15 Jun 2024 : LAB: 43% / CON: 19% / REF: 16% / LDEM: 11%

[Mark]

Labour lead at 24pts Westminster voting intention

The Labour lead at 24 points is now greater than the number of days left to go...

LAB: 43% (-1)
CON: 19% (-1)
REF: 16% (+1)
LDEM: 11% (+1)
GRN: 6% (-)

via @techneuk, 12 - 13 Jun

Two other polls out tonight...

Labour lead at 25pts Westminster voting intention

LAB: 46% (+2)
CON: 21% (-4)
REF: 13% (+3)
LDEM: 11% (+2)
GRN: 5% (+1)

via @savanta_UK, 12 - 14 Jun


Labour lead at 17pts Westminster voting intention

LAB: 40% (-2)
CON: 23% (-1)
REF: 14% (+2)
LDEM: 12% (+2)
GRN: 7% (-)

via @opiniumresearch, 14 Jun

[nickpoole]

Looking safe for Lab

[ping]

Canvassing in Kenilworth and Southam: A Game of Two Halves

Back pounding the pavements today from mid-morning until late afternoon; two canvassing sessions and one leaflet drop. The first session put us all in a good mood as there were quite a few Labour voters and those that weren't were very polite and happy to chat. The sun even came out for a few minutes. It is extraordinary how much impact the Lib Dem bar charts are having and we're having to put a lot of anti-Tory voters right on what the tactical vote is around here. Apparently targetted social media ads are going out saying the same thing.

We made it to the pub for a quick lunch just before a huge deluge (I even thought I heard some thunder). Talking to my fellow canvassers, the overall impression from this election so far is that there are a lot of undecideds but that an unprecedented number of these undecideds are genuinely confused about how to vote (rather than just not wanting to tell us).

In the afternoon, we canvassed just a few streets away from our morning route and yet the response could not have been more different (my friend, who had never canvassed before, described it as "grouchy"). These streets had a slightly older demographic on average and are enriched for people who have lived in Kenilworth all their lives. Here, I encountered my first "anyone-but-Labour" voters (for example, one gentleman was "fearful" of Labour's tax plans) and there were also a depressing number of "can't-trust-any-of-them"s - I'll spare you some of the more colourful phrases. It was like we had stepped into a different country and yet these people lived within streets of the morning crowd in housing that was not, as far as I could tell, particularly different.

With the intermittent drizzle and occasional break in the cloud, it felt like the weather was trying to mimic the varied and uneasy nature of the voting public; very much a game of two halves.

Favourite moment: one of my longer conversations was with a delightful old gentleman who had voted Conservative all his life. He dropped a hint that he might be undecided this time ("I think all the parties have their problems now") but I don't know whether that was just to keep me at the door ;-) He was very sweet and mild-mannered and I really enjoyed our chat. He said he thought all the main party leaders were too young (!) so I mentioned that Keir Starmer was over 60. "Ah, but he's not been in politics for long enough", he pointed out. I replied that I thought this could be considered a good thing; after all, he was a human rights lawyer and then DPP so lots of relevant experience. He seemed a little moved by this. I gave him a leaflet in case he wanted to change his vote for the first time in seven decades and he proudly declared that he was feeling energetic this morning, having already read the newspaper, and he would give it a go :-)

[c-a-r-f-r-e-w]

Jun 15, 2024 20:22:14 GMT shevii said:

Jun 15, 2024 19:46:06 GMT c-a-r-f-r-e-w said:

Tories and Labour on course for lowest share of the vote since 1945
Poll reveals historically low support for the big two, with smaller parties up by five points

www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/15/tories-and-labour-on-course-for-lowest-share-of-the-vote-since-1945

I've moaned a lot about the Guardian's political coverage during the Corbyn years but I have to say I think they have been pretty lukewarm to the current Labour offering as well when you'd think this would be the agenda that would suit their centrist views- maybe they're simply considering themselves balanced and independent and asking the tough questions.  Tend to agree with the theme of that article and John Curtice said much the same thing last week but it seems a bit odd for them to lead with that theme.

I do get the impression the Guardian have moved left a bit, they talk more about nationalisations these days, for example; even the Telegraph have moved left in some ways, in being rather more amenable to state investment in tech, as a case in point. As was clear from BJ’s campaign, the Overton window has shifted left, and I think the need for big state action during Covid and the energy crisis has underlined this need. But not all the politicians seem to have been aware enough of this. Mind you, it seems to me to be something of note, when the LibDems are out-doing labour on house-building. 

[pjw1961]

"Can't see any tables yet from that link? Another interesting snippet though is that they include a "probability based prediction" which gives Reform 12 seats and Greens 3 seats and pushes Labour down a tiny bit and Tories up a tiny bit." Me - "Improbability based by the sound of it. Reform won't win 12 seats. It is still by no means certain they will win any."

Just to expand on my remark above on the previous thread:

There is no reason to suppose that RefUK's vote will not be similar in nature to that of UKIP and Brexit Party - i.e very evenly spread. This is not a winning proposition under FPTP. Farage has the name recognition to potentially overcome this, although he hasn't managed it in the past. The same may be true of Anderson as the sitting MP for Ashfield. However, I doubt any other RefUK candidate has much of a personal vote, not even Tice.

To date, for all the hype about a RefUK surge, no poll has put them higher than 18%, and most are lower, the average being about 14%. An evenly spread 18% of the vote, with no special concentrations of strength other than a few high profile names (and even they are rather 'marmite') will not win you many seats under FPTP.

My view of MRPs increasingly is that while they may be able to predict the overall results roughly accurately (and since they disagree at present, the jury is still out on that) because the anomalies average out, they are an unreliable guide to results in specific constituencies. They ignore too many political factors about the on-the-ground situation and voting history of the seat.

[alec]

Interesting short article on how western military spending is systematically undermined by structural failings in a world increasing moving towards cheap and rapid to develop weapons systems - www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2024/06/13/a_fiscal_crisis_the_west_is_on_the_wrong_side_of_cost_curve_1037896.html

The Ukraine war is changing everything.

Speaking of which, Kyiv is now becoming increasingly confident in it's briefings that the Russian assault in Kharkiv really has failed. There are continued attempts to launch attacks, but these are being knocked back, with heavy losses, and the whole offensive looks to have run out of steam and is now widely seen as a strategic failure, on multiple levels.

There are also increasing numbers of reports of Ukraine developing a system that allows them to use fast and cheap 'First Person View' (FPV) drones to attack Russian surveillance drones in flight. The Russian ISR drones are slow, long duration, fixed wing drones that are expensive, and crucial to their battlefield tactics. Being able to find, track and attack these in flight is being touted as something of a game changer, and appears to be causing some panic in Russian ranks. This thread describes one such post, along with explaining the issues - x.com/sambendett/status/1801961861287473587

It will be very helpful to have Ukraine within NATO, or at the very least, close to western governments, as the defence experience they are developing is going to be very useful.

[shevii]

Jun 15, 2024 21:10:00 GMT pjw1961 said:

My view of MRPs increasingly is that while they may be able to predict the overall results roughly accurately (and since they disagree at present, the jury is still out on that) because the anomalies average out, they are an unreliable guide to results in specific constituencies. They ignore too many political factors about the on-the-ground situation and voting history of the seat.

Agreed.  Especially as there are so many independents/local variations upsetting applecarts (even if they don't win which is more than likely).  There's a lot in the mix at the moment.  I doubt the core prediction on numbers of seats is too far out.

[steve]

ping

I understand that that's a new constituency however the 2019 result showed

The Tories on 57% the Liberal democrats on around 19% narrowly ahead of Labour on 17%.

What precisely did "putting the voters right on tactical voting" entail?

[crossbat11]

Interesting to reflect on the poll that Mark has headlined on this latest thread and the one he launched just over three weeks ago as the election gun was fired.

They are very similar. On the 25th May, this poll was headlined:-

Labour 44
Con 22
Reform 14
Lib Dem 9

Today, this poll heads the thread:-

Labour 43
Con 19
Reform 16
Lib Dem 11.

So, after over three weeks of much noise and clamour, supposed dramatic polls, gaffes, disasters, won and lost TV debates, manifesto launches, Farage breakthroughs,various meltdowns, breathless news of tax bombshells to come and much else, well, nothing much has changed.

In effect, we are where we were three weeks ago. In fact the difference in the poll ratings for each party is so little that they are all within margin of error.

I know this goes against the understandable need for drama, cliff hangers and game changers, but isn't this thing all over bar the canvassing?

[steve]

Little take from a non political source.

My son was receiving a takeaway tonight by deliveroo the delivery man  commented on our liberal democrat garden post with " there up everywhere " I can confirm that I've seen dozens about locally and I think one Labour poster , no Tories of course.
This isn't a target seat it's just local activists.

Labour by all objective measures should be the best placed to unseat the Tories here but I honestly don't see the enthusiasm you might expect.

National polling is showing an improvement for the lib dems it's been an effective and positive campaign injected with some humour so far I think that there's a possibility of some surprising wins on the night.

[mercian]

Jun 15, 2024 20:31:24 GMT ping said:

Favourite moment: one of my longer conversations was with a delightful old gentleman who had voted Conservative all his life. He dropped a hint that he might be undecided this time ("I think all the parties have their problems now") but I don't know whether that was just to keep me at the door ;-) He was very sweet and mild-mannered and I really enjoyed our chat. He said he thought all the main party leaders were too young (!) so I mentioned that Keir Starmer was over 60. "Ah, but he's not been in politics for long enough", he pointed out. I replied that I thought this could be considered a good thing; after all, he was a human rights lawyer and then DPP so lots of relevant experience. He seemed a little moved by this. I gave him a leaflet in case he wanted to change his vote for the first time in seven decades and he proudly declared that he was feeling energetic this morning, having already read the newspaper, and he would give it a go :-)

It sounds as though you might have met some of my dad's family. There's some of his cousins and their descendants who've lived there for generations. Great report by the way.

[James E]

Jun 15, 2024 21:42:09 GMT steve said:

ping

I understand that that's a new constituency however the 2019 result showed

The Tories on 57% the Liberal democrats on around 19% narrowly ahead of Labour on 17%.

What precisely did "putting the voters right on tactical voting" entail?

steve

The 2019 result showed the LDs 1% ahead of Labour, but the notional result for the new boundaries of Kenilworth and Southam puts Labour ahead by just over 2%. I would imagine that any Labour canvasser would want to point this out.

www.electionpolling.co.uk/constituencies/uk-parliament/kenilworth-and-southam

Today's Survation MRP shows the seat as Lab 33.7%, Con 32.5%, LD 14.6%, Ref 11.1%.

Also, a few weeks ago I posted details of how seats like this (per the 2019 result) behaved in the 1997 election: that is with the Tories well ahead, but with a narrow gap from the LDs in 2nd to Lab in 3rd. The norm then was for Labour to make a net gain of around 15 points in relation to the LDs, so the outcome above (which would be a net gain of 17 points) looks plausible. 

[laszlo4new]

Jun 15, 2024 21:41:46 GMT shevii said:

Jun 15, 2024 21:10:00 GMT pjw1961 said:

My view of MRPs increasingly is that while they may be able to predict the overall results roughly accurately (and since they disagree at present, the jury is still out on that) because the anomalies average out, they are an unreliable guide to results in specific constituencies. They ignore too many political factors about the on-the-ground situation and voting history of the seat.

Agreed.  Especially as there are so many independents/local variations upsetting applecarts (even if they don't win which is more than likely).  There's a lot in the mix at the moment.  I doubt the core prediction on numbers of seats is too far out.

I think it is fundamentally about inclusion and exclusion of independent variables (the ones that describe the respondent). Basically, with the exclusion makes the projection of the dependent variable (whom the respondent would vote for) less reliable, especially as it seems to me that DNK and WNV are not really handled in the model in a.systemic way.

I do know YouGov's model, (from various sources) and it is reliable within limits, but the others do not include sufficient details to make the judgement.

So, I agree with the comment by both of you.

[mercian]

A couple of thoughts that have occurred:
1) I wonder whether anyone's tried to predict the election result using AI? Even if they haven't, as AI improves will it make pollsters redundant?
2) If Reform get say 10% in the end, will the left-wing PR enthusiasts on here be sanguine about potentially having about 60 of them in HoP in a future GE? It is of course unknown if Reform manage to continue for long, but if the Tories do get more or less wiped out, some RoC party will replace them.

[norbold]

I came across an interesting wall in Clacton today in quite a prominent position on one of the main roads leading into (or out of) the town. It was plastered with a number of large blue Reform Party posters....but, they were all saying Vote for Tony Mack. He was the Reform Party candidate that Farage elbowed aside and resigned and is now standing as an Independent. Hopefully, it might confuse a few people!

[ping]

Jun 15, 2024 21:42:09 GMT steve said:

ping

I understand that that's a new constituency however the 2019 result showed

The Tories on 57% the Liberal democrats on around 19% narrowly ahead of Labour on 17%.

What precisely did "putting the voters right on tactical voting" entail?

Good question, steve.

1) In both 2017 and 2015 Labour came second to the Conservatives in K&S. It is true that they were third (by about a percentage point) in 2019, but this was an electoral low point for the party nationally.

2) All the MRP predictions and all the tactical voting websites I've checked have Labour as the main contender in K&S.

3) K&S is way down on the list of Lib Dem target seats - somewhere like 150.

Irrespective of points 1-3, the Lib Dem leaflets are highly misleading to the point of being dishonest IMO. They show the results of local elections, knowing that people will interpret it as a general election result. Strangely, they manage to contradict themselves within the same leaflet, saying Labour are in third place on one side of the leaflet and in fourth on the other. They also (and this *really* irritates me as someone who uses statistics for a living) make the Lib Dem bar in their bar charts thicker (as opposed to just taller) than the bars for the other parties. Grr...

I have to reserve some amused ire for the Greens though, who went with a line graph showing the Greens riding high. Turns out they had based the figures on certain areas so apparently the Greens are winning where they are winning. Good stuff.

[crossbat11]

Jun 15, 2024 21:53:35 GMT steve said:

Little take from a non political source.

My son was receiving a takeaway tonight by deliveroo the delivery man  commented on our liberal democrat garden post with " there up everywhere " I can confirm that I've seen dozens about locally and I think one Labour poster , no Tories of course.
This isn't a target seat it's just local activists.

Labour by all objective measures should be the best placed to unseat the Tories here but I honestly don't see the enthusiasm you might expect.

National polling is showing an improvement for the lib dems it's been an effective and positive campaign injected with some humour so far I think that there's a possibility of some surprising wins on the night.

I'd be very careful about using visual displays of support for a party as a reliable indicator of either levels of support or enthusiasm for the election more generally. Our political and electoral culture no longer produces the proliferation of posters and signs, certainly on the level we used to see. Those days have largely gone.

The last election in which I remember seeing lots of political posters and boards on display on people's houses and in gardens was the 1992 one. They were everywhere in Redditch and most were for Labour. We all got very excited about what this favourably red plethora and proliferation might be telling us.

The answer was nothing. We lost the election by a country mile! We won the poster count though but not the votes, alas

These days, hardly anyone displays anything overtly political. The few that do are often party members and/or activists asked to display such signs.

Latest poster/sign count in Redditch and outlying villages on the evidence of some time spent driving through the town and adjacent environs today. Three Tory and one Labour. Means the square root of diddly squat in terms of providing any indication of who's winning

[pjw1961]

Jun 15, 2024 22:08:28 GMT laszlo4new said:

Jun 15, 2024 21:41:46 GMT shevii said:

Agreed.  Especially as there are so many independents/local variations upsetting applecarts (even if they don't win which is more than likely).  There's a lot in the mix at the moment.  I doubt the core prediction on numbers of seats is too far out.

I think it is fundamentally about inclusion and exclusion of independent variables (the ones that describe the respondent). Basically, with the exclusion makes the projection of the dependent variable (whom the respondent would vote for) less reliable, especially as it seems to me that DNK and WNV are not really handled in the model in a.systemic way.

I do know YouGov's model, (from various sources) and it is reliable within limits, but the others do not include sufficient details to make the judgement.

So, I agree with the comment by both of you.

The statistical study of the MRP models that was linked to on here a day or two back (Focaldata?) pointed to the YouGov as appearing to be the most reliable. It will be interesting to compare the final predictions of each MRP model to the actual results. 

Having comprehensively denounced the reliability of Survation's individual seat forecasts, I still can't resist quoting the Braintree one: Labour 37.1%, Conservative 34.4%

[mercian]

Jun 15, 2024 21:30:42 GMT alec said:

Interesting short article on how western military spending is systematically undermined by structural failings in a world increasing moving towards cheap and rapid to develop weapons systems - www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2024/06/13/a_fiscal_crisis_the_west_is_on_the_wrong_side_of_cost_curve_1037896.html

The Ukraine war is changing everything.

Speaking of which, Kyiv is now becoming increasingly confident in it's briefings that the Russian assault in Kharkiv really has failed. There are continued attempts to launch attacks, but these are being knocked back, with heavy losses, and the whole offensive looks to have run out of steam and is now widely seen as a strategic failure, on multiple levels.

There are also increasing numbers of reports of Ukraine developing a system that allows them to use fast and cheap 'First Person View' (FPV) drones to attack Russian surveillance drones in flight. The Russian ISR drones are slow, long duration, fixed wing drones that are expensive, and crucial to their battlefield tactics. Being able to find, track and attack these in flight is being touted as something of a game changer, and appears to be causing some panic in Russian ranks. This thread describes one such post, along with explaining the issues - x.com/sambendett/status/1801961861287473587

It will be very helpful to have Ukraine within NATO, or at the very least, close to western governments, as the defence experience they are developing is going to be very useful.

Good points. Tanks, surface ships and piloted aircraft all seem to be much more vulnerable because of relatively cheap drones.  We also seem to be seeing the first steps to wars fought just between machines. 

[pjw1961]

Jun 15, 2024 22:13:37 GMT mercian said:

A couple of thoughts that have occurred:
1) I wonder whether anyone's tried to predict the election result using AI? Even if they haven't, as AI improves will it make pollsters redundant?
2) If Reform get say 10% in the end, will the left-wing PR enthusiasts on here be sanguine about potentially having about 60 of them in HoP in a future GE? It is of course unknown if Reform manage to continue for long, but if the Tories do get more or less wiped out, some RoC party will replace them.

My answer to 2) is Yes. I have long known that PR will mean a sizable hard-right block in parliament, but that is likely preferable to them staging a takeover of the Conservative Party and getting in with unlimited power under FPTP. 

[pjw1961]

Jun 15, 2024 22:17:52 GMT crossbat11 said:

Jun 15, 2024 21:53:35 GMT steve said:

I'd be very careful about using visual displays of support for a party as a reliable indicator of either levels of support or enthusiasm for the election more generally. Our political and electoral culture no longer produces the proliferation of posters and signs, certainly on the level we used to see. Those days have largely gone.

Normally I would agree with you, but I am finding it hard to explain the mass outbreak of Labour signs in Witham (I visited a different road the other day and promptly saw some more). Not replicated in Braintree so far, although I can report I have not seen a Conservative (or any party but Labour) sign or poster anywhere in either constituency. 

There are a lot of prominent signs and posters up in the rural areas between Braintree and Witham but they are all "Say No to the Pylons" ones. For those not in East Anglia, there is a proposal to build a lot of large pylons across Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex to get wind generated electricity from the North Sea to the grid. I'm in favour, but it has roused the ire of the NIMBYs. 

[norbold]

Jun 15, 2024 22:17:52 GMT crossbat11 said:

Jun 15, 2024 21:53:35 GMT steve said:

Little take from a non political source.

My son was receiving a takeaway tonight by deliveroo the delivery man  commented on our liberal democrat garden post with " there up everywhere " I can confirm that I've seen dozens about locally and I think one Labour poster , no Tories of course.
This isn't a target seat it's just local activists.

Labour by all objective measures should be the best placed to unseat the Tories here but I honestly don't see the enthusiasm you might expect.

National polling is showing an improvement for the lib dems it's been an effective and positive campaign injected with some humour so far I think that there's a possibility of some surprising wins on the night.

I'd be very careful about using visual displays of support for a party as a reliable indicator of either levels of support or enthusiasm for the election more generally. Our political and electoral culture no longer produces the proliferation of posters and signs, certainly on the level we used to see. Those days have largely gone.

The last election in which I remember seeing lots of political posters and boards on display on people's houses and in gardens was the 1992 one. They were everywhere in Redditch and most were for Labour. We all got very excited about what this favourably red plethora and proliferation might be telling us.

The answer was nothing. We lost the election by a country mile! We won the poster count though but not the votes, alas

These days, hardly anyone displays anything overtly political. The few that do are often party members and/or activists asked to display such signs.

Latest poster/sign count in Redditch and outlying villages on the evidence of some time spent driving through the town and adjacent environs today. Three Tory and one Labour. Means the square root of diddly squat in terms of providing any indication of who's winning

Yes, it's what LibDems do!

[ping]

Jun 15, 2024 22:23:35 GMT pjw1961 said:

Jun 15, 2024 22:13:37 GMT mercian said:

If Reform get say 10% in the end, will the left-wing PR enthusiasts on here be sanguine about potentially having about 60 of them in HoP in a future GE? It is of course unknown if Reform manage to continue for long, but if the Tories do get more or less wiped out, some RoC party will replace them.

My answer to 2) is Yes. I have long known that PR will mean a sizable hard-right block in parliament, but that is likely preferable to them staging a takeover of the Conservative Party and getting in with unlimited power under FPTP. 

I've always liked the idea of AV as an electoral system (and voted for it in 2011).  Under AV, candidates have to gain at least 50% of the vote (be they first, second preferences etc.) to win the seat.  This strikes me as a system much better suited to our multi-party landscape - people could put their favourite candidate first and a more pragmatic choice second, knowing that they were unlikely to let [insert least favourite party] in.  It also maintains the constituency-MP link.

[Mark]

Jun 15, 2024 22:13:37 GMT mercian said:

2) If Reform get say 10% in the end, will the left-wing PR enthusiasts on here be sanguine about potentially having about 60 of them in HoP in a future GE?

I can only speak for myself, but, my answer is a decisive yes.

A decent PR system will give a closer result to the way people actually vote - and allow more people to vote for what they believe in as opposed to stopping the worst option.

As much as I utterly detest what Reform stand for, the way to defeat them is by argument and debate.

If, after that, enough people are minded to vote for them that they get seats, wwell, that's democracy.

[pjw1961]

Jun 15, 2024 22:40:35 GMT ping said:

Jun 15, 2024 22:23:35 GMT pjw1961 said:

My answer to 2) is Yes. I have long known that PR will mean a sizable hard-right block in parliament, but that is likely preferable to them staging a takeover of the Conservative Party and getting in with unlimited power under FPTP. 

I've always liked the idea of AV as an electoral system (and voted for it in 2011).  Under AV, candidates have to gain at least 50% of the vote (be they first, second preferences etc.) to win the seat.  This strikes me as a system much better suited to our multi-party landscape - people could put their favourite candidate first and a more pragmatic choice second, knowing that they were unlikely to let [insert least favourite party] in.  It also maintains the constituency-MP link.

It is not proportional though. In fact it could easily be less proportional than FPTP!

I'm an STV man myself, as it weakens the power of the party machines. The voters choose which candidates from each party they wish to prefer rather than the party under a list based system. 

[RAF]

Jun 15, 2024 22:47:50 GMT Mark said:

Jun 15, 2024 22:13:37 GMT mercian said:

2) If Reform get say 10% in the end, will the left-wing PR enthusiasts on here be sanguine about potentially having about 60 of them in HoP in a future GE?

I can only speak for myself, but, my answer is a decisive yes.

A decent PR system will give a closer result to the way people actually vote - and allow more people to vote for what they believe in as opposed to stopping the worst option.

As much as I utterly detest what Reform stand for, the way to defeat them is by argument and debate.

If, after that, enough people are minded to vote for them that they get seats, wwell, that's democracy.

It would also end parties getting absolute majorities (some ridiculously large) of seats on mere pluralities of votes.

[bedknobsandboomstick]

The vote shares, and particularly the changes in share, in the new Survation MRP are a little odd.

Lab 39.6 (-3.6)
Con 23.5 (-0.9)
Ref 12.3 (+0.9)
LD 11.4 (+1.0)
Gre 6.4 (+2.2)

The change in green is clearly too large (with know way of knowing which was the outlier), but the change in Con and Ref also looks wrong to me. Over the last couple of weeks I eould have expected a much bigger change than this based on other polling, with Con a fair bit lower.

[eor]

Jun 15, 2024 21:10:00 GMT pjw1961 said:

"Can't see any tables yet from that link? Another interesting snippet though is that they include a "probability based prediction" which gives Reform 12 seats and Greens 3 seats and pushes Labour down a tiny bit and Tories up a tiny bit." Me - "Improbability based by the sound of it. Reform won't win 12 seats. It is still by no means certain they will win any."

Just to expand on my remark above on the previous thread:

There is no reason to suppose that RefUK's vote will not be similar in nature to that of UKIP and Brexit Party - i.e very evenly spread. This is not a winning proposition under FPTP. Farage has the name recognition to potentially overcome this, although he hasn't managed it in the past. The same may be true of Anderson as the sitting MP for Ashfield. However, I doubt any other RefUK candidate has much of a personal vote, not even Tice.

To date, for all the hype about a RefUK surge, no poll has put them higher than 18%, and most are lower, the average being about 14%. An evenly spread 18% of the vote, with no special concentrations of strength other than a few high profile names (and even they are rather 'marmite') will not win you many seats under FPTP.

My view of MRPs increasingly is that while they may be able to predict the overall results roughly accurately (and since they disagree at present, the jury is still out on that) because the anomalies average out, they are an unreliable guide to results in specific constituencies. They ignore too many political factors about the on-the-ground situation and voting history of the seat.

That's one approach, and perhaps explains the variance we're seeing between the sort of seats different MRPs are suggested as possible RefUK targets. If you treat them as a slightly more popular extension of UKIP/BXP then (aside from potentially the two where the personal vote muddies it) the landscape looks very much like a collection of distant second-place finishes in seats either rampantly held or easily regained by Labour.  

On the other hand, if you largely disregard the UKIP/BXP precedent and treat them instead as a factional offshoot from the Tory party, an offshoot which in their best polls is outpolling the Tories in various areas, then the same evenness of support brings very different seats into view, ie seats with very big Tory majorities and both Labour and LD distant enough that the natural anti-Tory opposition is either not clear or just doesn't have much to tactically squeeze from anyone else. And that's I suspect why some of the big geographic county seats are flashing on that particular MRP. 

In reality I suspect their support is going to be a combination of both, particularly given the common thread of Farage. But if it's skewed much towards either source, then at least some of the MRPs are going to be steered towards looking in the wrong places. 

[leftieliberal]

Jun 15, 2024 22:08:28 GMT laszlo4new said:

Jun 15, 2024 21:41:46 GMT shevii said:

I do know YouGov's model, (from various sources) and it is reliable within limits, but the others do not include sufficient details to make the judgement.

So, I agree with the comment by both of you.

I tend to trust YouGov's model more because they published the predicted outcome using their MRP model before both 2017 and 2019 elections. Survation have a statement "Survation used MRP during the 2019 General Election to correctly predict a large Conservative majority and call 94.3% of seats correctly. For more information, you can read this blog post by our partner Professor Chris Hanretty here." There is no indication that they published it before the 2019 general election (it's not mentioned in the Wikipedia article), so if it had proved to be inaccurate it might well have never seen the light of day. As a scientist, this makes me suspicious; only predictions made before an event have value; their 2019 model might have been close to the actual result purely due to chance.

As for other MRP models, in 2019 Focaldata's prediction was nearly as good as YouGov's; all the other MRP models for this election have no track record at all (they may have been tested using other elections, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the data from these will transfer over to a general election).

[RAF]

Jun 15, 2024 22:49:34 GMT pjw1961 said:

Jun 15, 2024 22:40:35 GMT ping said:

I've always liked the idea of AV as an electoral system (and voted for it in 2011).  Under AV, candidates have to gain at least 50% of the vote (be they first, second preferences etc.) to win the seat.  This strikes me as a system much better suited to our multi-party landscape - people could put their favourite candidate first and a more pragmatic choice second, knowing that they were unlikely to let [insert least favourite party] in.  It also maintains the constituency-MP link.

It is not proportional though. In fact it could easily be less proportional than FPTP!

I'm an STV man myself, as it weakens the power of the party machines. The voters choose which candidates from each party they wish to prefer rather than the party under a list based system. 

Well that depends. STV can only work in multi member constituencies and each party will have a slate of candidates for that constituency equivalent to the seats available. So whilst you can rank the candidates you wish to select in order of preference, if you want to cast all three of your votes for a single party you will have to vote for the candidates the party has chosen to contest the seats.

I guess you could have an open list/STV hybrid which would allow you to rank your three candidates from a wider party slate (of say 10 candidates).