Politics – Page 3

UK General Election 2017 Seat Forecast #1 – Bath, South West

May 21, 2017 By Nigel Marriott

This post was first published on 29th April 2017 and predicted a narrow Conservative Hold. I updated this post on 21st May 2017 to take into account latest data.

Welcome to the first of my constituency forecasts for the 2017 General Election. I’ve chosen to start with the seat of Bath currently held by the Conservatives for two reasons. First, it is where I live so I have a personal interest! Second, it is the bell-weather seat for the Liberal Democrats when it comes to the success of the anti-Brexit strategy. Fail to take Bath and they can kiss goodbye to any chance of making the election a success.

MY FORECAST – Lib Dem GAIN but still very marginal

UK General Election 2017 Seat Forecast #6 – Edinburgh South, Scotland

May 15, 2017 By Nigel Marriott

For my first Scottish seat forecast, I head up to Labour’s last seat in Scotland. I have just become aware of a constituency poll in Edinburgh that took place at the beginning of April before the election was called but the data has only just been released by Survation.

At first sight the poll is bad news for the Conservatives and good news for Labour but I will show that in fact the reverse is the case and that the poll is further evidence that a Brexit Realignment may be taking place. If so, the Conservatives majority in Parliament will be larger than current predictions are showing.

My Prediction – LAB Hold

UK General Election 2017 Seat Forecast #5 – North Norfolk, East England

May 13, 2017 By Nigel Marriott

This is my first seat forecast from the Eastern region and I have chosen the seat of North Norfolk for two reasons. First it is one of only 8 seats held by the Lib Dems in 2015 and one of 3 Lib Dem-Leave seats. Second, it is one of 23 seats in Britain this election that will be fought between only 3 candidates from the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats. Both UKIP and the Greens have decided not to stand in this seat and this will be a good seat to examine my model for handling the votes of parties that stand down.

My Prediction – CON GAIN but extremely marginal

UK General Election 2017 Seat Forecast #4 – Bishop Auckland, North East

May 10, 2017 By Nigel Marriott

This forecast was updated on 17th May 2017. The predicted outcome is unchanged from my previous forecast.

For my 4th seat forecast of the 2017 general election, I am heading to the North East which is where I grew up. A colleague who lives in the Bishop Auckland seat told me that “Labour could put a monkey up as a candidate and it would get elected”. Since the seat was created in 1885, no Tory has ever won this seat and it has been Labour since 1935.

My Prediction – CON Gain

UK General Election 2017 Seat Forecast #2 – Kensington, London

May 2, 2017 By Nigel Marriott

This is the second of my seat forecasts for the 2017 general election. I have to be honest, it never occurred to me that I would be covering Kensington as that seems a straightforward seat to forecast. However, Kensington now has the distinction of being the first seat to have a constituency poll published and the results provide an insight as to which might be the best forecasting model to use.

My Prediction – Straightforward CON Hold but first signs that this is a Brexit realignment election

UK General Election 2017 Forecast #1 – Prediction as of 28th April 2017

April 30, 2017 By Nigel Marriott

Here you can find my latest forecast of the 2017 UK General Election on 8th June. My forecast uses data from my latest UK Opinion Poll Tracker and it is worth reading that post in conjunction with this post.

My latest prediction using uniform regional swing is that the Conservatives will make a net gain of 78 seats resulting in a working majority of 171 seats. Such a majority would be on a par with Tony Blair’s landslides of 1997 & 2001. If anti-Conservative tactical voting takes place then this has the potential to reduce the Conservatives working majority to 135 seats which I am sure Theresa May would be very happy with! [Read more…] about UK General Election 2017 Forecast #1 – Prediction as of 28th April 2017

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!