August 21, 2014
The West Midlands goes to the polls
We’re about to witness the largest single by-election ever held in the UK. A total of 1,974,518 people are eligible to go the polls today. Precisely how many of them bothers…
Month: August 2014
August 20, 2014
Labour is doing well where it ought to do well – but that might not be enough
Labour will take heart from Lord Ashcroft’s latest survey of marginal seats. This time he’s sampled opinion in what he calls the “wider battleground” – constituencies not right at the…
August 19, 2014
Those Liberal Democrat ‘targets’ in full
Come with me into a parallel universe, where most of the events of the past four-and-half years have not happened, a general election is approaching, and the Liberal Democrats are…
August 18, 2014
Wales: slim pickings for all parties
The current distribution of seats in Wales masks a mixed picture for all the main parties, including Labour. Despite its numeral dominance, Labour is far from the force it was…
August 17, 2014
Mid-month poll update: a summer of discontent for Ukip and the Lib Dems
The slight swing back towards the two mainstream parties I noticed at the start of August is persisting. The trends suggest both Labour and the Tories are currently getting a…
August 16, 2014
Latest by-election results: Labour keeps a tight grip on its heartlands
Just two council by-elections this week, both easily held by Labour. One was for a seat on Lambeth council in London:
August 15, 2014
What’s the minimum the Tories need to do to remain in government?
Arithmetically, not very much. One scenario for the 2015 election sees the Tories managing to hold pretty much all the seats they won in 2010, while losing a few to…
August 14, 2014
Predicting the result: three websites to watch
It’s clear we’re going to be spoiled between now and May with the greatest number of polls and forecasts ever published in a British general election campaign. Among all the…
August 13, 2014
Six numbers that will define the election
At their irreducible core, general elections are about mathematics. It matters not a jot in which constituency Boris Johnson decides to stand if all he does is replace one Tory…
August 12, 2014
Mark Simmonds: a casualty not of Ukip, but the ‘early doors’ election
We were always going to get a flurry of MPs announcing they were standing down at the next election. What’s surprising is that it’s happening so late in the life…
UK elections 2015 