All posts by electionsetc

General elections

Speculation on parliamentary arithmetic

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This is the second in a series of posts in response to John Rentoul’s excellent article, much of which discussed the politics of our 11 July central seat forecast (Con 296, Lab 295, LD 31; so either Con+LD or Lab+LD would have a majority).

I have mixed feelings about speculation on the parliamentary arithmetic of any particular forecast. Part of the point of the forecasting method is to estimate uncertainty, which is naturally huge this far away from an election. Continue reading Speculation on parliamentary arithmetic →

General elections, Methodology

Fluctuations in polls and the timeliness of the forecast

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Belated thanks to John Rentoul for his excellent article on last week’s forecast. This is not to say that I necessarily agree or disagree with his views on the desirability of particular election outcomes, just that I think it is a good discussion of lots of issues in politics and forecasting. Continue reading Fluctuations in polls and the timeliness of the forecast →

General elections, Methodology

Why is the 2015 general election forecast trending?

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A few people have asked me this question about my forecast. The trends are definitely there as you can see from the graphs below. But since they are well within the very broad prediction intervals, there is a danger of reading too much into them. Certainly we are far from having enough information to say the model isn’t working well for this electoral cycle. Continue reading Why is the 2015 general election forecast trending? →

European elections, General elections, Local elections, Methodology

What do the 2014 European and local election results mean for the opinion polls and next year’s general election?

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Labour emerged narrowly ahead of the Conservatives in both the local and European Parliament elections. I discussed the implications of the local election results in a previous post on Friday. The results of the Euros only came through last night. This post considers the lessons learnt from both elections for the general election, including the likely accuracy of the opinion polls. Continue reading What do the 2014 European and local election results mean for the opinion polls and next year’s general election? →