Can tactical voting apps help thwart Boris’s majority?

“Was Red Wedge pro-Labour, or did we just hate Tories?” asked musician Billy Bragg, when he launched his tactical vote site ‘Vote Dorset’ in 2001. He was trying to solve a problem British progressives have faced at every election since the re-emergence of the Liberals as a political force in the 1960s: while conservatives were united behind a single party, their forces were split between two or more.

Following the strange rebirth of multi-party politics over the past year – and with some Remainers keen to stop a Conservative majority at all costs – the clamour to vote tactically has scarcely been louder. Within hours of the election date being agreed, two sites – both with very different approaches – emerged seeking to help voters do just that.

The first, by campaign organisation Best for Britain, has used an MRP poll of 46,000 people to make its predictions. In short, this means examining the underlying demographic and electoral factors in each seat and extrapolating results based on how each of these groups are behaving.