Palmer's Open Evening: A Mock Election In Context

On the first open evening in Palmer's for this academic year on 16th October 2025, we hosted a mock election where parents and prospective students could vote for one of five parties (Conservative, Labour, Green, Reform UK and Liberal Democrat). The results were rather interesting, and very unexpected. In this article I will make an analysis of the votes and compare them to the current opinion polls.

It is important to remember that we had 33 votes in this mock election, so take the results with a pinch of salt.

First off, the results. They are shown below:

Picture from Electoral Calculus, "Your Own Prediction". The data was collected on 16th October 2025 with a sample size of 33. All numbers were rounded to the nearest whole number, then adjusted to account for the swing, +/- 0.2% for real terms.

This shows us that prospective students and their parents disagree with the current polls, for the most part. Interestingly, on the morning of the 16th October we saw a new poll from Find Out Now that showed the Greens to be tied with Labour, and the Conservatives to be back in second place (shown below):

This is showing a rise in the Greens as a whole across the country, and with the prospectus. However Reform is still showing as the biggest party; the Liberal Democrats are within 0.5% of our poll.

In our own mock election, we also saw 6% of the ballots were spoilt. This could show rising voter apathy in the youth; this could be due to preserved failings of the major parties. One of the spoilt ballots added on the option of the Monster Raving Loony Party.

Despite the small number of ballots I thought I would see how Westminster would look if our polls are accurate.

Picture from Electoral Calculus "Your Own Prediction". The data was collected on the 16th October 2025, with a sample size of 33. Calculated by working out the swing, then mapping it across the whole country, excluding Northern Ireland.

Looking at the Labour heartlands, we can see a total wipe-out of the party, which is reduced to just one seat in South Yorkshire, just two in Wales and only nine in London. We see huge gains in London for the Greens, and in the North of England and in South East Essex for Reform. We can also see the return of some Conservative former safe seats.

If we compare this to the national poll, we see a very different outcome. However, we still see a complete wipe-out for Labour in their former heartlands, reduced to just one seat in Wales! Turquoise is the dominant colour by a longshot.

Picture from Electoral Calculus "Your Own Prediction". The data was collected on the 15^th October 2025 by Find Out Now. Calculated by working out the swing, then mapping it across the whole country, excluding Northern Ireland.

Another poll I like to look at is from Electoral Calculus, who work out the possible seat share using bounds, due to the longer run of their polls (often around 30 days). However, because of this methodology we can't see a seat map, but we do see much of the same.

From Electoral Calculus prediction based on opinion polls from 28 Aug 2025 to 26 Sep 2025, sampling 12,571 people.

Altogether, the polls and the intertitular mock election we hosted on the 16^th October show us that there is a Green surge and a fall in the Labour Party. It is important to remember though that the governing party often does worse in the opinion polls. Lots of opinion polls have errors, such as the under-estimate of the Conservatives in the lead up to the 2024 general election and in the 2015 and 1992 elections.