So today we have seen the first major shadow cabinet reshuffle by Keir Starmer underlining the fact that he is very confident now of his position as Labour leader. Would he have felt able to axe several ministers who came to the fore in the Corbyn years if the polling gap with the Tories had not closed? Remember he took over in April 2020 when LAB was up to 26% behind His line up includes many big names from yesteryear…
I’ve just come across a BBC News report on Thursday’s Old Bexley & Sidcup by-election which has the remarkable claim by ReformUK that the party has knocked on 90% of doors in the seat. I find this hard to believe because it is a massive task for any party to achieve that level of penetration in a Westminster by-election. This is from the BBC News report: Reform UK – formerly the Brexit Party – may no longer have Nigel Farage…
The pressure mounts with 3 days to go The message from the betting markets is that punters are staying with the Tories to hold onto Old Bexley and Sidcup in the first of the party’s two December by-election defences. As can be seen from the Smarkets chart BJ’s party is currently rated at a near 92% chance on the betting exchange. On the ground the word is that the Tories are taking nothing for granted and top figures, including the…
This is the second part of a thread on estimating Conservative seat numbers at the next election. It contains statistical analysis: those not interested can skip to the Conclusion. Model The data in the previous part of this thread does seem to support our hypothesis that extreme results for the Conservatives are unlikely: in all bar one of the twenty-two elections, they have won between 25% and 75% of the seats, and in fourteen of them, their share has been…
One of the interesting bets currently available is on the likelihood of a Conservative overall majority at the next election. The markets were pricing this at 36% on 19 November, down from evens in July. The general consensus is that an election is highly unlikely for eighteen months at least. Long-term readers of this site may recall me arguing that you can’t predict the result of an election from mid-term opinion polls or leader ratings. Nevertheless, the decline in the…
This must be the the worst finding for the Tories in years because it really reflects a huge change in public opinion. In the poll from Opinium Labour has a 2% lead but Starmer has a big gap on approval and is in positive territory. Mike Smithson
The chart illustrates what has been a quite remarkable recovery since Starmer became leader on April 4th last year. He’s taken his party from a polling deficit of 26% to being just ahead in several current polls. A lot of this, of course, has been about the detoxification of the party from the disastrous leadership of his predecessor who led Labour at GE2019 to its worst result since 1933. Corbyn undermined so much and the polling at the last election…
It’s “fill your boots time” What is it with Mayoral Elections? My favourite bet of 2021 was laying Brian Rose for Mayor of London at single figure odds, despite his literal 0-1% chance of victory. Now 2022 looms and another inexplicable mispricing has appeared on the Mayoral ballots in May. Is this a trend? South Yorkshire is a very Labour area. It comprises 4 areas, Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham, and Sheffield. You may recognise those 4 areas as all having Labour-majority…