UK Local Election Results - Pollsters and Pundits Wrong Again! Trees Fell Sheffield Labour Council

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The mainstream press backed up by the polling industry had once more built themselves up into a frenzy of reporting with much certainty that the Conservatives were heading for an electoral blood bath in the local elections, with the London epicentre expected to ripple out across the regions as Corbyn's Labour party was expected to build on last years shock General Election results that crippled Theresa May's government which had the effect of throwing the Tories into a state of panic that had many Labour councils already counting their electoral chickens before they were hatched.

All whilst forgetting that the same pollsters and pundits got last years general election very badly wrong! And even worse for the EU referendum where we saw pollster Curtis on BBC Results Night proclaiming AFTER the polls closed that REMAIN had won! For which he was apparently awarded a Knighthood!

So the pollsters and pundits got a sixth election wrong in a row just as I warned in my article of a week ago would happen:

30 Apr 2018 - Labour Local Elections Landslide, Are Opinion Pollsters & Pundits Wrong Again? Sheffield Trees Case

So that brings us to this years Labour landslide local elections. Firstly, it is beyond the capability of the Market Oracle to traipse around the country trying to figure out what is going on at the local level across Britain's 50 largest cities. Nevertheless, we have been able to intensely follow what is happening in Britain's fifth largest city, Sheffield. Which contrary to the propaganda being regurgitated at length across the mainstream media, an analysis of which points to an outcome in the exact opposite direction i.e. implying LABOUR is likely to LOSE seats rather than GAIN seats! Which if similar applies to most other areas of Britain then the pollsters, political pundits and pseudo analysts (journalists) are about to get another election very badly wrong.

Local elections pollsters and mainstream pundits expectations :

Labour set for 'best performance' in London for 40 years at local ...

Labour's final push to seize territory from Tories in local elections

How the local elections could ruin Theresa May

Local Election Results

As things stand at the time of writing Labour have gained just 47, and the Tories confounding expectations for a blood bath are up 8, holding on to all of those supposed Labour London gains! Whilst the Lib Dems only gain 35. However the big story of the night was the wipe out of UKIP, losing 106 seats so far (again as I forecast long before the election result).

Local Elections to be Dominated by Local Issues

As I warned in a series of articles that May 3rd would be dominated by local issues and the meltdown of UKIP which would largely favour the Tories and other opposition parties such as the Lib Dems and the Greens. For instance in Sheffield I warned that contrary to expectations the ruling Labour regime could lose a number of seats, where my final forecast conclusion (22 Apr 2018 - Sheffield Local Elections 2018 Forecast Results) was for Labour to lose 9 seats against the actual number lost of 5, 3 going to the Lib Dems and 2 to the Greens as a consequence of the Labour run council deciding that Europe's greenest city would be better off with half its number of street trees and so began a crazy trees felling programme that came to a head in March 2018 that witnessed multiple arrests of peaceful protestors on a daily basis as the Labour council attempted and failed to bully Sheffield's anti tree felling protestors into submission, triggering a suspension of fellings in advance of the local elections, and similar patterns of local protests and issues such as bin collections in Birmingham and potholes everywhere were likely to impact across Britain's councils as my following video illustrates:

Furthermore the repeated spin on the lack of support for the tree fellings from the Labour council and contractor Amey was that the protestors were few in number, which I warned an Amey Press officer 6 months ago numbered more than 10,000 protestors which was more than enough to effect the outcome of the May 2018 local elections.

My Query to Amey - 5th Dec 2017:

When does Amey intend on ceasing to use private security on Sheffield's streets which is having the effect of galavanising support for the save tree campaigns from many people who otherwise would not be interested in the tree fellings.

Amey's reply:

The answer to the first part of your question is, as long as it is necessary to keep people safe and prevent them breaking the injunction by entering our legally-defined safety zones. We would rather not have to employ stewards at all, but we have tried explaining this to the individuals who persist in doing it to no avail. This is a very reluctant step, but one we feel we have no choice taking and in which we are supported by the Council. As for the second part of the your question, we are replacing the trees not just felling them. This is an important point.

I cannot agree to your assertion that it is galvanising support as I don’t know how you have measured this. In fact, many people are telling us they welcome the fact that the work is getting under way.

My Response : 5th Dec 2017:

Galvanising support, - Their main face book page STAG now has over 8000 members, and growing at the rate of about 50 per day with about anothert 6000 across the satellight groups. So whether you like to hear it or not your actions on the streets HAS galvanised support. The growing size of the movement is more than enough to influence the outcome of the May 2018 local elections.

And so on Thursday Sheffield Labour paid the electoral price of ignoring the wishes of the Sheffield people, which if it continues to do so will undoubtedly act as a stepping stone to further losses at the May 2019 local elections. And given that the Amey PFI contract has some 19 years left to run then there is plenty of scope for Labour to lose overall control of the Council within a few short election steps.

Opinion Pollsters & Pundits Wrong Again

And here's a reminder of why you should take what the mainstream press is reporting, political pundits and pollsters with a big pinch of salt. Considering just how bad they have been in terms of forecasting the outcome of recent elections, such as last years general election that followed getting Trump wrong, Brexit and even the 2015 general election, with the 2014 Scottish Referendum before that! Five elections WRONG in a ROW!

UK General Election Final Forecasts

*YouGov forecast

Note - Yougov in attempts to cover themselves against being wrong again published two opposite outcomes so that they could claim to have called the election correctly whatever the result! What a joke!

The bottom line is that the pollsters and pundits (journalists) remain clueless because they have no "skin in the game" i.e. they don't tend to put their money where their mouths are, unlike well a market trader / investor where the primary purpose of my analysis is to come to the most probable outcome for a market or political event so that I and my readers / viewers can capitalise upon it as I did for Trump and the EU referendum before that. So ensure you are subscribed to my always free newsletter and youtube channel for my forthcoming in-depth analysis and detailed trend forecasts.

By Nadeem Walayat

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk

Copyright © 2005-2018 Marketoracle.co.uk (Market Oracle Ltd). All rights reserved.

Nadeem Walayat has over 30 years experience of trading derivatives, portfolio management and analysing the financial markets, including one of few who both anticipated and Beat the 1987 Crash. Nadeem's forward looking analysis focuses on UK inflation, economy, interest rates and housing market. He is the author of five ebook's in the The Inflation Mega-Trend and Stocks Stealth Bull Market series that can be downloaded for Free.

Nadeem is the Editor of The Market Oracle, a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication that presents in-depth analysis from over 1000 experienced analysts on a range of views of the probable direction of the financial markets, thus enabling our readers to arrive at an informed opinion on future market direction. http://www.marketoracle.co.uk

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