Today we’re having the second General Election in just over two years. For the past few weeks, I’ve been running an opinion poll in the sidebar of the desktop version of the blog. I deliberately haven’t promoted it at all on social media, so the results are rather more representative of wider public opinion than they were last time. Indeed, some professional opinion polls have come up with fairly similar figures. The original poll results and the associated comments are here.
If I put these through the Electoral Calculus model, assuming a uniform swing, the results are as follows, giving an overall Conservative majority of 24:
Conservative 337
Green 1
Labour 229
Liberal Democrat 7
Plaid Cymru 2
SNP 55
UKIP 1
NI Parties 18
I’ve eliminated the non-voters and bumped up the PC/SNP vote share to a more realistic 5.5%. It may seem surprising that the Conservatives end up with an overall majority on such a small lead in vote share, but, since they were wiped out in Scotland by the SNP in 2015, Labour no longer have the edge in terms of seats per vote that they once enjoyed. The one UKIP seat is Clacton, which they would retain on that vote share, but are unlikely to do in practice.
I’m not aware that lifestyle issues have featured at all in the campaign. Sadly, it seems that, whoever gets into power, more things will be banned or restricted. But it will be very interesting to see what the final results turn out to be later tonight.
Draught Bass.
ReplyDeleteDraught Bass would undoubtedly have got my vote had it been on the ballot paper :-)
DeleteI never see any of your polls till you blog them because here in 2017 we use mobile phones and feed aggregators to read your blog. Nice to see how all the folk using the Smith Corona interwebs will be voting though.
ReplyDeleteI'm well aware of that issue. In general, I will tweet any polls I create, but I deliberately didn't do it for this one as the results of that last one show what can happen with over-enthusiastic retweeting. I did, however, mention it in the body of at least one blogpost and specifically mentioned mobile readers.
DeleteGiven that static content doesn't show on mobile browsers, I'm not sure what the answer is - any suggestions gratefully received.
Hmm, looks like that poll was rather more accurate than I thought it was this morning...
ReplyDeleteJeremy Corbyn is now at the same level of popularity that Gordon Brown was when he lost the first of the three consecutive elections where Labour have been comprehensively defeated.
ReplyDeleteAnd even though his party is still 56 seats behind the Conservatives and face another five years in opposition Corbyn is going on a victory tour today.
You couldn't make it up.
Labour got 12,858,652 votes, the highest number of votes for them in my 46 years of voting. More significantly they took 40.0% of the vote, the best percentage since Blair's 40.7% in 2001. Raising the share of the vote from 30.5% to 40.0% is not a bad campaign for a man reputably not capable of running a bath.
DeleteIt is certainly a moral victory for Corbyn. May called the snap election confident that she would smash him and reduce the PLP to rump. Instead it was her own party that was emasculated and forced into bed with a despicable Irish party. Worse than the result gives Corbyn some real credibility both in his own party and with the electorate. I look forward to the Autumn election.
Sorry 'mudge. I know that you disapprove of political comments on here.
I can't really object to political comments on a thread featuring an opinion poll!
DeleteIt should also be pointed out that the Tories got more votes than did Labour in Blair's 1997 landslide.
Funny old system isn't it? Perhaps we should change to something fairer like rolling dice to select the winner.
DeleteMrs May looked well upset last night and all of the top torys have refused to give an interview with the BBC,i thought at the beginning when the election was called that it was for an increased tory majority to help get brexit through and that Labour was going to loose about a hundred seats.
ReplyDeleteIf this is a victory for the torys they do not seem to be too happy about it do they.
The real winners are the DUP: a party of climate change deniers, anti-abortionists, homophobes, creationists, Brixiteers, with a history of supporting terrorism. Still it will be useful practice for them if they ever get another government at Stormont.
DeleteDavid, I'm guessing from your diatribe that your are Gordon's brother? :)
DeleteI've no doubt Corbyn would quite happily form a government with the help of Sinn Feinn/IRA if he could.
DeleteI'd rather my country was governed with the help of a climate change denier than a terrorist.
With the DUP, you can have both.
Delete"Climate change denier" is an offensive, loaded term intended to howl down debate. But I'm happy to have more influence from climate change sceptics in government - it might ultimately lead to a more sensible energy policy.
DeleteSorry, I should have said "Climate Change Sceptic" since very few of them actually deny that climate change is happening. What do you think of as a sensible energy policy?
Delete#Pie-Tin: Many in British politics conveniently forget that there are terrorists on the Unionist side as well as on the Republicsn side. That is why, in later life, Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams were such good chums, revelling in memories of the bloodshed they had caused
Delete"The Ulster Resistance Movement was founded in 1986 by DUP leaders Ian Paisley, Peter Robinson etc. It was a terrorist paramilitary group which co-operated with other Unionist organisations to rob a bank and spend the proceeds in buying a huge shipment of arms from the Middle East.
The various Unionist paramilitaries still have many weapons but have moved on from terrorism to large scale organised crime. Despite their denials, the DUP still have close links to many of these groups. The DUP was founded by Ian Paisley, surely one of the most evil men of our time.
N
Actually I met Ian Paisley in a restaurant a few years before he died and he struck me as being an amiable sort of bloke.
DeleteCertainly a brave one for refusing to negotiate with Sinn Fein/IRA until they'd promised to stop killing innocent people.
I certainly wouldn't put him in the same bracket as Martin McGuinness ( I think you're confusing him with Gerry Adams whom Paisley loathed ) as I'm almost certain the Reverend never actually topped anybody.
But politics produces strange bedfellows - Corbyn liked Hamas who are virulently anti-gay and May is cosying up to the DUP who also aren't keep on fellers batting for the other side.
I like to think that UKIP's betrayal of smokers was the final nail in their electoral coffin.
ReplyDelete