Party Leader Satisfaction Ratings and Election Outcomes

Satisfaction with party leaders of the two main parties would have predicted the outcome of the last nine UK general elections, including the most recent. This measure is worth looking at in more detail as voting intention polls led many forecasters astray in 2015, as Roger Pielke Jr describes.

Figure 1. Satisfaction with the Party Leader (Labour or Conservative) a month before the election. Ipsos MORI

DECC as a Parrot?

My prediction is that the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) will not survive to the end of the forthcoming 5-year parliament.

The people most upset by yesterday’s election result – at least according to my Twitter feed – were the professional pollsters and forecasters – not least many prominent academic political scientists – who universally predicted that the election result would be far closer than it eventually turned out.

You think politics and political behaviour is predictable, and it just goes and defies all your expectations. I've seen enough, night all!

— Will Jennings (@drjennings) May 8, 2015

Roger Pielke Jr counselled humility

Election forecasters shouldn't complain about polls — a good forecaster accounts for uncertainties and ignorance & doesn't pass the buck.

— Roger Pielke Jr. (@RogerPielkeJr) May 8, 2015