The Tories are in free fall

A couple of weeks ago we were told it was Rishi Sunak’s best week ever. Now, it is hard to even remember why. The Rwanda Bill was passed, and the Prime Minister had some important photocalls playing statesman with European allies. Now it seems nothing the party can do will shift the dial.

The local elections suggest this is the case. Number 10 have pointed to the projected national share (PNS) of the results, which suggests there will be a hung parliament at the next election. This is statistically illiterate self-delusion. The PNS is a flawed metric which ignores differential turnout, regional variations and overweighs the success that minor parties have at a local level. Anyone putting stock in it as a predictor of the general election is either trying to fool you or fool themselves. It is hard to overstate how bad these locals were for the Conservative party.

At the mayoral level, the party was close to wiped out.