John Curtice on Nigel Farage: Labour are 99% chance of being next government

around the world, but it's also a pretty big election year in this country and it really all starts in Earnest on May 2, when there will be a London mayoral election, a London assembly election, nine metropolitan mayors are also in choice. Police and crime commissioners will also be elected along with 2,618 Council seats of various types across the country. Of those seats, at the moment the Conservatives have 985 seats, Labor 966 and the Malib Democrats 410. I am joined by Sir John Curtis. and before I take S John to his general election predictions, uh, this is a reasonably big election batch, isn't it on May 2nd?

What should we be on the lookout for? Yes, it's a reason to be a big batch, actually, once you put everything in. In that complicated set of several elections, everyone in England and Wales will have the opportunity to vote for at least something on May 2, so to that extent it is a big and important test. Now what you have to understand is that the majority of these elections are for seats and positions that were last contested in May 2021. Now, in May 2021, the Conservatives were six points ahead in the opinion polls and, in fact, they managed to win the Heart liol through elections on the same day they got the seed.

Labor and that was also broadly reflected in the result of the local elections that day, although we must always remember that Li's Democrats do better in the local elections than in the current poll, in other words, in reality, as close as Compared to last year, the Conservatives will defend a fairly high baseline in most of these elections, when now, in a situation where the Conservatives are on average 20 points behind in the opinion polls, Now in local elections, the changes do not always reflect exactly what You might expect, given what the polls say, which would suggest a swing of about 13 points compared to 2021 last year, the swing in local elections was a little less than the swing in the polls at the time, but you can still see a It is not unlikely that in these polls there will be an average of 100 swings against the Conservatives, which could mean they could lose perhaps half of the seats on the councils that they are trying to defend, maybe half of the councils on which they are trying to defend overall control.

About 10 of the PCC's elections, perhaps their worst result in a Greater London Assembly election since the first one in 2000, and probably Andy Street in the West Midlands could be struggling to hold on to his position as the West Midlands Conservative there. So you can see that there is potentially a lot at stake and you can see how quickly there is a risk that at least these local elections turn out to be pretty bad news for the Conservatives. Yeah, I mean, let's say they know they lose. half of their seats have been reduced to 500 councilors in this particular round, you know that level at which that kind of bold sunak alarm, the bells start ringing and the letters start pouring in and we are in new contests of leadership, there are a number. here somewhere that would be acceptable to the

government

, given that as you say in 2021 they were at a high level, is there a level of loss that they might consider acceptable?

Yes, of course, I will give you a very simple reference point if we take the position in the local elections last year, uh, when you look at the votes instead of looking at the seats and extrapolate to the country as a whole, you see that the conservatives are about nine points behind Labor if they can do better than that in these local elections and that. it would mean that, for example, they would be losing, you know, maybe 300 seats on the Council instead of 500, they could hold on to the majority of the councils where they are trying to hold on to control, um, maybe they wouldn't be losing.

After more than half a dozen CCP elections, they can reduce the numbers to that level, then Richi Sunak could at least claim that, despite what the polls say, he has made some degree of progress and that if they continue to make progress. between then and the fall, uh, then things wouldn't be like that, then the party might still manage to hold on, so the truth is, yeah, you can see how anything that's significantly better than the initial set of numbers I gave you could mean that Mr. Sonic will be able to tell that things are getting better, okay, that's really helpful, let's keep that in our minds for the

next

5 weeks.

Now, Sir John, you know that you are not a man who strikes me as a big player or someone who makes outrageous comments and claims that you are a political scientist, a theologian, um, but you came out and said that it is 99% certain that the Labor Party will win. the general elections. Now he needs Nigel, as he says he, I'm very careful. about what I said, what I said was in a presentation to fellow political scientists last night is that there was a 99%

chance

that Labor would form the

next

government

and that is not the same, now let me explain to you the moment in which the opinion.

On average, polls give the Labor Party a 20-point lead. Now let's look at recent full parliaments, like '92 and '97 or 2005 and 2010, and this is going to be a full parliament. What is the biggest narrative of the lead that has occurred in the last eight? months or so of said parliament, while it turns out to be the six-point reduction of the Conservative lead over Labor in 2010. Now let's also say that perhaps the polls as a whole will suffer exactly the worst of the recent electoral failures, which is that of 1992, when they overestimated Labor's turnout. relative position the Tories buy about eight points, let's put that into the mix too, so we're taking two extreme events adding them together and we still have Labor six points ahead now they're probably hung parliament territory rather than majority Labor territory , but and this is the other thing, it is the other thing behind the 99%, it is not just the leadership in the polls, it is that the conservatives lack friends within the House of Commons and we know that if the Democrats did not support would help sustain a minority conservative administration, we certainly know that. the S&P will not declare maybe maybe only the DUP could do it again, although if they will be willing to do it again question mark yes, but to get to that situation we are talking about the preserves must be at least 315 316 seats or something well, that implies at least a two or two Tory lead over Labor and we're still quite far away, so that's the calculation.

It has to be something unprecedented to get the Conservatives into a position where they can hold on to power, so John, thank you very much for joining us and explaining that this shows that you don't believe every headline you read in the newspapers, thank you.