Parliamentary byelections - two imminent and two to follow.

It is probably about time to start looking at what is likely to happen in the four byelections that will most likely take place over the next few months and what they may tell us about the electoral performance of and prospects for the various parties ahead of #UKGeneralElection2024.

Will have a go at this over the next few days. You have been warned.

Nonetheless it is distinctly encouraging that some #labour campaigners have been allowed to develop such techniques and that these have led to positive results. It must be hoped that this practice will be adopted more widely between now and #UKGeneralElection2024. Their early adoption and development would be particularly helpful in #london well ahead of the elections for #mayor and #assembly in may nest year!

@Peternimmo

If so it will be an early test of the #opinionpolls suggesting that #labour support has recovered in #Scotland to the point where it could gain twenty or more seats there in #UKGeneralElection2024. So well worth watching!

The #Conservative share in opinion polls appears to have moved up from around 20% to a bit below 30% - reducing the likelihood of a landslide defeat for them in the #UKGeneralElection2024. This reflects the competence factor. #votersuppression does appear to have some effect against #Labour but did not work at all against the #libdems. Culture wars do not appear to have had any effect. The results for #Reform and #UKip suggest the #FarRight vote has collapsed.

And the logical thing for #Labour to do is to move as many as possible of its identified supporters onto #postalvoting as soon as possible. There should be particular emphasis on those who wold not wish to remove masks to vote in person and on low income voters. Done on a sufficient scale this should mitigate matters sufficiently to increase the chances of a overall majority for #Labour in the #UKGeneralElection2024 very substantially.

Such a result does look fairly plausible at the moment but it is quite possible that the #snp may recover before the #UKGeneralElection2024 so it cannot be regarded as certain. So it would make sense for #labour to do as much as practicable to reduce #VoterSuppression . Furthermore it cannot safely be assumed that the present government will do anything substantial to modify an arrangement from which their party benefits.

A very rough guess would be that sorting out the #VoterSuppression problem might be worth twenty seats to #labour in #UKGeneralElection2024 so well worth doing - and likely to make the difference between a minority #labour government and one with a working majority.

However there is another potential source of twenty seats. This is #Scotland.

There is precedent for an unexpected development in #Scottish voting changing the outcome of a #ukgeneralelection.

2017.

As for the third factor there is strong evidence of prioritisation and targeting that was both sensible and successful - as the results achieved in, among other places, Blackpool, Dover, Medway, Plymouth, Stoke and Swindon yesterday would suggest.

So there has to have been something else at work.

What was it and can #labour do anything about it before #UKGeneralElection2024?

A while back I indicated that I would return to the subject of prospects for #Labour in the #UKGeneralElection2024

The #LocalElections2023 give some new information so the time
has come to do just that.

#UKGeneralElection2024

I had hoped not to return to the prospects for the #UKGeneralElection2024 until some time in May.

However there have been a couple of unexpected developments so I will have to come back to them rather earlier.

Apologies in advance!

#UKGeneralElection2024

#JamesKanagasooriam has since suggested that a result like 2010 - albeit in reverse with the #Conservatives being reduced to 260 or so seats - is much more likely than a repeat of 1997 - when the #Conservatives were reduced to around 160.

Given his track record this should be taken seriously!

@malwaretech
#UKGeneralElection2024

My estimate of one million votes and forty or so seats assumes that roughly 4% of those voting switch from the #FarRight #ReformParty to the #Conservatives. Using an #OpenSource model from #ElectoralCalculus I ran several simulations for this - a difference of forty seats was the lowest plausible outcome.

There is precedent for #Conservatives to retain their position in the face of a swing to #Labour by squeezing the #FarRight vote - London in 2012.

#UKGeneralElection2024

What is more. Someone called James Kanagasooriam has been reported as anticipating a hung parliament.

Mr. Kanagasooriam has an enviable reputation. Much of the unexpectedly strong performance of the Conservatives in Scotland in the #UKGeneralElection2017 has been attributed to his advice and analysis. He is understood to have drawn attention to the #red wall constituencies ahead of the #UKGeneralElection2019

Arguably he is one of best #psephologists going!

#UKGeneralElection2024

Both the 1992 and 2015 General Elections show how previous polling leads for Labour may not be sustained.

There was a narrowing the other way round in 2017 so it is not just a Labour problem.

And the general election could be as much as eighteen months away!

#UKGeneralElection2024

I really wish that I had that degree of certainty - given how difficult matters might be in 2025 otherwise.

Labour would most likely need to win eighty plus seats in England to get anywhere near even to a situation where an arrangement like 1977 was practicable.

Easy to see forty or fifty but eighty a lot more problematic - not impossible but certainly no "done deal".

@jackLondon
#UKGeneralElection2024

FPTP has a limiting effect where party support is relatively evenly spread - less so where it is concentrated geographically - as in the case of the SNP.

@jackLondon
#UKGeneralElection2024 #Scotland

Agree completely.

#UKGeneralElection2024

The effect seems likely to be that Labour will achieve a rather similar performance in Scotland to what the Conservatives managed in 2017 thereby reducing the number of SNP M.P.s and thus the likelihood of a "hung parliament" followed by a second General Election in 2025.

So an interesting and potentially consequential development.

#UKGeneralElection2024

I had hoped to stay away from the subject until May but there has been an unforeseen material change which is likely to have a significant impact.

This relates to the situation in Scotland. There have been two events - probably related to each other.

The decision of the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, to step down has been well publicised. The latest opinion polls - which show Scottish Labour catching up with the SNP - have not been.

#UKGeneralElection2024

To sum it all up. The General Election will most likely be in 2024 - although autumn 2023 is just possible, the detailed outcome is likely to be consequential and there are rather a lot of uncertainties.

Current projections from the polls favour Labour but are likely to overstate the likelihood of a Labour majority - not to mention its size!

It is likely to look rather different this May - when I expect to return to the subject.

You have been warned!