Featured work
Some highlights from recent articles and reports. You can find more by clicking on the links at the top of the page.
The Boundary Commissions for England, Scotland and Wales published their revised proposals for new parliamentary constituencies on 17 October, sending MPs and commentators to the maps and calculators. The initial proposals made earlier in the year were materially altered in more than half the proposed constituencies, as the Commissions tried to reflect the results of […]
About Lewis
Lewis Baston is a writer on elections, politics, and history. He consults on electoral and political matters for private clients and has conducted training in elections and parliamentary processes for UK and international customers. He is a frequent commentator for various broadcast, published and online media.
This site gathers together in one place Lewis’s contributions to sites like Progress Online, Conservative Home and Comment is Free, along with the reports and books that Lewis has written. You can find original content on The Blog and and archive of reports, articles and books that Lewis has written.
Read MoreRecent Blog Posts
October 22, 2017 |
Reg Prentice, William Hague and the state of the Tories in 1977
Two new Conservative faces appeared forty years ago at the 1977 party conference – William Hague and Reg Prentice. Both had some interesting things to say about the rise of Thatcherism…
September 22, 2017 |
Disraeli’s ‘Leap in the Dark’ – the 1867 Reform Act
How and why did a new Conservative government end up giving the vote to working class men in 1867 – when Disraeli had just brought down the Liberals because their franchise bill was too generous?
June 2, 2017 |
A projection of the 2017 election
I did a lot of work before the 2015 election trying to anticipate what might happen seat by seat in that election, looking at local factors, candidates, demographics, recent local election results, Lord Ashcroft‘s constituency opinion polling and all of that. Like most prediction efforts in 2015, it was not very successful. It was swamped by three things – (1) the broad national tide in England and Wales that submerged quite a lot of the local differences I anticipated. Part of the Conservative success was built on ‘nationalising’ the election choice, to the detriment of the Lib Dems in particular who were hoping for personal votes to salvage them as happened in elections when...