Who is Britain Elects?
Britain Elects was co-founded in 2013 by Ben Walker and Lily Jayne Summers.
Initially set up to cover the horse race nature that is both council by-elections and public opinion polling, Britain Elects has grown to become the leading source for forecasting, poll aggregation, election coverage, results and politics more generally.
Lily worked with Ben on Britain Elects until she died suddenly in December 2016. Since then Ben has run BE as a solo outfit. Andrew Teale remains the esteemed previewer of council by-elections.
Ben Walker beat the pundits and pollsters in 2024 for the most accurate general election forecast for seats.
His Britain Predicts model correctly projected every seat for the Greens, and almost every seat for Reform. It was the only forecaster to identify Reform coming close to or winning in both Basildon and Great Yarmouth.
Whereas the BBC’s own exit poll had Reform on course to sweep Barnsley and Hartlepool, Walker’s own model said otherwise. And was proven right.
Walker has built poll trackers and models of UK public opinion to help cut through the noise and has aided broadcasters, journalists and others in helping better understand the state of the nation.
Walker is also a data journalist for the New Statesman where he writes extensively on public opinion both at home and abroad.
Who funds Britain Elects?
Officially, no one. Everything that funds Britain Elects projects, such as poll commissioning, website hosting, room booking and such-like is either supplanted by the income of Walker’s own day job(s), or public donation drives on social media via PayPal and Patreon. The last of those donation drives was 2017.
So who funds Britain Elects? Unofficially, if you want to: you.
Is Britain Elects biased?
Lily Summers was a Labour council candidate for Swansea until her death in 2016. Ben Walker joined the Labour party in 2015, after co-founding Britain Elects, and has since become a Labour councillor for Chester’s city centre in West Cheshire.
Walker:
Most people know my own political views and activism. But when it comes to Britain Elects I make it my mission to analyse and commentate with precision, not with a partisan objective.
In networking for election coverage, for commentating on this campaign or that, I have had to work with people from all parties: Conservative, Liberal, Labour - yes, and indeed those on the more radical wings of politics.
I consider it a point of pride that certain officials in the Labour party have called out some of my election coverage as being too critical of them. In my capacity as Britain Elects I am not here to fluff my politics. But to better promote and understand the opinion of this country.
I am used to this. I give people whose politics may not be my own the fair hearing it deserves. Britain Elects is too respected a brand to soil with my own views.
The proof is in the pudding however. And I put it to those who doubt this assertion to find and challenge where you think the coverage is Britain Elects is biased in this way or that.
From 2015 to 2023, until I was an elected councillor, Britain Elects was derided as: a Ukip front, stooges to the EU, Blairite, far-right, lefty bollocks, liberal, yet another member of the Tory press, and so on and so forth. I consider all these derisions to be a badge of pride for a brand that, while founded by very political people, is above all else here to promote the public opinion of this land, to analyse it, and to tell you what it means and whether it matters.
Why do you have a Substack?
Ben writes for the New Statesman. But there may be posts and others from him that do not fit in with the New Statesman. Britain Elects, too, is its own entity.
Previously Britain Elects had its own Wordpress website to publish analysis and archives. The changing nature of the internet means we are moving with the herd. And Substack feels like where the herd is right now.
The Britain Elects by-election previewer, Andrew Teale, is also on Substack.
What can we expect here?
Let’s find out, shall we?
