Explore our prediction model for Britain’s looming election
The scale of the task facing Rishi Sunak is clear
There have been 17 elections in Britain since the start of 1959 and the Conservative Party has been successful in ten of them. The next one is almost certain to take place in the second half of this year. It is safe to say that Rishi Sunak’s Tories are very unlikely to add to their victory tally: they currently trail Labour, led by Sir Keir Starmer, by 20 percentage points in the polls. But it is tricky to predict how many MPs each party will have, partly because national voting intentions do not convert simply into seats in Parliament. In 1997, for example, the Labour Party won 63% of the seats on 43% of the vote.
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This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “All change”
Britain April 20th 2024
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From the April 20th 2024 edition
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