General election forecasts in the United Kingdom: a political economy model

Abstract

With the notable exception of Mughan (1987), forecasting attempts in the United Kingdom have been solely concerned with developing popularity functions. This paper formulates a vote function model to forecast general elections in the UK. The model relies on three independent variables: approval of the government's record, inflation, and a variable controlling for the "cost of ruling." The model is estimated over the period 1955–1997 using a substantial six-month lead time. It performs reasonably well, and offers a plausible and parsimonious explanation of government vote support. The vote function is used to generate a forecast of the next British general election. It clearly predicts a majority government for Labour, assuming the election would be held in Spring 2001.