority of 38) Result of ward at last election (2015): Emboldened denotes elected Labour 753, 727 (39%) United Kingdom Independence Party 599 (31%) Conservatives 593, 469 (31%) EU Referendum Result: REMAIN 28,587 (34%) LEAVE 56,493 (66%) on a turnout of 75% Candidates duly nominated: Rob Colwell (Liberal Democrat), Gary Howman (Labour), Ronald Mortimer…
PaddyPower shop in London has taken a bet of £330 at 500/1 that UKIP will win most seats — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 11, 2017 Mike Smithson Follow @MSmithsonPB Tweet
Now 28% behind TMay the closest this year Of all the ratings that are made of leaders the one I have least doubts about his who would make the best Prime Minister. Quite simply the incumbent generally gets a huge boost simply because they are in the post and the opposition leader isn’t. It might be recalled that ahead of Mrs Thatcher’s 1979 General Election victory she was trailing James Callaghan by more than 20% on this measure in the…
But if PM Corbyn was such a danger why call the election in the first place? One of the most weird features of this election campaign is that the Conservatives are doing everything they can to try to persuade us that Jeremy Corbyn really is in with a chance of becoming next prime minister. Above is some Conservative publicity material that was featured on BuzzFeed and seeks to make every argument that there is a real risk. It is almost…
Steve Fisher joins the discussion On this week’s PB/Polling Matters podcast Keiran is joined by Steve Fisher from Oxford University. Steve runs the elections website https://electionsetc.com/ and is part of the team that produces the General Election exit poll. Keiran and Steve discuss the fallout from last week’s local elections. Steve explains how his election forecast did and what the results tell us about the potential outcome of the General Election in June. Keiran and Steve also discuss how the opinion polls…