Toot toot!

What’s that, children?

It’s the election bus! And look, it’s being driven by… a tiny sad clown in a sodden Henry Herbert two-piece!

*assorted honking and the slapping of oversized shoes*

Yes. It’s election season again. In six weeks, we’ll be able to go and briefly stand in a re-appropriated toilet stall in a local leisure centre to use a pencil we wouldn’t have stolen anyway. Through this mystical rite, we may turn our will into democracy manifest. It is, in a sense, a bit like transubstantiation.

I’m obviously elated – because I’ve got a politics problem – but this one has come a bit out of the blue and trying to make sense of what’s actually going on is… less clear than it’d usually be at this point. Thankfully, there are people who absolutely aren’t experts but are full of semi-informed opinions who’re on-hand to help with that. And thankfully for you in particular, I am one of those people.

I’ll be straight with you right from the off: I’m not even going to pretend to be impartial here. Or anywhere else, for that matter. Honest, sure. Informative, if I can be. Entertaining, I hope. But if you’re one of the three lucky weirdos a year who has stumbled across this place for the first time, be warned.

Here’s links to overviews of who is doing what and who isn’t really doing anything.

Conservatives

Labour

Reform UK

Liberal Democrats

Everyone Else

A Word On Polling

The polls are pretty consistent, across all sources: Labour are set for a substantial win. But a word of caution.

First, polls change. Regardless of who you plan to vote for, don’t be complacent or defeatist. The numbers will shift over the coming weeks and the only thing any of us can do is go out and vote. Even if we’re idiots who for some reason want more of the babbling shitebats who’ve been in power for the past 14 years. Please don’t be one of them.

Second, a lot of polls this year are using what’s called MRP – multi-level regression and post-stratification. It’s a clever system that uses techniques widely applied within Machine Learning systems, attempting to adjust figures for a whole host of demographic and other factors.

It has a pretty good hit rate, generally performing better than other methods. However, like all of them, it uses certain assumptions. And the problem with assumptions are they can be wrong. The MRP figures are such at the moment that I’d not be surprised if there’s something in there throwing things a bit. It could be good old-fashioned sampling errors, but it could also be some variable within the MRP algorithm itself. Or it could be nothing. But my gut feel is that the variances we’re seeing suggest these models are painting a slightly too-rosy picture for Labour.

That’s not to say I don’t think they’ll win, and quite handily at that; that’s very much my expectation. All it means is that the confidence with which certain sources are predicting massive 400+ Labour majorities could be a bit ambitious. But, that said, the data we have is all there is to go on, so I’ve done just that throughout.