…if there was an election next month
Everything I’m hearing is that it’s increasingly likely that there will be an election called during the next fortnight, possibly next week. My own best guess was that, if Brown was going to call an election this year (which I didn’t think he would!) he’d have done it the day after the Conservative conference with polling day on November 1st. All the same, if he does call an election, what is the result likely to be?
First off, what are the parties standings in the polls? Apart from Populus, who have the Conservatives up at 36, the Conservatives have been around 32, 33, 34 in the last few polls. Labour have, having fallen back at the end of August, gone back up to the high thirties. The Liberal Democrats are, with the exception of ICM, in the mid-teens (and I’ll come to them in more detail later). Overall the postion appears to be something like CON 33%, LAB 39%, LDEM 16-17%. On a straight uniform swing that would produce a House of Commons with 201 Conservative MPs, 379 Labour MPs and 42 Lib Dem MPs, a Labour majority of 108.
I sometimes ponder whether to keep a running prediction on the website somewhere, there are two reasons I don’t. Firstly, voting intention polls really are hypothetical, they ask how people would vote in an election tomorrow and there isn’t an election tomorrow. If there was, then the last three weeks would have been full of campaigning and equal treatment of the parties on the news broadcasts. Secondly I don’t think there is any nice formula you can plug numbers into and get a prediction – swing calculators need to be tempered with insight and I don’t think an election call today would produce a Labour majority of 108. Here’s why:
1) The Liberal Democrats won’t do THAT badly. A hallowed piece of psephological wisdom is that Liberal Democrats always pick up support during an election campaign. It isn’t necessarily true and it depends where you draw the line from. They didn’t in 1987 because they had a rubbish campaign, they might have in 2005, but it depends where you draw the line. Compared to the polls immediately prior to Tony Blair announcing the election, they went up by about 2 points, if you compare it to their poll ratings earlier in the Parliament though they fell slightly. If you go back a couple of elections the increase is partly artifical – pollsters like MORI used to start prompting with party name half way through the election campaign when candidate names were known, giving the Liberal Democrats and their predecessors an artifical boost of a couple of points. All that aside, the reason for what Lib Dem boost there has sometimes been is that mid-Parliament people forget about them as a viable option and forget they may actually vote tactically for them in their local contest, but during an election campaign when they are doorstepping people and the BBC is compelled to give them fair coverage they pick up support. In the last Parliament Charlie Kennedy was a high profile leader and the issue of Iraq got them plenty of publicity, they didn’t have a lack of publicity to start with so couldn’t recover from it. This time round they’ve been relegated to the political sidelines for much of the Parliament, so with TV coverage guaranteed they will probably bounce back somewhat.
My suspicion is that YouGov show lower levels of Lib Dem support because their sample more accurately reflects who actually votes Liberal Democrat, that lots of them don’t have any identification with the Lib Dems and are protest votes and tactical votes and hence far more likely to forget about them away from elections. But those same people who are more likely to switch to the Lib Dems are there in YouGov’s samples. My guess is that the gap between ICM and the others will narrow, and Lib Dems will come up to about 19/20% in all the polls…and that the gain in their support will come at the expense of Labour.
2) The double incumbency bonus. All MPs build up some sort of personal vote from people they’ve helped and people who they’ve come across in their work. It probably isn’t that much, a couple of thousand votes at most, but it’s enough to make the difference in marginal seats. It will be most noticable for new MPs who gained their seat at the last election. In theory a new Conservative MP elected at the last election will have built up a personal vote in the past two and a half years, meanwhile, unless the defeated MP from 2005 is contesting the seat again, Labour will have lost the personal vote they enjoyed last time round. The projection above includes Labour gaining 24 seats from the Conservatives. Some of those are purely notional gains of seats they already hold like Portsmouth North, but in many other cases like Kettering, Shipley, Hemel Hempstead, Gravesham, Enfield Southgate they are seats that were taken by the Conservatives at the last election. These will have a double incumbency bonus and the Conservatives will probably hold on to some seats they would theoretically lose on a straight swing.
3) Where exactly is the increase in Labour support? Uniform swing calculations assume just that – that the swing is uniform. If what has actually happened is that the Conservatives have gained in the south and Labour have gained in the north and the midlands, it gives a misleading picture. There are more marginal seats in the south than the north, so if a party is doing disproportionately better in the south, they’ll do better in terms of seats than the uniform swing suggests.
We don’t have much evidence to judge this by – there is only the aggregated ICM data since Brown became leader that suggested the Conservatives were doing much better in the south. That alone isn’t much to go on, but it does tally with evidence from before Brown’s accession that suggested David Cameron had increased Conservative support in the south, but fallen flat in the north. If this pattern does hold true (and even more so if Brown’s appeal is a mirror image to Cameron and he’s done disproportionately well in the north) it will help the Conservatives. If the Conservatives do very badly in the north it may not harm them much in seats, they don’t have many to lose.
What holds true for broad regions of the country, could also hold true with demographic groups. If Gordon Brown’s increased support is based on core Labour voters who had sat on their hands at the end of Blair’s tenure returning home, his increased support may be concentrated in inner-city Labour heartlands where it will be of no use to him.
4) The campaign. This one can cut either way of course, but I’d be remiss not to mention the actual campaign and what difference it could make. The 2005 election campaign had barely any effect on people’s voting intentions: realisticially the parties may as well have stayed at home and just burnt several million pounds. Polls over the last couple of months though have been very volatile, from a Conservative lead Brown opened up a large Labour lead, which in turn faded away when crime rose up the agenda and then shot back up at the sight of economic problems. Politics is in flux – public opinion may not be so unchanging as it was in 2005.
Labour will want to campaign on Gordon Brown being the strong, reliable leader that the country needs when there could be trouble ahead, contrasting him with a weak and shallow David Cameron. At the moment Brown himself and the economy, despite the wobbles, are their strong cards. He’ll be saying that the country needs a strong, experienced hand at the tiller, not some flip-flopping, inexperienced, jejune pr boy – now give him the mandate to do the job.
There was some suggestion that the Conservatives would paint an early election as Brown running to the country in advance of impending economic disaster. If they did it would be suicide, we’ve seen that in economic troubles people trust Brown. The Conservatives need to try and fight the election against Labour, not against Brown. Polls show positive ratings for Brown, but the government’s approval ratings is still strongly negative. While Labour will want the election to be a choice between strong Gordon and weak Dave, the Conservatives should try to completely ignore Brown and make it an election about choosing an alternative route to the tired, worn out Labour government that’s wasted away 10 years with nothing to show. To do that they desparately need to offer an external narrative, explain what they want for Britain, rather than the internal narrative about changing the Conservative party they’ve offered for 2 years. They need to say what they are changing it for.
A good campaign from either of the main parties (or campaign calamities from either) could change the picture, people aren’t yet certain about Brown, views can change.
5) How accurate are the polls? The short answer is that they are very accurate these days – NOP got it bang on in 2005. The fact remains however that the tiny errors that the rest did display were all in Labour’s favour. There can be no criticism of individual pollsters’ performance in 2005, they were all within the margin of error, as close as they can reasonably be expected to be. However, as a collective group the errors were all in favour of Labour. If the polls were perfectly accurate, there should have been some slightly too favourable to Labour and some slightly too favourable to the Conservatives, a random distribution either side of the real result. There wasn’t. Don’t get me wrong, this will not be 1992 and the polls will be very close to the real result. What errors there are will only be in the region of percentage point or two, but the difference between Labour being 4 points ahead or 6 points ahead is a very large one in terms of seats.
All of these are non-quantifiable to some degree and many could work both ways – it’s just as likely that Labour will “win” the campaign as it is the Conservatives will and we can’t judge regional differences in support – it could be that it’s Labour who are doing better in the southern marginals. However, just taking what I think is the likely swing to the Liberal Democrats during the campaign and the slight tendency in the polls to favour Labour means Labour’s lead at an actual election could end up being around 3 points or so, the same as in 2005. The double incumbency effect will help the Conservatives in some of the very close marginals, perhaps worth another 5 seats or so, boundary changes mean Labour are defending only a notional 36 seat majority anyway…
On the present polls an election next month will see Labour returned as the largest party, but beyond that nothing’s certain.
Filed under: General Election Posts
A well documented piece of work. Personally I agree with your last paragraph and all that will happen is that Labour will win but not as decisively, in terms of seats, as they are at the moment.
Scotland and Wales will not see gains for Labour: probably losses to the Nationalists. Southern England I believe will give more seats to the Conservatives. However it will clear the air and ensure a 4-5 year term for the Parliament that it produces.
As far as the LibDems are concerned: I am at a loss but suspect that they will end uiup not far from where the7y are now.
A good piece of sustained asnalysis, I enjoyed reading it.
I think all polls underestimate conservtaive support slightly. Even exit polls in the last 3 general elections have been wrong.
I think it’s a fairly simple truth that Brown will certainly be much less popular in a year than now. When people are new they almost always enjoy positive ratings for a while, as the SNP have done in Scotland. This is a good reason for going to the country now.
We don’t really have any barrometer in modern times of a PM taking over and calling an election straight away duirng a honeymoon. Alec Douglas Home, I suppose, was not leader for very long, but that is th closest we really have, and that was in 1964, a bit too far ou of sight to tell us much.
The question is, will honeymoon support be delivered at the ballot-box in an election? I’m not sure we know the answer to that!
If there was an election, what sort of turnout would we expect. Id say about 65%. Not enough to enthuse people too much, but a more interesting personality duel than in 2005 might bring out some more voters.
The BBC was reporting that Labour’s support in the marginals – mostly in the South – was as good as or better than the national levels. Certainly the evidence we have bears that out. Urban Southern seats have “Guardian readers” who deserted Labour for the Greens/Lib Dems in 2005 over Blair/Iraq, and some, if not all, are either coming back or will be persuadable during the campaign if they think a Tory win is even remotely possible.
If Gordon goes now the targetted and sustained Conservative campaigns in southern marginals which worked well in the long 2005 campaign will have no time to take effect now.
Hmmmm… I think Brown is backed into this by party. It could be the biggest mistake of his political career….
I make it 34.6 / 39.1 / 16.5 at the mo (Lab / Con / LDm) giving approx 225 / 349 / 21 with the SNP doing exceptionally well in Scotland.
Towards the end of the weekend I’ll try and post it on the site (forecastuk.org.uk) together with a prediction based on analysing in greater detail the regional data that some of the pollsters are now issuing.
Of course, that should have been (Con / Lab / LDm). I’ll try not to post after flying in from the States next time.
Lukw – the NOP/MORI exit poll in 2005 was spot on, they got the predicted Labour majority exactly right. The last example of a PM going for a real honeymoon election was Eden in 1955.
Warren – the BBC was reporting rumours about Labour’s private polling. Labour don’t do their polling through a company who are members of the BPC, who we could have applied to to have the tables released to see if the poll was genuine (or even existed), the analysis accurate, what wording, weighting etc. The rumours about it are conflicting, some claimed that Labour was 8 points ahead in private polling, but were doing marginally less well in marginals.
The only publicly published data we have comparing marginals with the national swing was from Populus – it showed the Conservatives doing better in marginals than elsewhere, but the difference was so small and the sample size limited so it’s not really significant at all.
A good article Anthony.
A difficult one for Brown I’m sure, but there will be no better time to catch the Tories with no agreed policies will there, so he might as well go for it with the aim of getting rid of Cameron and looking towards the election after next when the Tories will just be down to their core vote again.
I think, at present, a G.E would result in something very similar to the majority they have at present. Considering that because of boundary changes Labour have a notional majority of about 36 at present, this would be a boost to Labour and in real terms would be the equivalent of a majority of say 100 on the old electoral basis that the 2005 G.E was fought.
I would say that the Libs will return around 40 M.P’s, the Tories will be about 15 up on last time at around 226, mainly as a result of boundary changes and Labour will increase by a handful, maybe 7 to give them 353 M.P’s.
That type of result would be unprecedented and be seen as a major moral victory to Labour.
If during the campaign there were dissenters in the Tory ranks on policy then the Tories would poll less and the majority would be nearer the 100 mark. The only problem for Brown is more economic problems with the BoE taking a different line and perhaps some mud slinging from the BoE suggesting the government put pressure on them to resolve the N.R crisis. That of course could work both ways – depends whether the electorate have their thinking caps on! Turnout is likely to be up a little on last time I would say, providing were not having a monsoon, in which case the Labour voters will stay home!
Anthony, if there is a G.E soon and the Tories only poll 33/34%, do you think Cameron would resign?
Anthony- I seem to rembember even the exit poll in 2005 as Lab 37 Con 33, which overestinmated Lab support by 1%. And the exit poll in 2001 was also in Labour’s favour, and I think 1997 as well. Of the newspaper polls on eleection day, NOP was right and was the most favourable to the Tories, with all the others less so.
In terms of the ‘honeymoon’ vote, I guess we’ll have to see about that and whether it holds up for Labour. I tend to think- as you point out – that such support is more fluid and apt to change allegiance- or not turn out. Of course, it equally might stay where it is. It is unpredictable, however.
I also believe we may see a continuation of the ‘tactical unravelling’ of 2005 where the anti-tory alliance which had operated in 1997 and 2001 started to break down a little, as the ‘anything but tory’ voting manifestation weakened. I expect it will weaken further this time- because more time has elapsed since the Conservatives were in office, and they have a nicer more friendly looking leader- who may not inspire people to vote for him, but is less likely to mobilise people into voting against him.
Peter O : If Labour polled 39.1% they would have more like 370 seats with the Tories gaining 230 with 34.6% and Libs on about 20 seats with 16.5%. That would give Labour a majority of around 100.
I just can’t see the Libs getting 16.5, I think it will be more likely that they will get around 18% at the expense of Labour who are likely to be 1% up on last time at 37%.
Richard, the other option you leave out, but is surely a possibility, is that through the campaign people respond better to Cameron than to Brown, and the polls narrow so that by the end both parties are neck and neck and Brown lose’s his majority.
Richard – it won’t make any difference what percentage Cameron gets, it’ll depend how many seats he gets.
He could stand still or gain very few votes if he nevertheless gained seats, especially if Labour had a small or non-existant majority and it looked as though it was in one-more-heave territory. If he doesn’t gain a number of seats that can be portrayed as progress (no idea where the Parliamentary party and the Westminister village will draw that line) then no doubt the Conservatives will go into Boris’s “Papua New Guinea style cannibalism and chief-killing”.
I’ve never met Cameron so can’t really judge how likely he is to throw himself on his sword anyway. Hague and Howard of course both resigned willingly straight after losing the elections (Hague despite attempts to change his mind), so we don’t know if they could have clung on had they wanted to.
Richard-
I think Cameron would come under extreme ressure to resign, but I’m not sure he would do so willingly. David Davis would be the only even remotely feasible replacement, barring another Cameron stylke rise to fame from an unknown. And even then, if Cameron were removed, the party could hardly very well elect another new young face as it would be Camron’s inexperience/ lack of gravitas that would be the main reason for removing him. In other words, it would have to be Davis. I personally think that would be a disaster for the Tories, and a total waste of one of Cameron, who, until the last few nonths, had been I think quite remarkably successful in selling the Tory brand (which, let’s face it, is not easy these days)
Anthony I’ve met Cameron whilst waiting together in the Today studios. Thought he was haughty and aloof, but I still went home and put money on him to become next Tory leader. Knew they’d go for him.
Made a nice packet actually at 16-1!
Personally, I think Brown won’t call an election unless there are at least 3 polls in quick succession showing him 10%+ ahead.
I think people are over rating the SNP’s chances of making big gains.
Most of our target seats are obviously Labour and the Libdems although they have fewer seats have healthy majorities in most of them.
I really can’t see us getting more than ten seats and to be honest we might just stand still although with a higher share of the vote.
In a GE many SNP supporters now go through the motions, and Browns popularity in Scotland will almost certainly give Labour a boost.
I’d see it as being bleak for the Tories and possibly LibDems if there is a lot of tactical voting with people who might not vote SNP for Holyrood to save the Union, might ironically vote for them at a GE to keep Brown out or get a hung parliament.
Peter.
It might be interesting to find out if Brown’s opinion poll leads are translated into hard votes. Re the last comment that Brown is popular in Scotland – if that is true why did the Libs win the by-election where Brown was campaign leader and why did the SNP win the last Holyrood election?
Peter-
Do you think the Scottish electorate would not vote SNP in a westminster election to save the union? That would seem to me to have been a far greater factor in the Hollyroad election where the SNP were in contention for Government, not simply a handful of Westminster seats.
Since SNP voters are likely to come from Labour, if the SNP do well abour may lose a few seats to them and maybe two or three to the Tories as well.
Anthony – great article, thanks.
I’m slightly worried (as one who would rather see anything but a Tory victory… except a BNP victory, of course, but let’s stay in the real world) that the media pressure on Brown, sparked by the strong rumours of an imminent GE, will ‘bounce’ him into calling one. I’m hoping he’s not that silly. I think his standing can only fall from its current height, and Cameron’s a good campaigner…
Thanks for your response Anthony, uncharted waters really on the Cameron issue then.
Gin:Absolutely right it’s a possibility but I can’t help thinking there will problems of policy substance for the Tories which will be a big hinderance to Cameron.
LukW: I agree with you re Cameron not going quietly. Davies is the only alternative and all I have to say on that one is that traditional Tory supporters would love him
Andy Stid: You are exactly right and that’s why Brown is waiting. I have no doubt there will be those polls showing a boost of a few percent for Labour immediately after their conference which will push their lead to 10%ish. Those polls will be out during the Tory conference and that’s when he should call it, for most impact, preferably the day before Camerons speech. A G.E immediately after a conference could effectively give Labour an added advantage of the popularity boost that usually follows a conference. Something not capitalised on by any party for a long time!
Peter: I think you are right re your party, whilst obviously you are doing well and will doubtless get a higher share of the vote than previously, it will be difficult to take too many seats.
Wolf,
because Blair was PM and the people of Dumfermline, like most of the UK wanted to give him a kicking, plus Labour fought a poor campaign.
Lukw,
No Westminster government will give Scotland independence so short of an SNP government the can vote SNP as much as the like and the Unions is safe. It’s an odd turn about from the idea of an SNP vote at westminster being the threat but that’s another unexpected consequence of devolution.
Peter.
If I were Gordon Brown I’d be disinclined to call an election until the Tory conference were over & the dust had had time to settle. Why give the Tories a chance to gain a conference boost?
I’m still wondering if it’s anything like a done deal that one will be called. I guess if I were a CLP Chairman in a marginal seat, I’d be better informed – but as I’m in a non-target seat, things are different.
I’ve been thinking about what minimum level of lead Gordon Brown would wish for in order to make an election an attractive proposition.
I think it’s safe to say he would not bother if he thought he would end up in a worse position than now, but in order to make up the difference in lost seats due to boundary changes he needs about 0.75% worth of swing, ie 1.5% lead on top of the 3% lead in the 2005 election.
The rest is unfortunately more unscientific: based on the way the Labour lead has sagged from polling to actual voting in recent elections, for a variety of reasons not limited to people thinking “they’re going to win anyway so why bother”, I think he’d need about another 1.5% or so of lead.
Depending on whether one considers the polls to be accurate – that is a more open question. If we imagine the polls to be bang on then we add nothing more, or else we can add 1-2% according to taste.
Therefore we arrive at a figure of 6-8% worth of Labour lead over the Conservatives. Oddly enough this is similar to some of the recent polls.
If anyone would care to comment on my thoughts, go right ahead.
On the situation in Scotland, I agree with Peter Cairns. The SNP will improve but some of these Labour majorities are so large that Labour MPs will be insulated against a national swing.
The SNP could double their number of seats and still only have 12 – which I think is very likely and probably more at the expense of the Lib Dems than Labour (e.g Argyll & Bute).
As for the national picture, if Gordon Brown can bank on a majority which is at best in three figures and at worst where Labour is now then I don’t see why he doesn’t go for it in October and take out Cameron.
Furthermore, I have read/heard that Gordon Brown does not like Cameron very much and wishes to “crush” him,
set the Conservatives into turmoil with another landslide defeat, etc, so perhaps the lead he is looking for might be 8% or more.
and indeed he might even be aiming to outdo Blair in terms of majority.
Joe / Peter C,
I understand your caution about SNP seats, but polling since the Holyrood elections has shown that the Labour to SNP swing north of the border for a Westminster election is looking to be as dramatic as May was. The SNP share of the vote coming through on national data matches the regional polls and indicates that they might be getting close to a level of support that would swing a large number of Labour seats.
I’m going to try and do some regional analysis this afternoon / evening and post some data on that on my website.
I look forward to your analysis but I would rather make judgements about the Westminster voting intention in Scotland on the basis of Scotland-only opinion polling. In my opinion, the regional breakdown of some of the larger polls does not adequately reflect the political situation in Scotland. Why? Because the sample sizes are too small to appreciate that there are essentially four major parties in Scotland.
As promised, analysis based on regional figures.
Latest Poll – Ipsos for the Sun, Labour at 42% – 8 point lead.
Can Brown afford to pass up such a good opportunity?
For the first time,I actually believe the chance of an early election is now on.
Not even Mr Cautious would give it deep consideration.
Peter O- so your analysis has Lab at 330 seats. That would be a majority of 2, right? That seems somehow worse than Labour would be expecting, altho’ a much fairer reflection of actual voting percentages.
If your regional poredictions are correct, than Brown would do less well to go to the country now, I think he will want a 20 seat majority at the very least, anything less would not be acceptible.
You analysis has the Tories doind better in the North and badly in the SOuth East, whch is contary to the supposed wisdom that Cameron is doing better in the South than the North.
Also, Menzies Campbell would lose his seat on these predictions, as the Libs would only have one seat in Scotland, and that would be Kennedy, right?
Lukw,
There are 650 seats in the new Parliament, so 330 is a majority of 10.
The regional analysis is done on smaller samples then the national forecasts so the margin of error is greater.
I think the problem with those saying that Cameron is doing well in the South is that that isn’t relative to Labour (as opposed to the Midlands and North). For example, the excitement over the Populus marginal figures at the start of the month (see http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/1024) neglected the way that Labour had also increased it’s share of the vote in the key areas. Yes, that poll was better for the Conservatives, but it still left a Labour victory and polls since have been much better for Gordon Brown.
And yes, on these figures even Ming would lose his seat. But again, I need to emphasise what Anthony said, that regional polls of these kinds (sub-sections of larger polls) have small unweighted samples and are therefore less reliable.
I’m in danger of spending all morning looking at polling figures now instead of doing proper work – thanks a lot Anthony!
FWIW, I think we forget that Brown has a choice not of “now, or next summer” but of “now, or two and a half years’ time” – and 2.5 years is an eternity – he may well conclude that he can ride out any short and medium term troubles, and will have completed an Iraq pull-out and seen interest rates come down. That, rather than (if Peter O’s figures are anything to go by) “enjoying” 4-5 years of John Major-esque wafer thin majority/minority government.
Peter O-
Your ananalysis is very interesting though, and that’s a good point about people percieving that Cermon is doing well in the South. I think it’s just this (probably strange) perception that city-slicker right-on trendy touchy feely politics will go down well with supposedly rich cultured people in the South and fall flat with the flat cap beer drinking ruddy faced coal miners in the North.
The Lib Dems were squeezed at the end of the 1992 campaign – from 20% – maybe 21% – down to 18%.
But they may have picked up from about 15/16% at the start.
If this is a close election, as I believe it will be, the same could happen.
Peter O,
With all due respect the figures just don’t take in to account the impact of a siting MP. There is no way that the likes of Ming Campbell will lose there seat as even when Blair had his landslide Majors own personal vote went up.
I know people up here in the SNP who think we can beat Charles Kennedy, but regardless of the poll ratings he’s a local boy done good and he’ll still get close to 50% of the vote.
There is no way that the LibDems will lose 10 seats in Scotland.
Peter.
Two weeks ago,I believed that the talk of an early election was media mischief making. One week ago,I was not so sure. Now, I think that Gordon should go for it and he will win.
There is no way that the SNP will make any significant gains in a Westminster election. The Holyrood result was a personal rejection of Mcconnell and the inept complacency of the previous executive. The Labour juggernaut will ensure that there will be very few – perhaps Ochil, Kilmarnock, Dundee East and West and Livingston – Labour seat losses ( 5 at most). Indeed one part of the option for Brown going to the polls is that the failure of the SNP to capitalise on the Holyrood result will actually undermine Salmond’s minority government, and come the real problems mounting in the next spending round in Scotland where we can expect to see a public sector revolt against the government I believe it unlikely that the Holyrood administration will survive its full term.