How to build a British voter

LATER THIS year Britain’s voters will choose their next government. The polls suggest that the ruling Conservatives will suffer a humbling defeat, and that Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, will enter Downing Street. Much can still happen, obviously, but normality seems to beckon after years of political turmoil. A boring, managerial prime minister in charge of a centrist party would be welcome relief from the psychodrama of Tory factionalism. Brexit would fade still further into the political background. The union would be safer from nationalists in Scotland. And the electoral pendulum would have performed another of its slow and decisive swings. Britain has had two changes in governing party since 1979. This would be the next; instead of 1997 and Sir Tony Blair, think of 2024 and Sir Keir.

Think again. The Economist has dug beneath the surface of the polls and compared voting behaviour at the 2019 election with voting intentions in 2024, drawing on data from 95,000 Britons surveyed by WeThink, a polling company. Our model calculates the probability that a voter will pick a political party based on eight characteristics, from their age and educational attainment to their ethnicity and what kind of property they live in. (You can see how people like you vote by playing with the model.) It shows that the electoral coalition propelling Labour towards power sweeps up most young voters, but is also broad and volatile. What it does not augur is a return to politics as usual.