Thread by @benwansell

🚨🚨ELECTIONS AND HOUSING UPDATE 🚨🚨
Regular readers know my obsession with the decline of house prices in predicting General Elections but their important role in predicting Brexit vote. So what happened in 2019? The connection between house prices and Tory vote was severed 1/n

In a piece for @anandMenon1 @UKandEU I argued that the close connection between local wealth measured by house prices and the Tory vote had declined since 2010. And the reason was Brexit as a cross-cutting issue. 2/n

ukandeu.ac.uk/has-brexit-cha…

@anandMenon1 @UKandEU Briefly, places with higher house prices used to vote Tory but also voted Remain in 2016. Two patterns cut across one another and meant house prices became less predictive in 2017. You can see that here in the following graphs 3/n

@anandMenon1 @UKandEU I coined the term 'Brexit Brain' to describe the shape of the graph for Best for Britain's early MRP poll of 2019 - a brain-like shape with no correlation between house prices and Tory lead. You can see this here. So, what happened in the actual election . Drumroll...🥁 4/n

@anandMenon1 @UKandEU Here is the actual 2019 relationship between local house prices and the Tory lead. It's more of a skull 💀than a brain shape🧠. But the key thing is barely any relationship. Essentially the Tories did well everywhere! But especially in middle-priced areas. 5/n

@anandMenon1 @UKandEU Labour kept some low-house price Leave areas and a lot of expensive (London) Remain areas. And pretty much nothing in the middle. 6/n

@anandMenon1 @UKandEU So let's look at the Labour vote share rather than the Tory vote share in 2019. You can see that in Leave voting areas there is a strong negative gradient with house prices and Lab support - old class politics. But a bunch of wealthy Remain areas forming Labour's other base 7/n

@anandMenon1 @UKandEU What about the Lib Dems... You can see their ultimately failed strategy here - target wealthy pro-Remain areas. Problem is they got above 35% in a bunch of these seats and STILL failed to win them. Might bode well for 2024 strategy I guess 😬. 8/n

@anandMenon1 @UKandEU Let's look at changes between 2017 and 2019 now for all three parties. You can see that the Tories did relatively better vs 2017 in cheaper areas and worse in more expensive areas. Labour geniusly did worse in both cheap and expensive areas. Libs well in posh areas. 9/n

@anandMenon1 @UKandEU What about the over time patterns. Here is the bivariate relationship between (logged) house prices and Conservative vote since 2010. Graph on the left is coefficient estimates, on the right is R squared. TLDR higher house prices used to mean higher Cons vote. Not any more! 10/n

@anandMenon1 @UKandEU And here are the bivariate coefficients for house prices and Labour vote / LD vote. For Labour the negative effect of house prices is weakening (so they are doing better in more expensive areas, worse in cheap). For Lib Dems 2019 shows much stronger relationship than in past 11/n

@anandMenon1 @UKandEU So let's sum this up. Brexit has dissolved the old pattern between local wealth and voting in Britain. Labour are caught between two diverging support bases. The Tories are doing well everywhere. And the Lib Dems had a good plan they didn't execute. 12/n

@anandMenon1 @UKandEU Maybe of interest to @robfordmancs @Dannythefink @jburnmurdoch @sarahobolt @simonjhix @davidrkadler @drjennings @rbrharrison

@anandMenon1 @UKandEU And oops - forgot to mention this is England and Wales only (house price data issues for Scotland and NI). Would be fascinating to see how house prices correlate with SNP vote but I don't know yet!