Nigel Marriott – Page 36

By-Election Forecast #1 – Copeland, Cumbria

February 19, 2017 By Nigel Marriott

Originally published on 19th February. Please scroll to the bottom for an updated forecast as of 22nd February.

The Conservatives are well set to take Copeland from Labour. That is my forecast after running my by-election model on Copeland. According to Matt Singh of NCP Politics, the last comparable by-election would be in 1878! For more details about my methodology, please read how I forecast by-elections in the Brexit era.

As always, we need to start with a breakdown of the 2015 General Election results when Labour held the seat with a 6% majority and the 2016 EU referendum result where I estimate that Leave won with 61% of the vote.

By-Elections #1 – How to predict outcomes in the Brexit era

February 19, 2017 By Nigel Marriott

Since the UK voted to leave the EU on 23^rd June 2016, there have been 3 contested parliamentary by-elections (Witney, Richmond Park, Sleaford & North Hykeham) and one uncontested by-election (Batley & Spen which was the late Jo Cox’s seat). Many commentators have analysed these results to see how the referendum result has impacted on parliamentary voting intentions. Whatever voter dynamics are revealed, it is reasonable to assume that they are likely to influence future by-elections. In late October 2016 just after the Witney result, I realised it could be possible to build a by-election model by combining two sources of data.

My own estimates of the Leave & Remain votes in each of the 650 parliamentary constituencies where I calculated that 400 out of 650 seats voted Leave.
My interpretation of the Lord Ashcroft “exit poll” carried out on 21^st to 23^rd June 2016 and published immediately after the results were announced.

At the time, I described my by-election modelling approach in a youtube clip and that is worth listening to. I have made some changes to my model since then so this post is the most up to date version of my model. I will illustrate the basic principle using the Witney by-election (David Cameron’s former seat) of 20^th October 2016 where the top line numbers are:

6 Nations #3 – Who will win in 2017? – week 3

February 18, 2017 By Nigel Marriott

So the 6 Nations is underway again and the traditional rivalries are reheated. Who will win is once again on all the sports pages and there are no shortages of pundits willing to give their opinions. If you want a different way to predict what will happen, why not use the World Rugby Rankings?

Ranking tables play a big part in a number of sports but they are not widely understood among sports fans. At bottom though, rankings are intended to be used as a predictive tool for what will happen in a match. A good ranking system will be more accurate in predicting outcomes than a bad ranking system. However, a perfect ranking system is something we don’t want otherwise sport becomes boring as we will always know the outcome in advance. So as a forecasting tool, a ranking system is a curious beast. We want it to be good but not great.

UK General Election 2015 #2 – What would the result have been using the d’Hondt election system?

January 2, 2017 By Nigel Marriott

The 2015 General Election surprised many people when the Conservatives unexpectedly won a small majority though I should blow my own trumpet and say it wasn’t quite a surprise for me! One thing that wasn’t a surprise were complaints about the perceived unfairness of the First Past The Post election system with UKIP joining the Lib Dems with their criticisms.

Using the election results, I decided to see how the results would differ if a different election system had been used. The system I decided to explore was the d’Hondt system which is one of the most common PR systems in use and is used by the UK in EU elections.

The results of my analysis was published in the Significance magazine and you can see what I wrote in my article “A very different result“.

There are of course other election systems and I plan to write other posts looking at what the results might have been using those.

EU Referendum 2016 #1 – How and why did Leave win and what does it mean for UK politics? (a 4-part special)

January 1, 2017 By Nigel Marriott

I am delighted to announce my 4-part series describing my analysis of the EU referendum results is now complete and available on Youtube. The full list of the clips are:

Part 1 – Where and How did Leave win?

Part 2 – Why did Leave win?

Part 3 – What does the leave vote mean for the next general election?

Part 4 – How will Brexit play out in the Richmond & Sleaford by-elections

I have analysed the results of the EU referendum in some depth and I hope you find my insights informative. Some specific highlights are:

UK General Election 2015 #1 – My Forecast

May 3, 2015 By Nigel Marriott

In two days time, the results of the 2015 General Election will be in. Will there be another coalition? Will Labour get in? What about the SNP in Scotland? You can now see my forecast of the 2015 General Election presented as a YouTube clip and discover many interesting facts about elections in Britain.

The bottom line is that the polls will be wrong and the pundits will be caught by surprise!