Brexit
The assumption has been that Theresa May would win in a landslide[1] in her bid to marginalize hardliners in her own party and thereby bolster her negotiating position with the European Union on Brexit.[2] It was a gamble, but it looked like a decent gamble at the time she made it.[3]
That’s now all been called into question with a new survey—apparently using a new methodology that had apparently been successfully tested in the Brexit vote—by YouGov, a respected polling firm in the United Kingdom.[4] I do not see any indication, however, that the problem of low response rates[5] has been addressed and, in fact, it seems to me that a “constituency-by-constituency estimate of the election result”[6] would multiply rather than decrease the risk of a failure. Which makes all of this—both the Tory optimism and now the Tory pessimism—bullshit.
Sam Coates, “Poll firm predicts shock losses for Theresa May’s Tories at general election,” Times, May 31, 2017, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/latest-general-election-poll-predicts-conservatives-will-lose-seats-02zfwl8lc
- [1]Francis Elliott and Sam Coates, “May on course for landslide,” Times, May 6, 2017, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/may-on-course-for-landslide-f7pqgwwfp; Peter Geoghegan, “UK election reinforces Scotland’s divide,” Deutschewelle, May 3, 2017, http://www.dw.com/en/uk-election-reinforces-scotlands-divide/a-38674936↩
- [2]Jenny Gross and Jason Douglas, “U.K.’s Theresa May Calls Early Election, Seeking Brexit Leverage,” Wall Street Journal, April 18, 2017, https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-k-prime-minister-theresa-may-calls-general-election-1492510159↩
- [3]Timothy Stafford, “Theresa May’s Risky General Election Plan,” National Interest, April 18, 2017, http://nationalinterest.org/feature/theresa-mays-risky-general-election-plan-20255↩
- [4]Sam Coates, “Poll firm predicts shock losses for Theresa May’s Tories at general election,” Times, May 31, 2017, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/latest-general-election-poll-predicts-conservatives-will-lose-seats-02zfwl8lc↩
- [5]David Benfell, “On a nine percent response rate,” May 28, 2017, https://parts-unknown.org/drupal7/journal/2017/05/28/nine-percent-response-rate↩
- [6]Sam Coates, “Poll firm predicts shock losses for Theresa May’s Tories at general election,” Times, May 31, 2017, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/latest-general-election-poll-predicts-conservatives-will-lose-seats-02zfwl8lc↩