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Support trulyindependent journalismFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditorPolling guru Professor Sir John Curtice gave a final prediction ahead of the polls opening in the general election. British voters are heading to polling stations on Thursday to cast their ballots, six weeks after prime minister Rishi Sunak sought to surprise his opponents by calling the 4 July election earlier than expected.Follow our politics blog for the latest general election updatesWith Sir Keir Starmer’s party sustained its roughly 20-point lead in the polls over the course of the campaign, expert Prof Curtice shared his final thoughts in an opinion piece published before voting began at 7am on Thursday.Short of a dramatic turnaround, after the final opinion polls published on Wednesday the veteran polling expert had suggested that “it looks as though Sir Keir Starmer will become prime minister on Friday”.“What remains uncertain is just how badly things might turn out for the Conservatives,” the University of Strathclyde professor of politics wrote for the Daily Telegraph.One of two key uncertainties highlighted by Prof Curtice was how self-declared undecided voters will ultimately cast their ballot – with 2019 Tory voters estimated to be twice as likely to tell pollsters they “don’t know” how they will vote than those who voted Labour five years ago.Labelling this one of many symptoms of the unpopularity the Tories have struggled to escape since the implosion of Liz Truss’s premiership, Prof Curtice said: “Many undecideds are as unhappy with the Conservatives as those who say they are going to vote differently this time around – they just are not sure what to do as a result.“Still, if any group of voters are going to drift back to the Conservatives in the final hours the undecideds are probably the most likely to do so. But even if all of them eventually vote for the party they backed in 2019, there are not enough of them to do more than put a three or four-point dent in Labour’s lead.”Prof Curtice also warned that a key message of the many MRP megapolls of the campaign has been that support for the Tories was falling more heavily in constituencies it is trying to defend.In part, this is “arithmetically inevitable” given that there are more than 100 constituencies in which the party’s share of the vote in 2019 was less than the 25 per cent by which recent polls have suggested it will fall across the UK, he said.Will Sir Keir Starmer be Britain’s new prime minister on Friday? More

Support trulyindependent journalismFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditorVoters in the U.K. are casting their ballots in a national election to choose the 650 lawmakers who will sit in Parliament for the next five years. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak surprised his own party on May 22 when he called the election, which could have taken place as late as January 2025. After 14 years in power under five different prime ministers, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ’s Conservatives are widely expected to lose to the main opposition party, the left-of-center Labour Party led by Keir Starmer. Sunak’s party has struggled to reassure voters on issues including the rising cost of living and a crisis in the National Health Service.Polls opened at 7 a.m. and will close at 10 p.m. on Thursday night. Even before in-person voting began, hundreds of thousands of people had cast their ballot by postal vote. An exit poll commissioned by the main U.K. broadcasters will be published as soon as the polls close, giving an indication of the likely result. Counting will begin immediately but most of the results will only be announced in the early hours of Friday. Here’s the latest: Polls open in vote that could end Tories’ 14 years in power British voters are picking a new government on Thursday after polls opened at 7 a.m. for a parliamentary election that is widely expected to bring the opposition Labour Party to power.Against a backdrop of economic malaise, mounting distrust of government institutions and a fraying social fabric, a fractious electorate is delivering its verdict on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party, which has been in power since 2010.The center-left Labour Party, led by Keir Starmer, has had a steady and significant lead in opinion polls for months, but Labour leaders have warned against taking the election result for granted, worried their supporters will stay home.Sunak, for his part, has tried to rally his supporters, saying on Sunday that he still thought the Conservatives could win and defending his record on the economy. More

Support trulyindependent journalismFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditor British voters are picking a new government Thursday, voting in a parliamentary election that is widely expected to bring the Labour Party to power against a gloomy backdrop of economic malaise, mounting distrust in institutions and a fraying social fabric.A jaded electorate is delivering its verdict on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party, which has been in power since 2010.The center-left Labour Party led by Keir Starmer has had a steady and significant lead in opinion polls for months, but its leaders have warned against taking the election result for granted, worried their supporters will stay home.“We cannot afford five more years under the Conservatives. But change will only happen if you vote Labour,” Starmer said on Wednesday night.The Conservatives have conceded that Labour appears headed for victory and urged voters not to hand the party a “supermajority.”In the final days of campaigning Sunak insisted “the outcome of this election is not a foregone conclusion.”But in a message to voters on Wednesday, Sunak said that “if the polls are to be believed, the country could wake up tomorrow to a Labour supermajority ready to wield their unchecked power.” He urged voters to back the Conservatives to limit Labour’s power.Labour has not set pulses racing with its pledges to get the sluggish economy growing, invest in infrastructure and make Britain a “clean energy superpower.”But nothing has really gone wrong in its campaign, either. The party has won the support of large chunks of the business community and endorsements from traditionally conservative newspapers, including the Rupert Murdoch-owned Sun tabloid. The Sun said in an editorial that “by dragging his party back to the center ground of British politics for the first time since Tony Blair was in No. 10 (Downing St.), Sir Keir has won the right to take charge,” using the formal title for Starmer, who was knighted.Former Labour candidate Douglas Beattie, author of the book “How Labour Wins (and Why it Loses),” said Starmer’s “quiet stability probably chimes with the mood of the country right now.”The Conservatives, meanwhile, have been plagued by gaffes. The campaign got off to an inauspicious start when rain drenched Sunak as he made the announcement outside 10 Downing St. Then, Sunak went home early from commemorations in France marking the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.Several Conservatives close to Sunak are being investigated over suspicions they used inside information to place bets on the date of the election before it was announced.It has all made it harder for Sunak to shake off the taint of political chaos and mismanagement that’s gathered around the Conservatives since then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his staff held lockdown-breaching parties during the COVID-19 pandemic.Johnson’s successor, Liz Truss, rocked the economy with a package of drastic tax cuts and lasted just 49 days in office. There is widespread dissatisfaction over a host of issues, from a creaking public health care system to crumbling infrastructure.But for many voters, the lack of trust applies not just to Conservatives, but to politicians in general. Veteran rouser of the right, Nigel Farage, has leaped into that breach and grabbed attention with his anti-immigration rhetoric.The centrist Liberal Democrats and environmentalist Green Party also want to sweep up disaffected voters.“I don’t know who’s for me as a working person,” said Michelle Bird, a port worker in Southampton on England’s south coast who was undecided about whether to vote Labour or Conservative. “I don’t know whether it’s the devil you know or the devil you don’t.” More