Broken Records

Plus seat previews for 22 London constituencies

We have a packed post to start the week. First up Dylan runs through all the records this election could break, which really highlights quite how historic and unusual it could be.

Then there are 22 seat previews covering west London all the way round from Harrow and Brent to Sutton and Croydon (which is, admittedly, quite an expansive definition of “west”). The rest of London and then Anglia coming this week.

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Broken Records: why the election will be unprecedented

If there has been one dominant theme in election commentary in the last year it has been a faith in precedent, or at least folk memories of precedent. The normal response to Labour’s sustained and substantial poll leads, which have continuously pointed to a generational defeat for the Tories since the second half of 2022, has been an assumption that the leads would come down as the election approaches, because that is what ‘always happens’.

It didn’t, Labour’s poll lead actually increased a little. Then came the presumption that the Conservatives would recover in the campaign, because polls ‘always’ narrow once an election is called. With three weeks to go, we have seen more evidence of poll widening than narrowing. Now we are left with a common belief that the models and projections, many of which show the largest-ever Labour majority and worst-ever result for the Tories, must be wrong as results like that ‘don’t happen’.

But we are now at the stage where the only thing that stops an unprecedented result, like those seen in most projections, are things that are themselves unprecedented – i.e., the rules of precedent are firmly out. Of course, to some extent, every election is unique, each one in the last decade especially so. It is hard to imagine how you would even define a ‘normal’ election result. Regardless, this one is set to be more extraordinary than most. So let’s look at the ways this election is set to be at the very least highly exceptional, as well as why we should not really be that surprised at some of the ‘outlandish’ possibilities.