Kmflett's Blog

Psephology, Ephology & London Council Elections on 7^th May

All seats on all 32 London Councils are up for election on 7^th May.

The results are likely to be momentous (more so than the turn out I suspect) because aside from Labour, the Tories and LibDems, the Greens, Reform and community/socialist independents also have support.

They won’t be as momentous (or anywhere near) as the London Elections held in May 1968 but that is well beyond the ken of the current 24 hour news cycle media.

As the 7^th May nears predictions on results in the London Boroughs are appearing. I wouldn’t say they are exactly made up to get clicks but in most cases they are not based on detailed local polling. Rather they take general polling results and apply them to local contests.

So to take an area I’m familiar with one poll has the Greens taking Haringey and Labour holding Hackney and another shows exactly the reverse. The outcome in both Boroughs might be close and is unpredictable. It depends who is motivated to go out and vote, who has volunteers to knock up the vote and in particular where the Labour and Green vote is landing in diverse communities. We’ll know on May 8^th and not before notwithstanding a barrage of social media posts (not least by myself obviously…)

What many polls are doing is not to report opinion but to try and shape it. Currently that often means promoting Farage because that gets them publicity. Obviously that doesn’t work for London so the alternative (and much preferable- to an extent) narrative is the Greens.

As E P Thompson noted as far back as 1959

A psephologist is a man employed by the mass media to research into what people think the mass media has told them to think. An ephologist is a man employed by the ‘Observer’ or BBC to interpret the results of psephology and who makes an ephing good thing out of it

New Reasoner, Autumn 1959