by Stephen Fisher.
Extrapolating the results of yesterday’s local elections to those parts of Britain that did not have local elections produces a GB share of the vote of Con 30, Lab 31, LD 15, UKIP 12, and Others 12. Continue reading BBC Projected National Share (PNS) of the vote 2016
by John Curtice and Stephen Fisher
Much of the speculation about what might happen in the English local elections tomorrow has focused on how many seats each party – and especially Labour – could or should gain or lose. Indeed, we can expect many a judgement to be cast on Friday on the basis of this evidence. However, given that these elections are held under first past the post, seats won and lost can be a poor guide to how well a party has done in the ballot box. A party whose vote has fallen less than that of their principal rivals may gain seats even though it has lost votes. A third party whose vote is geographically spread may make a substantial advance in votes yet reap little reward on terms of seats. Meanwhile, even if these issues do not arise, seats won and lost only provide an indication of whether a party has lost or gained ground as compared with when the seats up for grabs were last contested – which (as this year) is usually four years ago. Continue reading Calculating the Local Elections Projected National Share (PNS) in 2015 and 2016
by Stephen Fisher
Local elections are supposed to be about local matters, but the electoral fortunes of councillors and would-be councillors depend very heavily on the popularity of their parties nationally. So the outcome of this year’s local elections depend on how the current standing of the parties compares with four years ago when the seats up for election this year were last contested.
In the run up to the 2012 local elections Labour were polling above 40% with a solid 9 point lead over the Conservatives, in part because of the so-called omnishambles budget. Meanwhile the Liberal Democrats had slumped in the polls after the formation of the coalition government with little over 11%.
According to the average of the most recent polls from six companies, Labour have dropped since 2012 to 35% now, only narrowly ahead of the Conservatives who are on 34%. The Liberal Democrats have slid even further to just 7%. On this basis alone we should expect both Labour and the Lib Dems to lose substantial numbers of council seats while the Conservatives should make gains from their 3-point recovery. Continue reading Forecasting Local Election Seats 2016
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?
A naïve glance at the overall changes in the share of the vote since 2010 in the graph below suggests that UKIP’s big gains came as the expense of the biggest losers, the Liberal Democrats. Continue reading Unraveling the 2014 local election changes in the share of the vote: who suffered most from UKIP?
The Labour lead of 2 percentage points in the BBC’s projected national share of the local election vote (PNS) is too narrow a lead for Labour to suggest they will be ahead in a general election next year. Continue reading What do the 2014 local election results mean for next year’s general election?
The BBC Projected National Share of the vote just announced is Con 29, Lab 31, LD 13, UKIP 17, Others 10.
The PNS is an attempt to estimate what the share of the vote would be if the whole of GB had local elections and if the three main Westminster parties had fielded candidates in all wards, as they do in general elections. For more details see here and here. Continue reading BBC Projected National Share of Vote 2014
