… U.K. elections have been tough to forecast in recent years. The 2016 Brexit vote was a shock to many, although the polls suggested it would be close. The last parliamentary election, in May 2015, was also a surprise: Public opinion polls and academic forecasts predicted a hung parliament, but […] Read more »
Report card: how well did UK election forecasters perform this time?
Leighton Vaughan Williams, Nottingham Trent University When Theresa May announced on April 18 that she would call a snap general election, most commentators viewed the precise outcome of the vote as little more than a formality. The Conservatives were sailing more than 20% ahead of the Labour party in a […] Read more »
Britain: The End of a Fantasy
To understand the sensational outcome of the British election, one must ask a basic question. What happens when phony populism collides with the real thing? Last year’s triumph for Brexit has often been paired with the rise of Donald Trump as evidence of a populist surge. But most of those […] Read more »
The new electoral map of Britain: from the revenge of Remainers to the upending of class politics
What Brexit gives, Brexit takes away. Theresa May owed her position to her predecessor’s failed EU referendum gamble. Now her own gamble on a Brexit mandate has failed. A remarkable campaign, which saw towering 20-point poll leads crumble to nothing, has culminated in an even more remarkable result. … After […] Read more »
UK Election 2017: Was it Facebook wot swung it?
If you were surprised by the general election result, particularly the relative gains made by Labour and the worse-than-predicted Conservative performance, you probably weren’t keeping a close eye on Facebook. There was a sharp distinction between Tory and Labour styles when it came to social media. The Conservative focus seemed […] Read more »
Uncertainty, More Than Populism, Is New Normal in Western Politics
Theresa May, Britain’s prime minister, has joined a long line of politicians who have gambled that they understood the populist wave overtaking Western politics and lost. Thursday’s election capped a year in which the latest theory of politics in the populist era perpetually seemed to prove incorrect, as did many […] Read more »