Cazenove's Jeffrey: 'Th' whole worl's in a terrible state o' chassis'

Explaining the result of the General Election

To all facets of the political spectrum, bar one very small one perhaps, the election result was a major surprise.

Moreover, it will continue to reverberate strongly in many policy areas. I had dinner with a Labour ex-Cabinet minister two days before the election, and he was predicting a 100-seat margin for the Conservatives.  So, why was it that someone whose leadership has been compared unfavourably with that of Michael Foot - by members of his own party - chimed so clearly with the electorate? At a simplistic level, voting patterns seem to be consistent with others we have seen recently, in that electors displayed a clear populist, anti-establishment bias.  Arguably, this is why voters in...