My model-based forecasts for net seat gains/losses at 2025 local elections:
Con -350
Lab -140
LD +75
Green +65
Reform +375
Others -25

electionsetc.com/2025/04/30/l...

This is what we mean when we say it’s actually difficult for Labour to have a ‘really bad night’ tonight, by usual standards.

They’re defending about 1/3 of the seats that the Conservatives are.

Mayoral contests (esp. WoE and Cambs) offer more obvious areas of political pain for the government.

Useful illustration voters aren’t Lego bricks and a Tory/Reform merger is far from a silver bullet with opposition in both camps. Support for a merger likely even lower for voters Tories lost to Labour/Lib Dems (which is ~same no as they lost to reform) and they need to win back

The U.K.’s first transgender judge, Dr Victoria McCloud, has announced plans to take the government to the European Court of Human Rights over the Supreme Court gender ruling

The idea that the government simply has to deliver on its missions to win back public trust (and electoral support) is fanciful. The depth of disillusionment with British politics and government is very clear from focus groups like these...

Great report that largely confirms what we have found for other countries. 1) Potential losses to Reform are dwarved by potential losses to Greens/LibDems. 2) Moving right on immigration has very small effect on retaining potential Reform voters. Net gains/losses largely cancel each other out.

Fascinating subplot here - the collapse of the NDP polling. Gonna go out on a limb and guess that in CA, as in the UK, there are a lot of voters who switch between "I hate the main left-wing party and will vote for an alternative" and "My overriding priority is to stop the right"

Intriguingly, though pollsters have similar overall shares for Labour and Reform, there's a bit of a divide on where the Lab 24 vote is going:

YouGov: 15% to left (Lib Dem, Green), 7% right (Reform, Con), 12% don't know

FocalData: 12% left, 16% right, 6% DK

Opinium: 11% left, 11% right, 14% DK

The global (far) right to Trump

One thing that intrigues me with this line of thinking is how few political strategists seem to understand that just because the contest is ostensibly x vs y, it is perfectly possible for x to lose the seat without losing many votes directly to y (and could have kept the seat by appealing to z).

NEW 🧵

The number of people travelling from Europe to the US in recent weeks has plummeted by as much as 35%, as travellers have cancelled plans in response to Trump’s policies and rhetoric, and horror stories from the border.

Story: www.ft.com/content/6dc1...

On the one hand it’s a low turnout by-election, on the other the size of the swing against Labour demonstrates how real the potential threat Reform are in their heartland seats, and crucially going beyond those red wall seats that fell in 2019.

Liberty deal looks like it will go ahead, according to Reuters.

www.reuters.com/markets/deal...

NEW 🧵

A quick thread of charts showing how Trump’s economic agenda is going so far:

1) US consumers are reacting very very negatively.

These are the worst ratings for any US government’s economic policy since records began.

Here's the thing. Quite a lot of commentators are, understandably, saying this case might embolden far right. Issue is if Le-Pen won it definitely would embolden them. It isn't a verdict which can be ignored, but it can be discussed in a way which highlights inconsistencies in far right messaging 1/

Democrats are winning special elections like it's 2018 again!

But how likely is that that enthusiasm will translate to victory in 2026?

Let's dive into the data:

open.substack.com/pub/gelliott...

Wilders’ polling lead continues to disappear; the (strongly pro-Zelensky) VVD and Timmermans’ Labour alliance are both snapping at his heels.
While the BBB and NSC are both flirting with obsolescence - current polls have them *combined* winning only the same number of seats as the window-licking FvD