Westminstenders: Fallout coming to a place near you soon

[RedToothBrush]

Once again not much to report on Brexit itself.

The sideshow of Gavin Williamson lots set to run and rumble on. The scandal further weakens May as she has lost a key ally. Despite his protests of innocence, May herself must believe he is guilty. Whether this is because she is indeed too heavily influenced by Sedwill is the question, but for her to sack him when she has failed to do so with other Cabinet Members so many times means she must feel there is good reason. Every other party has seen it as a good opportunity to put the boot in and demand an investigation. So far this has been paid lip service as the Cabinet Office must approve any investigation and this doesn't seem to be forthcoming from Lidington. This may not hold, if pressure grows. In truth the whole affair is unlikely to damage Williamson's leadership ambitions; he has raised his profile and set up a narrative of a Remainer Victim. Penny Mordaunt has been the other major beneficiary of the issue.

May now seems to have abandoned the idea that there will be a way forward found before the European elections and they are now definitely going ahead. This isn't a surprise as there is no incentive for Labour to have an agreement before the EU elections in which the Conservatives are certain to get a bloody nose. She also seems to be dropping hints they she will give into a customs union.

We have a visit from Trump to look forward to, which will be utterly joyous. There are rumours that he might meet Farage whilst he is here. His visit starts on 3rd June and finish on the 5th.

The Peterborough By Election is set for just a few days later on the 6th June. The Brexit Party have a very good chance of winning their first Parliamentary seat here - so the temptation to have a photo shoot with Trump will be all the more appealing to Farage. The hope must be that the Brexit vote will be split, allowing Labour to retain the seat. The previous Conservative MP, Stewart Jackson might well stand and he's very Brexity, George Galloway is trying to get the Brexit Party candidency though I think it unlikely and he will probably stand as a Pro-Brexit Independent anyway. There is also the prospect of Farage himself standing as its a winnable seat, but this seems unlikely as you can't be an MEP and an MP and its a high risk strategy to go for MP rather than a sure fire MEP. (Plus the pay is better for MEP).

May faces a challenge at grassroots level with an Emergency Meeting called by the Conservative Associations at her leadership. This will be in mid June. After the local, EU elections and Trump's visit this will be difficult for her to survive. Whilst she has survived this long, this will prove to be her biggest challenge yet.

It has to be said that there is no sign that we will get anything but no deal ultimately. There is an admission that May can't pass a Queen's speech with anything meaningful, so as long as she remains as PM parliament is even more paralysed that it has been to date. All things point to a new leader who is very Brexitty or accidental no deal because May can not do anything.

Meanwhile in the real world there are rumours that cancer treatments are now being delayed indefinitely due to Brexit... And so we continue to destroy ourselves and now, it seems, actively kill people in the name of Brexit.

Local Election results will start tonight with the majority tomorrow. Tories are expecting 700 - 1000 losses.

hey will for the EP and the GE

A key summary statistic of the outcome of each year’s annual round of local elections is the so-called Projected National Share (PNS). This is an estimate of the share of the vote that the principal parties would have won in a GB-wide general election if voters across the country as a whole had behaved in the same way as those who actually voted in the local elections.

Also (as mentioned previously on the thread):

Meanwhile, this year’s local elections are being held in most (though not all) provincial England; there are not any elections in London, Scotland or Wales. As a result, the places with elections this year are more pro-Leave than Britain as a whole. On average, the Leave vote at the 2016 referendum was 56%, compared with 52% in Britain as a whole, and 53% in England.

This article explains it, as well as how it is extrapolated to give an idea of the potential make up of the HoC if there was a GE:

electionsetc.com/2019/05/01/calculating-the-local-elections-projected-national-share-pns-and-projected-house-of-commons-in-2019/

How's those Local Elections going?

I know this was on page 7

But i think the answer is....

Very well thank you

I read Curtice's article a few days ago and this passage confirmed my suspicion that PNS will not be very useful when it comes to the EP or GE results:

"Of course, one potentially important caveat is that the local elections will not tell us anything about how well either the two new parties, the Brexit Party or Change UK, might do in a general election,
as they are not contesting any of the seats at this year’s local elections."

With BREX polling at 30% for the EP - and the number of Remain parties likely to split the vote - the PNS does not help much

Is that the poll which disregarded 'don't knows' which, if included, would have diluted BREX to 18%, which a PP linked to earlier? Or a different, more scary, one?

Oh clearly any extrapolation from LE results to a theoretical GE is going to be wildly off base, and not just because new parties didn’t contest local elections (and tbf if Brexit happens before any GE then the Brexit party won’t need to contest that either). People vote very differently at local elections, for many different reasons.

But it’s interesting to ponder, in this limbo we find ourselves in.

fluffy We have 4 polls by 3 reputable pollsters, all with BREX at or near 30% for EP elections

The most recent has the highest BREX at 30%

Britain Electss@britainelects*

European Parliament voting intention:

BREX: 30% (+2)
LAB: 21% (-1)
CON: 13% (-)
LDEM: 10% (+3)
CHUK: 9% (-1)
GRN: 9% (-1)
UKIP: 4% (-1)

via @Yougov, 29 - 30 Apr < fieldwork >

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk

YouGov
CON 13%
LAB 22%
LDEM 7%
BREX 28%
UKIP 5%
GRN 10%
ChUK 10%
.... Tables are heree_.

Opinium
CON 14%
LAB 28%
LDEM 7%
BREX 28%
UKIP 3%
GRN 6%
ChUK 7%
.... Full tabs are heree_.

Survation
CON 16%
LAB 27%
LDEM 8%
BREX 27%
UKIP 7%
GRN 4%
ChUK 4%
... Full tables are heree_.

Local elections turnout was 36.3%,

1% below 2018 and 1% above 2017
About average for locals without a GE

We have 4 polls by 3 reputable pollsters, all with BREX at or near 30% for EP elections

Which is why I asked which poll you were using, given the above information. Thank you for clarifying.

And 30 different ideas of Brexit, most of which will need the WA.

There are going to be lots of disappointed people.

Polls of 1000 voters normally have +/-3 % accuracy

BUT we've no measure of how accurately pollsters predict BREX and CHuK, because we don't know how they sampled & weighted to cope with new parties.

Also, some BREX voters may not normally vote, so they may not be sampled correctly and pollsters can only guestimate their likelihood to vote

Unlike the older parties, there is no track record to compare prediction with elections for them

The EP elections will be the first test - so pollsters might need to adjust their methodology afterwards

All forms of Brexit will need the WA

No Deal just means that economic disaster will force the UK a few months after Brexit Day to sign up to at least the 3 main terms - backstop, exit bill & expat rights - before the EU will negotiate even on minideals

Looking at the HopeNotHate figures, you essentially have 68% voting for a 'leave' party, if you include Labour (which I did). That's just not good enough for remainers.

How different were the pre-local election polls vs the actual results? I'm not sure they predicted the Tory disaster. Hopefully these ones are wrong too.

And can any statistician explain how a sample of 1,000 is accurate (give or take a few percent) across a population of millions? That's quite bonkers to me (not ever having studied stats, as far as I remember)!

Or the Tory disaster in its magnitude, anyway.

All forms of Brexit will need the WA

I was missing No Deal out of that, so we can have the delights of a meltdown for a happy six weeks or so.

So what does everyone think will happen this next week? More meaningless votes and aggressive pushing of the WA?

A shit tonne of gaslighting and aggressive WA-pushing with additional Labour fudge included for good measure.

More 'constructive meetings' between Labour and Conservatives.

fluffy The key is to get representative sampling in those 1000 people, which is skilled work
When it comes to voting, pollsters must also weight for likelihood to actually vote on the day

Statistics uses standard deviations and the associated probabilities of being outside a standard deviation.
This is partly why we occasionally get a rogue poll.
However, public mood can sometimes change suddenly, after certain events happen, so that all polls are out of date

We say polls are predictions; more importantly, they are also only a snapshot in time.

Useful explanations of polling 1000 people & why / how it works

www.britishpollingcouncil.org/a-journalists-guide-to-opinion-polls/

www.scientificamerican.com/article/howcan-a-poll-of-only-100/

@pretty What did you think of this ?

• Gove planning to roll back devolution if he becomes leader !!

He really is an extreme Unionist, not just wrt NI

Michael Gove unveils plans to take control of Holyrood cash

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/michael-gove-says-uk-could-withhold-cash-from-scottish-government-1-4920727/amp?

NI local elections

Still not quite finished counting (STV), but looks like many Unionists have switched to the non-sectarian Alliance (Remain)

Alliance is the big winner with +20

The 4 Unionist parties are the big losers -28
of which DUP -9

SF +1 Remain, but sectarian

Oh yes "constructive" talks leading to some sort of fudge involving a customs deal. TM will bring it back to Parliament where ERM will refuse to back it as they want Hard Brexit and most of the Labour party will refuse to back it unless it goes to a a PV.

Mmmmm fudge.

You mean Groundhog Day, Ellie. M

And thank you, BCF. That's really helpful.