Electoral Calculus: Labour majority 118

rwendland Tue Oct 02, 2007 at 12:04:13 AM GMT Print-friendly version Facebook

The Electoral Calculus website has just been updated with the September opinion polls, giving an immediate general election prediction of a 118 Labour majority. It is based on published national opinion polls, and the occasional Scottish poll, so is nothing like as accurate as private predictions based on swing constituency polls, but it's all we public can get to see. The website also has a nifty summary of recent opinion polls:

 opinion poll chart




The Blair loss of popularity and Brown recovery is plain to see - as is the Ming effect.

The website has per-seat predictions and lists individual seats that its model predicts will change hands, and has an excellent explanation of why Labour can get a majority with fewer national votes than the Tories.

An interesting website, produced by an individual, Martin Baxter, rather than a large organisation. It predicts the LibDems will suffer a collapse to 20 seats, but I think this is one aspect overstated by the model.

I'm with the Channel 4 News political editor in thinking we're on for an election soon: "there are so many meetings happening in No 10 and the Labour Party ... if this is not serious planning for an election than this is the biggest leg-pull in history."
 



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Electoral Calculus: Labour majority 118 | 4 comments (4 topical)

Re: Electoral Calculus: Labour majority 118 (#1)

by Stuart on Tue Oct 02, 2007 at 09:48:10 AM GMT

The figures for Scotland are clearly wrong.  The SNP has been predicted to make massive gains including in seats where they're currently on 5 and 6%.  As such as lot of the data is worthless.


Re: Electoral Calculus: Labour majority 118 (#2)

by swatantra on Tue Oct 02, 2007 at 10:01:36 AM GMT

Call me a pessimist but we'll be lucky enough to get back with 25. The great British public don't want to be bounced into an unnecessary election.


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Re: Electoral Calculus: Labour majority 118 (#3)

by rwendland on Tue Oct 02, 2007 at 11:25:43 AM GMT

The predicted SNP gains are almost entirely from LibDem seats, consequent to the latest Scottish opinion poll showing LibDem support has halved to 11% from 22.6% at the 2005 election. The model obviously thinks most LibDem defectors will go to SNP, which sounds plausible as SNP support has almost doubled from 17.7% to 31% since 2005 election. I personally think LibDem support will hold up better in the seats they hold, but the Electoral Calculus model makes sense from the data it has.

The model only predicts one SNP gain from Labour, East Scotland where the 2005 majority is only 688. Seems plausible. The model has 2 Labour gains, one from Tory and one from LibDem.


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Re: Electoral Calculus: Labour majority 118 (#4)

by swatantra on Fri Oct 05, 2007 at 10:36:47 AM GMT

One thing that must not be allowed to happen ever again is for the Scots seats to keep the Westminster Govt in power. Gordons best bet now is to carry on with a perfectly reasonable mandate of 68, hint at an election in 2009, and then suddenly spring it on us all in May 2008, this time before the conference season plays a factor.


[ Parent ]

Electoral Calculus: Labour majority 118 | 4 comments (4 topical)