Coffee House Shots
Will there be an election upset on Thursday?
If you don't subscribe to The Spectator now is the perfect time to give us a try. We're having an election time offer, three pounds for three months, that's a pretty good deal, magazine, digital access, and to top it off you get a free mug with Morton Moreland's election artwork. So to get the software go to spectator.co.uk/mug. Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots. I'm James Zealand and I'm joined today by the Spectator's Political Editor Katie Balls and James Gassaurium of Focal Data. Now James you've been outlining over the last few days you've got a couple of big poles and MRP poles that come out. There's three doors you think these are all going to be about. Tell us about them. So one of the themes of the campaign has been the wide range of sequel costs. And I think the easiest way to think about it is the story which is there are three doors that the let's talk about the right for a second that they could walk through in terms of the forecasts. The first door which I think companies like Salvation have come out with is just quite an apocalyptic scenario of the Conservative Party basically vying with the Liberal Democrats for second and third place on around 60 seats. The second door which is a host of companies including my own which is a very very bad election outcome for the Conservatives but around 110 seats. So terrible fall from 370 by the way on notional boundaries. Eight points lower than the lowest boat share it's had since the franchise but still around and still sizable and still triple figures. And then I guess the third door which people don't talk about which is a swingback to don't know is a slightly higher vote share. Conservative Party basically has the 1997 result minus sum. And I think it's around 40% likely the first door which is the apocalyptic scenario. I'd say 40% likely based on all the firms and the one that we forecast which is the kind of 110, 120, 100 scenario. And then that leaves 20% the outlier scenario but not that outlier. And so we just have to get comfortable when the exit poll drops. I will not be surprised to see any number between 60 and 160 basically. Yeah I think it's hard right now to talk about that best case scenario for the Tories because it feels so much dread. I mean obviously last night we had the surprise appearance of Boris Johnson at Conservative rally which you know again I think somebody could dispute the moment. I mean it's Boris Johnson that popular on polling. Perhaps not broadly I think the hope is he might speak to some of your 2019 voters but you know two days before polling day because it's last night. It does not feel to me as though it's gonna have too much time to bear it and I think probably the best thing it does is in terms of the Tories it means that the Tory message is being amplified soon to the polling day and getting lots of coverage front pages and news coverage and it means that the Tory you know lines against Labour on a platform as opposed to you know Labour leading the news so that could be helpful. And then perhaps on a personal Boris Johnson point it maybe make some activists think a bit better of him should he want to flirt for a redundant future. No I'm not sure one appearance compared to you know the door knocking that lots of former leaders and you know senior politicians stepping down have done. We'll quite do it but that was never really Boris Johnson's stick. But if you look at I suppose you know the talk yes we've united again and you know what might go right for the Tories. I think it's interesting to think you know what are we missing in the selection perhaps when it comes to polling and the outcomes because if we look at previous elections there's often something we don't quite see coming and I think that I've been struck just from speaking to Labour candidates, Labour organisers, Tory candidates, Tory organisers and some of the Lib Dems and they will say they do not recognise some of these polls when they're going out door knocking. They do not think that you know Labour will say that it does not feel as though they're about to win a super majority from some of the responses they're getting on the doors. Now it could well be that polling is so sophisticated at this point they are finding voters that you do not find but going around you know canvassing on your own. And it might also be that the Tory voters cratering so much it does not matter that there is you know less huge personal enthusiasm wherever Labour door knocker goes but it does mean both sides of the two main parties, the two main parties before the election are querying whether you know things are as bad for the Tories as some of the polling is suggesting. James what are we potentially missing here? In previous elections there's been talk of shy Tories and that changed the 1992 and 2015 results. What could we possibly be missing here ahead of the exit poll? Yeah it's a really interesting one and just amazing to hear Katie talk about Boris Johnson coming back really reminds me of the person at a dinner party he says can I help 30 seconds before dinner comes out and you're like yes yes of course you can. Look each election has a story that is never quite right and comes out and acts as a kind of degree of surprise. I don't think the surprise here is going to be a conservative victory but there's always a pocket of surprises and I think with this one couple. So first of all I think Scotland continues to be a place where pollsters have very low levels of confidence about what's going to happen and what the SMPC count could be and it can range anywhere from I think around as low as 10 to north of 25 and by the way that matters hugely because of course we've got the holly rude elections I think in 2027 with an incumbent Labour government I think the build out from there it could be very different depending on the circumstance in the Westminster party. The second I think surprise is the you know one of the things that you follow politics and you look at the exit poll and I was looking back through old videos of exit polls because I do that too don't I? Don't worry that's a secret club of strong. You're both inspirations. Strong background with like Warhammer and battleships but yeah and one of the really striking things is the number of times the Liberal Democrats are disappointed and not just in 2015 so you go back to 2010 expectations of 100 seats Liberal Democrats get kind of 60. 2015 expectations they might survive get wiped out. 2017 vote chairs up four points don't really get any few extra seats. I find it hard to believe that the Liberal Democrats can underperform expectations five times in a row that that would be a record. One of the kinks I think might be a surprisingly strong kind of seat count for them but I think it's just kind of casting in my back you know what was the you know what were the outliers in 2019 for me I think it was the degree that the Conservative vote share didn't really increase that much since 2017 so I was quite surprised so basically Theresa May's vote share would have won 70% of the Conservative gains in 2019 and actually most of it was delivered basically by Corbin's decline and I think that's that kind of surprised me and it was a lower turnout as well versus the 2017 election so actually for all the conversation about what happened between 2017 and 19 the Conservative Party basically stayed static with an interregnum. The 2017 campaign I was also surprised by the collapse of the you kit vote and will return to that because that is a bit of a tale for what could happen the you kit vote declined proportionally so basically the higher you kit had been in 2015 where they got 12 and a half percent the more that they basically collapsed before and in areas like London where they had been less strong actually the vote share fall was much smaller and for me the 2017 election the the degree of the compression of the two minor parties you know the obvious surprises of course Corbin's very steep vote share rise but actually the really interesting thing was that total compression 2015 proportional swing again Scottish Labour they only they still got 22% of the vote and the lost over seat by Edinburgh South which again should scare the current government right you don't have to be that low to get kind of wiped out so each election we've had these little kinks and quirks and yeah broadly I think the Lib Dems and the SNP could be a surprise there's also a high degree of uncertainty as to the number of reform MPs who could be elected to a surveyion yesterday you mentioned their poll I think they on a probabilistic basis so probabilistic meaning that you assign a probability that each party would win each seat and then you add them all up and you say that's your predicted number of seats they have it as high as I think seven fact check me but and I think you know other other models and other forecasts can have that down as low as one I think that really matters the difference between one reform MP or two like Nigel Farage and probably Lee Anderson and then seven because suddenly you have a huge that the feel of that whole thing will be very different and I think another factor of course is independence what's happening with the Gaza vote because we saw in the local elections that it did actually have a big impact and in some of those swings you know parts of the West Midlands are replicated you have Labour and be saying well my seat might be you know up for grabs so are we going to see much of that I mean I suppose where you have Thangam Devanao in terms of Bristol Central that is a green vote that my eyes tip at you but I think you know you speak to some of those in the ground they think that anger over Labour's position on Israel Palestine has helped them in terms of bringing over some of the votes there but you have these independence I mean will George Galloway hold a seat I'm looking at James but I think some of the polling has not really taken into account so you will have figures in Labour so they are concerned I think not so concerned they think it's definitely going to happen but they think there is a question mark on a few seats you know you've had to talk about Shabhana Mahmoud's seat yeah Birmingham Ladywood there's also you know I think a seat in Yorkshire well the well I mean Birmingham Ladywood where the independent candidate I think Yakuu got 10 so it's 70,000 votes in the West Midlands Meryl T and MRP is not very good I looked at the Yakuu of MRP but when you know Labour was saying a little bit concerned about this one has you know I think it has something I will probably get this wrong so fact check me but it's around 70% Labour's share for Birmingham Ladywood which suggests that some of these polls are not picking up the independent aspect and I think that it means it might just be more than Thangam Devanao who could be finding themselves of insurgency or a threat from the left coming to them if we define it as left you know parts of Yorkshire some of these heavy Muslim communities where you have a strong independent you know George Gallardo talked about Angela Rayner as his next target Ashland's lime and if you look at you know we had Max Jeffery our colleague go there and meet the independent I mean he was quite skeptical that that one would work and you don't get the impression from Labour that they're particularly worried about Angela Rayner's seat but could you have some of these you know pockets and things going because there was also an interesting piece in the Guardian which is about these WhatsApp groups and the fact that you know there's also a different factor in every election which might be a way of social media things are spreading I mean we're all talking about TikTok but there's an argument there community WhatsApp groups and now you know spreading clips very fast amongst you know ethnic minority groups the example in the Guardian piece was there was Keir Starmer's comments in the final head-to-head debate on the BBC but he was talking about Bangladeshis as one area where you'd want to send people back and he's actually had to go and give an interview since aimed very specifically at that audience so you look at the station they chose try and calm it down so there are just a few things here and there but you do you wonder if you know perhaps that could be an undercurrent we haven't quite seen yeah I mean certainly the WhatsApp thing is really interesting James given how much of the conversation instead of the media elite happens on Twitter I'm also told that not just in sort of Birmingham but also London as well Labour is sort of wired by areas like Beth nor green for instance I think Labour have to put their worry somewhere because they're on an average forecast to win well over 200 seats but I think it's a really good point that Katie makes I think some of these concerns are very real on the ground in some ways it replicates a lot of evidence coming out of the US and Canada so you know particularly in in the 2016 and the 2020 cycles we've seen a lot of kind of mega swings against the Democrats in Hispanic communities huge use and deployment of Spanish language WhatsApp kind of communities who are exchanging information and you know that's been flagged and it's interesting and it sits in a kind of electoral gray zone I actually wrote about this today for the times on this about kind of what we call sectoral appeal basically like it's new people basically potentially voting and appealing to different religious religious groups I don't think it's a particularly positive development but I can understand it and it's completely valid to appeal to people's religion like why not appeal appeal to someone's class their education do they have a car but I think that you know we should be really cognizant we're entering into a slightly new way of campaigning new dimension like and all these things are not necessarily there invisible in the national spotlight I think these are the little kinks and quirks though come the exit poll I think you know we're not you know are we going to be thinking about burning Birmingham Ladywood maybe jewsbury I think about Lee is the other one that Katie was referring to no I think just the the holograms and then the very low numbers next to concern against next to Rishisunak will dominate but some of these stories are a really important pointer for the future like thank them debonair losing in Bristol central that's now less of a surprise because we've had seat polling there I think the greens are at 40% over there it's a bit of a marker for the future you know we've now reform have laid down their markers the challenge on the right and that's an existential thing but you can begin to see what a challenge from the left looks like a mixture of greens a mixture of independence and I guess we've not talked about the liberal democrats are they a progressive party or are they not hopefully there'll be lots of good graphics and exit polls for us to tour over and watch for years to come James thank you very much James thank you Katie and thank you for listening to coffee our shots you [MUSIC PLAYING]