elections

UK General Elections #9 – The 40-55 Channel

July 4, 2025 By Nigel

Voting intentions in Britain were remarkably stable for the first half of 2025. The last time the polls were this stable was 10 years ago in the run up to the 2015 General Election.

What’s that I hear you say? Have I not noticed the surge in Reform’s vote share from 20% to 30%? I have but I’m focusing on the 40-55 Channel which has been the defining feature of voting intentions for nearly all of the last 15 years. Everything I see in 2025 tells me the 40-55 Channel will continue to define British politics all the way through to the next election by 2029. Perhaps I better explain what I’m talking about.

Forecasting #3 – How Accurate are My Election Forecasts?

May 8, 2025 By Nigel

A good forecaster should always provide an easily accessible list of forecasts made, how the forecast was arrived at and how accurate it ended up being. At long last, here is my election forecasting track record updated with the 2024 UK General Election so finally I am a good forecaster I hope!

UK General Elections #8 – How accurate are voting intention polls? – updated with GE2024

August 4, 2024 By Nigel

After their 2nd best ever performance in the 2019 UK General Election, the UK polling industry flipped in the 2024 UK General Election to their 2nd worst ever performance after 1992. 6 of the last 9 elections have seen at least one party experience a major polling error. It would appear the move to web polling and lower barriers of entry has led to poorer quality polls.

UK General Election 2024 #5 – My Final Forecast as of 3rd July 2024

July 3, 2024 By Nigel

My third and final forecast of the number of seats to be won by each party in the 2024 UK General Election is –

CON 130 (+17)
LAB 420 (-17)
LD 50
SNP 25
GRN 3
PC 2
REF 2
OTH NI 18

The numbers in brackets are the changes from my second forecast of 30th June 2024.

This article is based on polling data as of 2000 on 3rd July 2024. If more polling data comes in and causes me to change my forescript, the changes will be detailed in a postscript at the end of the article.

UK General Election 2024 #4 – My Forecast as of 30th June 2024

June 30, 2024 By Nigel

My second forecast of the number of seats to be won by each party in the 2024 UK General Election is –

CON 113 (+5)
LAB 437 (-5)
OTH 100 (unch)

The numbers in brackets are the changes from my first forecast of 23rd June 2024.

UK General Election 2024 #3 – My Forecast as of 23rd June 2024

June 23, 2024 By Nigel

My first forecast of the number of seats to be won by each party in the 2024 UK General Election is –

CON 108
LAB 442
OTH 100

UK General Election 2024 #2 – My Forecasting Model

June 22, 2024 By Nigel

My UK General Election 2024 forecasting model will be a top down version which I last used in 2010. Top down approaches first predict how many seats each party will win in total before seeking to identify which seats each party wins. This differs from the bottom-up approach I used in 2017 & 2019 where I forecast the outcome for each seat first and then aggregated the forecasts.

Here I explain how my 2024 forecast will be made but it finishes with a warning that I may have to dump my 2024 model in favour of the forecasting approach I used for the 2015 general election.

UK General Elections #7 – How accurate are voting intention polls? – Revised

June 8, 2024 By Nigel

Voting intention polls in the UK are accurate after all!

For years, I’ve observed that UK polls on average underestimate the Conservative vote and overestimate Labour’s vote. When I converted poll data into forecasts of seats won, I had to first estimate how much polling error there would be. So what’s changed? It turns out I was comparing polls to the wrong statistic, namely national vote share. The correct comparator is in fact average vote share per seat.

UK General Election 2024 #1 – Going beyond the swing

February 18, 2024 By Nigel

Labour is on course for a crushing landslide later this year… or are they? Many parallels with 1997 are being drawn at the moment but it’s too early to be making detailed forecasts. Instead, I want to lay the foundations for my election forecast later this year by looking at what 100 years of UK electoral history is telling me. I tell this story by assigning probabilities to 10 specific outcomes of interest and finish by explaining why 2024 is more likely to be a repeat of 2001 than 1997.

I remind you I was deemed the most accurate forecaster of the 2019 general election. This article is the first in what I hope will be a series of articles which lead me to hold on to that accolade!

By Elections #3 – Hartlepool + Chesham & Amersham + Batley & Spen = Brexit Realignment?

May 24, 2021 By Nigel

The Conservatives victory in the Hartlepool by-election means the Brexit realignment of British politics is still taking place … or does it? In fact, Labour’s defeat in Hartlepool for the first time in over 60 years should be put down to tactical voting rather than Brexit realignment, at least for now. It will be the two upcoming by-elections in Batley & Spen on 1st July representing the Red Wall and Chesham & Amersham on 17th June 2021 representing the Blue Sea that will answer the question “Is Brexit realignment is still continuing or did it end in December 2019?”