Robert Hayward predicts Reform will be big winner, taking seats from both Labour and the Conservatives
Good morning. We are now into the final week of campaigning for the Scottish parliament, Welsh Senedd and English local elections. Keir Starmer had been planning a big speech today, but he, and other political leaders, are today focusing on their response to the Golders Green stabbing and the antisemitism threat facing Britain’s Jewish community – described as a “national security emergency” by Jonathan Hall KC, the government’s independent reviewer of terror legislation. Here is our overnight story. And here is our live blog by Taz Ali.
Taz will be covering most of the political reaction to that story, and so that won’t be something I will be covering here. (And because criminal proceedings are active, comments relating to the attack won’t be allowed below the line, I’m afraid.)
Instead, let’s start with the elections, and a member of the House of Lords called Robert Hayward. Hayward is a Conservative and former MP but at Westminster he is best known as an elections specialist who produces detailed forecasts ahead of elections. They are not always perfect – no forecast is – but they are well-informed, and politically neutral, and Hayward is one of the very few people doing forecasting of this kind whose views are taken seriously by the main political parties. He won’t necessarily tell you exactly what will happen; but he is worth reading if you want to know what the politicos expect to happen (which is useful intelligence because often election results are assessed by how they match up against expectations).
