YouGov show Tory lead down, but doing well in Northern marginals
YouGov’s monthly poll for the Telegraph is now out. The topline figures, with changes from YouGov’s last poll, are CON 39%(-2), LAB 29%(+2), LDEM 19%(+1).
A two point change in Conservative and Labour support is, of course, within the margin of error, but it fits into a wider pattern. While I think the change in MORI’s poll at the weekend was mostly down to a more Labour sample, there were signs of genuine movement to Labour as well. We also saw a shift towards Labour in ICM’s poll taken at the same time.
On a uniform swing this would leave the Conservatives just short of an overall majority, and being a far more plausible figures than the extreme swing in MORI’s poll, I’d expect this to further fuel the media speculation about a hung Parliament. While this is a much less comfortable position for the Conservatives, in reality I expect that a 10 point lead would still deliver the Conservatives a reasonable majority.
Polling results are projected into election results using a uniform national swing, but it’s quite possible that the Conservatives could out perform UNS. It seems implausible for the Conservatives to be doing well in the inner-city North and we know for sure from polling there that they are doing much worse in Scotland. These places have few Conservative targets so it matters little, but if they do worse in one place, they must be doing better elsewhere to arrive at the topline figures and we have polling evidence to suggest they are doing better in Con vs Lab marginals.
On the subject of which, YouGov also carried out a parallel poll of Lab-Con marginals in the north (as far as I can tell, this was the 32 Labour seats in the North-West, North-East and Yorkshire and Humberside that the Conservatives would need to win to get a majority of 1 on a uniform swing). YouGov found voting intention in those seats to be CON 42%(+8), LAB 36%(-8), LDEM 12%(-5). Changes are from the 2005 notional election results, and suggest a swing of 8 percent. This compares to a national swing of 6.5% in today’s nationwide YouGov poll – if marginals elsewhere behave like those in the North, this would deliver a healthy Conservative majority.
YouGov also asked a question intended to see how tactical voting would impact this, and here I am less confident. YouGov told respondents their seat was the type of Conservative/Labour marginal that would decide the election and asked again how they would vote. Not surprisingly, the effect was to further increase the Conservative lead to 43% to 35%, the equivalent of a 9% swing, and if echoed in other marginals enough for a large Conservative victory.
My worry over that approach is that a fair chunk of people don’t know whether or not their seat is a marginal. In the 2008 PoliticsHome marginal poll 20% of people didn’t know which parties were in a position to win their seat. Only 34% of people in Con v Lab marginals correctly identified their seat as such, 45% of people in Con vs LD seats did, 29% of people in Lab vs LD seats. A fair chunk of Lib Dem campaigning especially consists of positioning themselves as the party best placed to defeat the incumbent, so saying in the question itself that the Conservatives are best placed to beat Labour risks overestimating the level of anti-Labour tactical voting. The 2009 PoliticsHome poll of marginals showed no obvious sign of tactical voting harming Labour in Lab v Con seats.
Anyway, that’s something of an aside. Even leaving out the tactical voting question, the main findings of the poll are that the overall share of the vote doesn’t appear to be enough to guarantee the Conservatives a majority, but in at least one group of marginals, they are outdoing the national swing by enough to get a majority.
Filed under: Voting Intention, YouGov
6 of the last 8 polls have put the Conservatives on less than 40%, in the range 37%-39%. An increase in UKIP support since last year may be responsible for that to a certain extent, although I know UKIP take support from all the parties.
Surely as the election starts people will be more likely to know which seats are marginal.
Also currently very few people know about boundary changes, again this should change as the election draws near.
In marginals it is difficult to make sense of the polls too and many of those less likely to vote who are not counted in the polls may be more motivated when they realise their seat is marginal.
@Paul, most people don’t care much about politics and every leaflet that comes through their door in the campaign will say a different party is best placed to win. Confusion marketing, no doubt leaving confused people.
@Andy
Yes, there has been a pretty clear drop here. In October, Conservatives ranged from 40-45, in November 37-41.
8% swing in the marginals, 9% swing when prompted that the seat was marginal – suggests the Conservatives aren’t going to benefit a great deal from tactical voting, although perhaps they also won’t suffer from it either (one reason they won so few in 97 was tactical voting).
I have been looking at electoral swings recently and it’s certainly in the marginals where elections are decided. In particular it’s how well you can do to over-achieve in marginals – for instance, in 1997 Labour took around 50% of the seats in which they needed a 10-18% swing to win, against a national swing of 10%. If the Conservatives are to win a majority, they need their campaigners to win them a good deal of ‘big swing’ seats.
The marginal polls are further evidence that most, if not all, of the 2 plus improvement for Labour is from Scotland in the wake of Glasgow by-election win.
19% is relatively encouraging for the Lib Dems particularly as their support seems to be concentrated in the centre and south of England.
WMA 39:27:19 and CLead 12. There is very weak evidence of a reduction in the CLead but the bottom line is that there are (probably) 181 days or so until the next election and over the last 181 days the CLead has been 14.5 +/- 1.5.
We now have a Retrospective for the Ipsos/Mori poll and it was indeed 6 points out – even worse than the 5.6 on the Retrospectives.
Given that the Scots seem to be the only place that don’t think Gordon Brown is wierd, as Anthony says the real swing to C may be higher.
Encouragement in this for both main parties, although we need another with less than 12% lead before we can be reasonable sure Labour have narrowed the gap, although it does look to be the case.
The marginals piece, which is encouraging for the Tories, is no surpirse and confirms what many of us on here have been saying for some time. Namely than an 8% con lead at GE will be enough for workable majority and 6% or thereabouts enough to sneak home.
LD’s must be a little deflated, especailly if they believed the Angus Reid.
NB) The average of the others on the other 6 recent polls showing the cins below 40% has been 17% and here it is only 13%- if repeated in other polls soon the Cons may become a little concerned.
@Phillip JW
I think you over-estimate the population of Scotland!
Tories leading in key northern marginals. 10% lead in the national poll.
Not a bad position to be in, considering the High Street today has just announced another 4000 job losses, with Borders calling in the administrators. ie – its still the economy stupid.
It would be remarkable if, in the election, Labour polled less that 27%. I hope they do. But still remarkable if they did. But piling up votes in Scotland will not help them.
What is important is the ‘others’ and yet again we have evidence of how dangerous to the conservatives that UKIP can be.
Statto
The latest westminster poll for Scotland showed a 9 plus improvement for Labour. This Yougov poll showed a 2 plus improvement. Two nineths is not far off the relative population of Scotland’s to Britain’s.
The good news for the Tories (though not so much for the Scottish Tories) is that if Scotland is the only region where things aren’t going to plan for them it doesn’t really make much difference since there are only 10 seats at most the Tories could gain in there anyway.
I think Satto may have a point. If labour is doing much better in Scotland can it be right that they are doing equally as bad in England?
Surely the polling sample in Scotland would be far less than that in England (not sure about Wales) meaning that we can’t give equal weight to Scotland data. Perhaps Labour are actually doing better in England after all!
Sorry Statto for getting your name wrong!
An interesting occurence thought today was the new UKIP leader saying that a hung parliament is the best outcome. certainly not for the country or economy thats for sure. How many prospective UKIP voters would really want a hung parliament or worse labour as largest party. Would this not frighten some back into voting Tory rather than suffer again with labour selling the UK down the river via europe. I think the tighter it is come polling day would be to the Tories benefit so enabling them to say EVERY vote for them counted so please do not waste yours in some protest vote.
Some very important events to come yet, the PBR being the first, here darling will have to admit that the recession was worse than he expected and then say what he is going to do re the deficit. From a party that said we were better placed to weather the recession and in fact will be last to come out of it, what message does that tell the voters. We got it wrong but please vote for us again?
Paradoxically, UKIP will probably do best if the polls just before the election show a large Tory lead because voters who might vote for any of the main parties may think the election is a foregone conclusion and will be more likely to vote UKIP in those circumstances. If it’s a tight race UKIP probably won’t do too well.
A credible trend – will it carry on? However please do look out for YouGov’s announcement of today’s question which was a straight IN or OUT of the EU – which no-one has asked in ages. At last the froth and nonsense over Lisbon is out of the way, and we can get down to the real question – do we stay in or get out. All the main parties just offer variations of staying in (even as a Labour supporter of the EU, I thought that the Tories EU manifesto was the most Europhile in decades with a string of great pro-EU policies) , so this could be a genuine test of UKIP/BNP support.
‘ANDY STIDWILL
6 of the last 8 polls have put the Conservatives on less than 40%, in the range 37%-39%. An increase in UKIP support since last year may be responsible for that to a certain extent, although I know UKIP take support from all the parties.’
Not really; I cant see many Lib Dems against the EU or the Greens. Let’s not forget business loves the EU as well…. Don’t overstate the UKIP vote; it’s centred on there will always be an empire lot…
‘TREVORSDEN
Tories leading in key northern marginals. 10% lead in the national poll.
Not a bad position to be in, considering the High Street today has just announced another 4000 job losses, with Borders calling in the administrators. ie – its still the economy stupid.’
Perhaps, but I always note that Howard – the Tory Leader -in Australia lost at the height of the boom. It’s not just the economy; time for a change after a decade of one party is what cost the Tories then…
No conclusion that Labour are either up or down in Scotland as a whole should be drawn from the Glasgow North result. It might affect the morale of the Labour party, that’s all.
Only centenarians in Glasgow North (if there are any in an area with such a poor health record) have voted in an election which did not return a Labour MP.
In what sense has the polling from Scotland shown that Labour support is up? Not up from the 2005 General election.
Given what we discussed on the previous page there will be no dramatic changes in Scotland and only a handful of seats changing hands. The issue of most interest whether Labour may be weakened enough for them to be at risk of being replaced as the party with the largest number of Scottish MP’s, due more to FPTP than to any huge change in voter opinion in favour of the SNP.
Or not.
Most of the 2% increase in Labour would be accounted by the major swing to them in Scotland would it not ?
Another poll with the Tories below 40%. These rogue polls are like the buses – you don’t see one for months, and then six come along all at once!
Only ICM now show the Tories at 40+ which will leave them vulnerable if Labour can edge up a couple of points and break 30%.
@NBeale – I’m slightly confused by your last post as you say the lead has been 14.5 +/- 1.5% for the last 181 days, yet it is now 12%. So it’s -2.5% surely?
The marginal results are interesting, although I would caution against putting too much confidence on a 1.5% differential in the UNS/marginal swing. A tiny movement of 1% from Tory to Labour over the next 6 months mean hung parliament even with that level of differential swing in the marginals. It’s also interesting to note that a number of posters on ConservativeHome are reporting a resurgence of the LDs in the south west – I’ve no idea whether its true or not, but we can’t assume from this poll that all regions are experiencing the same differential swing in favour of the Tories.
It’s been interesting watching the reaction to the polls so far this month. A number of pro Tory posters have reacted firstly by assuming rogue polls, then by focusing only on the lead, now by blaming it all on Scotland and/or UKIP and expecting the marginals to sort it out. While Labour have not demonstrated any conclusive recovery yet, something has happened to the Tory vote. Repeat the movements since November 5th between now and the GE and things will get interesting. I appreciate we’re only meant to talk numbers here, but something has made these changes happen, and if it is that people are turning off the Tories as they get closer to power they might yet be in trouble.
@Stephen – “rather than suffer again with labour selling the UK down the river via europe” – apart from being a little off AW’s comments policy, I think you’ll find the largest transfers of power to the EU were the Single European Act and Maastricht, both voted through without referendum under the Tories. Just to remind you.
Trevorsden
There’s more than UKIP in “Others”, and their vote must be too dispersed to win many, if any, seats so your aversion to a significant vote for UKIP must be because you assume that their votes would otherwise mostly have gone to the Conservatives.
Is your assumption sound?
Some of these voters may not have voted previously, or at least in the last couple of elections but they think a new right wing party is more promising than tired old Cons who /had their day and messed it up/ are no different from Labour/wimps/etc, etc.
It’s also said that UKIP are taking votes from all parties.
That seems hard to explain, but remember the C2’s who voted for Thatcher. They were looking for a strong leader. They were impressed with TB at least initially and Left and Right have nothing much to do with it.
Perhaps a lot of people drop in and out of the vote for a variety of reasons and there is generation change too. I’d certainly expect that many former Labour voters may not have any enthusiasm for voting in this election for a party which they feel has let them down.
If that is an important factor, the other parties could increase their share of the poll without persuading a single new or swing voter to vote for them notwthstanding a small UKIP share.
It may be so that had UKIP not been standing in any particular constituency, that all its voters would have tuurned out to vote Conservative, but I am not aware of any evidence other than the fact that it might seem (especially to a Conservative) logical.
I don’t suppose you otherwise think that UKIP voters are logical. Migt there be an inconsistency here?
It is very interesting that the evidence suggests the tactical vote is now swinging *against* Labour, even if the scale is not yet certain.
On that question of scale, might a useful first estimate be to take 9% (swing) of 34% (potentially swinging)? That gives about 3%, which is still not to be sniffed at and suggests that the battleground has pushed up the table even *before* polling results are taken into account.
Andy Stidwell
Please look at the discussion of the Scottish polling on the previous thread. My estimate is that there will be a surplus of 33 Labour MP’s over Conservative.
That Cons might gain 10 is less likely than that they would lose the one they have, and less likely than Alex Salmonds 14. Predictions of those who have looked at individual seats can see Conservative gains in the range 1-4.
We haven’t heard much from the Tories in weeks in the news which probably explains why their lead is slipping. I suspect as the election campaign starts they will claw back a couple of points.
As Anthony points out they are widely expected to outperform in the marginal seats and they have a huge amount more to spend on campaigning than Labour which will help them, especially in the marginals.
I think we will get back to a 12 point lead in the election which, combined with the performance in the marginals should allow them to outperform the Uinform Swing projections.
I’m still hanging my hat on a robust but not spectacular majority of 53 seats but would put the range at 15 to 75 seats.
According to Rallings & Thrasher, there are 24 Labour seats in the 3 northern regions within the list of top 116 Tory target seats:
NE: Tynemouth, Stockton S
NW: Chester, Bury N, Pendle, S Ribble, Rossendale, Blackpool N, Lancaster, Warrington S, Wirral S, Morecambe, Bolton W, Bolton NE
Y+H: Colne Valley, Calder Valley, Cleethorpes, Brigg, Bradford W, Halifax, Dewsbury, Keighley, Elmet, Pudsey
Anthony
Partisan comment is one thing, but partisan over-optimism is also unhelpful.
Perhaps the many partisan posters on here should remember that in the past each of the main parties have lost – failed to win – been cheated of their due – by the intrangisence, stupidity, selfishness, ingratitude and ignorance of the electorate.
They have talked up their chances before and been disappointed on the day, and it’s never their fault. It’s never the policies, it’s always that they didn’t get their massage across.
If their leaders are so smart, their policies foolproof, and their selfless hardworking candidates full of energy and enthusiasm to hold the executive to account, how is it that they are such poor communicators that half the electorate don’t think any of them are worth voting for, and most of the rest vote for some other party?
A little realism would do, modesty would be too much to expect.
To make it 32 seats in those regions (which would go up to number 139 on R+T’s target list overall) you would have to include these seats:
Sefton C, Barrow, Copeland, Carlisle, Batley, Hyndburn, Weaver Vale, Lancashire W.
PHilip JW
I think you will find that Scotland accounts for about 10% of the British population.- whereas 2/9 equates to 22%
There is a clear break from the Tories since Cameron’s Lisbon announcement on March 4th. They were as high as 44 and now as low as 37. This is all about Lisbon and nothing else. Mabye a little about the SUN letter and labour supporters coming home but all the rest about Lisbon. Before the november 4th announcement they were consistently in the low forties and they have dropped since then in a dramatic way . You look across the world at other elections and when conservative candidates have such a break with a segment of their party it almost always leads to electoral disaster for them.
Brown and Mandelson have to get credit for making Lisbon about the tories when they were the ones in power who promised the referendum and went back on their word. Brown had Ireland move up their second vote to be able to box Cameron in. Brown also hypocritically went after Cameron when he was in power and went back on his word. Cameron if he was in power would have had a referendum first. Cameron made a mistake using cast iron even though he qualified it if the issue hadn’t become law yet. Cameron should not have used cast iron. Even though he didn’t lie anything that can be spun as a lie after all the lies from other leaders hurt Cameron on trust.
I think people are underestimating Lisbon with the conservative voters. They are extremely rigid voters. I have read conservative columnists say that among their group of friends the majority who have always voted conservative now won’t vote conservative anymore. This has penetrated deeply into their ranks. I have read blog after blog about how tory voters will now not being for them. All you have to do is look at pre lisbon announcement tory polls in the low to mid forties to post lisbon now as low as 37. These polls show a very wounded party. These aren’t practical people who will get that it is the law now and the UK isn’t going to be taken out of the EU. They won’t settle for having cameron be able to stop more powers taken away and negotiate when croatia comes up for EU membership in 2012.
I think a lot of Labour’s rise has to do with these rigid voters saying they will stay home or now vote for UKIP. It will be interesting to see UKIP’s vote and other parties vote at the next election. It will surely be far greater than 2005. Since Cameron’s Lisbon address on November 4th the other vote has also went up. I don’t see why Labour would rise besides a smaller electorate and people saying they would stay home. We aren’t close enough to an election yet for the incumbent party to gain right before an election.
We could look back at November 4th as the day Brown stayed in power. These rigid voters make up a significant part of the tories right flank and it has penetrated into the mainstream of the right flank just not the fringes.
I always thought tories had a decent chance of getting to 326 because Labour’s vote was concentrated in Scotland and the tories would do better in the marginals and could get a majority with an 8 percent victory instead of a 10 percent win. But Cameron has now used up that advantage with Lisbon and now his right flank has abandoned him and he didn’t get any more support from the center from this. Also the momentum from having dispirated activists can’t help and Labour’s traditional gain from an incumbent party gaining closer to an election could really hurt the tories.
Labour could also rise further closer to an election because this time some lib dem voters who fear the tories winning this time unlike in other elections could return to Labour. So cameron could get squeezed on the right because of Lisbon and from the left because of lib dem voters returning.
UKIP is out to destroy the tories and Cameron and are bragging they will cost them 50 seats. I don’t see that happen but the UKIP threat to the tories is real and won’t go away. Normally you could say that the election isn’t for many months and some of the other vote will slip and the tories will get some support back. But this time I think the other vote will hold up because of Lisbon and at most the tories can only hope to get some support back from the right flank.
Graham
Does that mean 10% of polling is done in Scotland?
Labour close the gap in November. Is it 2008 or 2007?
Sadly for Labour, this tends to be as good as it gets.
The slight overall rise in Lib Dem support, allied to a clear drop in their vote in both Scotland and the Lab/Con marginals in the North, suggests voters are polarising to the other parties where the Lib Dems are out of it and that their vote is now concentrating in their more winnable seats where they have an established presence. There has been evidence from many sources of a Lib Dem resurgence in the SW, too, not least on Consevative Home.
This might suggest that it’s bad news for the Lib Dems as they could struggle to make many gains in new seats, but they may hold more of their existing seats against the Tories than some pundits have suggested, especially since there has been a definite recent drop in Tory support. (How much of this is due to David Cameron and Michael Gove making utter asses of themselves on Wednesday remains to be seen, but it may pass.) If the Tories don’t make major gains from the Lib Dems, they will struggle to get a majority.
I think a hung Parliament looks ever more likely. Many voters appear to want rid of Labour but are not totally convinced by Cameron, so a Con/Lib Dem coalition may be an attractive option and Clegg has not ruled it out.
Mandelson and Brown also have to credit for now making the tories seem to be in cahoots with Murdoch and the SUN. That has also hurt the Tories even though Labour was far closer to the SUN when the SUN supported them than the Tories are now with them.
The key question is how low of a margin could the tories win with if they are around 39 at the election. Throw out the swingometer and understand that Labour’s support will hold in inner cities because of issues like cuts and will hold in scotland from the 2005 election.
But almost all of labour’s downfall in their national vote could be in the marginals where swing voters are much more independent and labour has also been hurt by issues like immigration.
Labour down from 35 to 29 if almost is all concentrated in the marginals in england and wales hopefully throws the swingometer out. You see a loitle of this in polls where Labour is at 39 same as last election in scotland and down to 23 in the UK and wales Now we are seeing they are hurting the marginals. This goes along with their terrible showing in norwich north even though that was a unique election with their local popular mp quiting.
Is it possible for the tories to win a majority with a 6 percent win if Labour holds their vote in scotland from 2005 and holds their vote in inner cities from 2005. Didn’t Labour do much better in inner wards in the local elections this year than other areas. We need a new swingometer for this election.
Forget the 39 because that doesn’t work with the other parties. But could the Tories be at 37 and Labour be at 31 and the tories still get a small majority if Labour’s vote in concentrated in scotland and inner cities and their vote is way down in the marginals.
Philip JW,
The population of Scotland is approximately 1/12 of the whole population of GB.
JOHN B DICK:
My guess for Scotland would be Labour 36, Conservative 5, so not much different from your prediction. When I said 10 seats before I meant 10 possible seats the Tories could win. I wouldn’t expect them to win all of them.
What percentage does the population of inner city seats in the England where labour’s vote is holding up compared with 2005 make up of the rest of the country? If Labour’s vote is holding up in the inner cities compared with 2005 that makes a big difference in the marginals. I remember hearing during the local elections this year that Labour’s vote in the inner cities in England held up while they had a big swing in the negative direction of the same 8 percent like in this poll in the marginals. Even if Labour is way down in the marginals it still might be tough for the tories to get 116 seats with a narrow overall victory margin because I don’t see any evidence of lib dem vote down in the marginals in England and actually they are looking strong in the southwest.
Contrary to some of the assumptions I’ve seen from Tories on other blogs, the UK has had a Labour Government in the past/present because England has voted for it. In the past 60 years there have been perhaps 4 years (?) in which Scots/Welsh Labour MPs have made the difference and allowed a Labour Government which England hadn’t voted for. But that was pre-devolution.
IF there is a close election and IF Labour narrowly hang on to power through the election of Scots/Welsh Labour MPs, I’d anticipate a severe English backlash.
It would be better for relations between our several countries if that didn’t happen, but Slovak independence happened because the Czechs lost patience with Slovak demands for greater autonomy.
Scots Independence may yet happen because the English decide to repeal their Act of Union with Scotland – whether the Scots want that or not.
Just wondering if the Iraq enquiry is a giant Labour scab waiting to be picked.
OK, it was a while ago now, but still provokes strong feeling in people I speak to.
On the face of it the Lib Dems probably have most to gain but the Tories can at least hide behind their claim that they wouldn’t have supported action had they known then what they know now.
The result will not be known or course until well after the election, however based on current form (hutton, butler, £s for peerages, I could go on), this is likely to be not relevant. What might be is how high on the news agenda this story runs and the media narrative accompanying it.
the first unknown unknown of the run in?
I’m highly dubious of YouGov’s methodology in this…
Since they operate as a self-selected online panel, the quality of their sample is going to be an issue to start with. And it’s going to be magnified substantially when they limit to regional areas, which must have reduced their sample rate.
One major issue is if they were able to properly verify that people they polled actually do live in the constituency they ascribe to them. Unlike phone or postal polling, this is entirely dependant on information provided by the person who has offered their opinion for the poll.
Do you have access to the internals on this poll? How do they verify residency? How did they handle weighting in what must have been substantially limited sample sets? Was the main voter intention question asked before or after they had been told the seat was marginal?
OldNat:
Are you forgetting that the Tories won the popular vote in England in 2005? I know Labour still won more seats but that’s because the boundaries are so out of date.
Whether the electorate knows it is in a marginal seat is irrelevant for the moment, the parties certainly know. I would expect during the campaign, there would be screaming headlines from the Conservatives – I know most don’t bother reading the literature, but the voter will be unable to miss the point before the leaflet is binned. This is where the Ashcroft factor should come in – the message can be repeated several times. The colour of the local paper will also be significant.
in light of this poll and the ukip offer to cameron by UKIP it would be interesting to see if he announces a new ‘cast iron’ policy on the EU.
Something odd I’m noticing is that although you can find Labour supporters online and in activist circles, it’s almost impossible to find them among ordinary people. Among my peers, I don’t know anyone who will admit to still supporting Labour even though most of them voted Labour at the last general election. This is totally unscientific, of course, but it raises two intriguing possibilities:
1. that a lot of people are too embarrassed to openly support Labour, in much the same way that many people used to be about the Tories at the height of “the Nasty Party” period.
2. Possibly more people will vote Labour than the polls suggest, though this would require that public embarrassment affects how people answer questions in polls
@ Alec – “These rogue polls are like the buses – you don’t see one for months, and then six come along all at once!”
Silly comment. There’s only been one rogue of late – the one that reduced the Tory lead to six points. No one has described this one as rogue and indeed it reflects one of the extremes we’re already familiar with (the other extreme being polls that give the Tories a 17 or even 19 point lead). It may reflect a small shift to Labour, as Anthony suggests, or it may not.
@James Ludlow – relax a little – it was a joke, based on the longstanding reaction here of most posters to anything that resembles a better poll for Labour. Just remember the reaction when the first poll showing a 10 point lead came out.
@Andrew Myers – “We haven’t heard much from the Tories in weeks in the news which probably explains why their lead is slipping” – This is an example of the trend noted above. I’m not quite sure where you get this excuse from, but it’s curiously optimistic. I’ve heard plenty from the Conservatives since Nov 5th. They had extensive coverage over Lisbon, I’ve read of all kinds of plans to cut Whitehall carbon emissions, they’ve rowed back to an extent on media reforms that got a lot of coverage, Boris has been well reported with his dealings over the London Arts Council appointment, the head of ACPO has said their proposals for elected police commissioners would be disastrous and then there was the embarrasment about PMQ’s this week, to name but a few issues. They have had plenty of coverage, but much of it hasn’t been very good.
There is a general view among many posters here that a poll with any negative message for the Tories is either wrong or will be reversed in due course and that the Tory lead will rise naturally regardless. Taking the electorate for granted is the graveyard of most politicians in the end. I have no idea what the GE result will be, but I can foresee some scenarios where the Tories support could be severaly damaged. The rumbling investigations into Ashcroft’s donations for example – in his book he claims to have donated millions more to the party than has ever been officially declared – imagine the impact on Cameron if overseas donations are found to have been accepted, and what would marginal voters think if the campaign money was dodgy?
Equally, there are many, many issues that could further derail Labour. Best not to make too many assumptions, but the message from the polls and many posters on ConservativeHome is one of increased nervousness.
There are two worries for the Conservatives:
1. As recovery from the recession strengthens, Labour might gain. They can claim that it was their approach to the global recession which worked. Furthermore they can ask what would have happened, had the Conservative approach been adopted? The answer is that the UK may have experienced a much deeper recession – as was the case in the 1980’s and early 1990’s.
2. If the polls do narrow further, the Conservatives may panic. If they do panic, they may lurch – as they did in 2001 – to the right. And, in doing so, turn off many voters. Or they may start to squabble in public over issues such as Europe or levels of Public Sector cuts.
In short, although a Conservative majority is undoubtedly the most likely outcome of a GE, things could still change if things run Labours way for a month or two.
@DAVID IN FRANCE
There is just one worry for Labour regarding the GE; they are going to loose.
I’ll happily take a 4 point closing of the gap in 13 days from YouGov. Particularly with over 150 days to go till the election. .
Alec
Also there was a lot of coverage of David Cameron’s ‘attack’ on Labour re; the Queen’s speech, and the Conservative candidate in Norwich scraping a win in the de-selection vote.
I think James Ludlow has a point about ’shy’ labour voters. If this government is perceived to be unpopular but has less drastic policies for cutting our deficit (ie; they want to wait until our recovery is well underway) then many labour voters will want to hide their voting intentions- reverse of what happened previously.
Kind H. I think most people would agree. Labour is very likely to lose the GE. The big question is; Can Cameron win?
DAVID IN FRANCE
What recovery?
Obviously living in France you may be a little unaware of just how unpopular Gordon Brown is in England. That’s understandable and I forgive you for it. There is an old adage ‘Governments lose elections oppositions don’t win them’. The bookies odds of 1/14 on the Tories emerging as the largest party reflect the government’s unpopularity not any love of the opposition.
Basic facts old chap.
@ Alec – yeah, sorry. Not enough sleep making me grumpy.
@ David in France – given the collapse of the Dubai bubble and the defaulting on huge loans from British banks, recovery from recession may be a bit of a desert mirage right now. The pundits seem to think that Britain will be hit very hard by this.
Andy – there are 24 in the top 116, but there are 32 in the seats the Conservatives would need to win on a uniform swing (because some of those 116 are LD or SNP held, so wouldn’t necessarily go on a uniform swing from Lab to Con).
Graham/Al J/Neil – Scotland provides about 8.5% of the votes in Great Britain.
Jay Blanc – I do have access to all the internal YouGov stuff, but not for the purposes of the writing this blog, which I do independently. Internal chinese walls as it were. Any inquiries about their methods, I’d send to Peter Kellner.
Once the tables are up we’ll be able to see whether extensive weighting was necessary. I can say that the main voting intention question was the first question asked, and that I personally would have no concerns over people’s location. YouGov only send out £50 payment by cheques in the post, so panellists have a strong incentive to tell the truth about their postcode, and comparatively little incentive to lie about it.
James Ludlow – remember that the adjustment for “shy Tories” that the pollsters made after 1992 was not a crude upwards adjustment of Conservative support, it’s an adjustment based on the past behaviour of people saying “Don’t know”. In practice that means ICM and Populus at least are already assuming a significant level of shy Labour voters, and without that they would be showing Labour at a lower level.
@ Anthony – so they are already adjusting for “shy Labour voters” in the way they used to for “shy Tories”? That’s interesting.
That’s interesting. I don’t want to throw a spanner – but what about those who say they’ll vote Tory but vote Labour. I wonder if that’s likely?
James
I can see that there are certainly potential UKIP voters among former Conservative voters. Whether when the time comes and other issues than Lisbon are to the fore they would risk a “wasted vote” and another five years of Labour Government, is another matter.
There are so few Tory voters in Scotland, and very few of them of the kind you describe that I need to take seriously what you say just as I expect you to consider carefully what I have to say about Scotland.
How many seats do you think it will cost the Cons, and how many UKIP MP’s do you think there will be?
Andy Stidwell
The difference between us is that you have two more Con Gains and a Lab/Con surplus two fewer. Your Con possibles are double mine and that’s why your “most likely” is too.
I think the likelihood of unexpected SNP gains on local issues is much greater than these. We need to spend some time on the constituency pages to have any hope of spotting them though (only because I live there) I can say that Argyll is perhaps top of the list of possibles and a three way marginal that any of the candidates could lose by one false move.
What matters is the Lab/Con surplus whatever the makeup of it might be and regardless of what the LibDems and SNP achieve. Anything above 30 is important for the balance of power and is likely to mean there is no comfortable majority and an early second election.
OldNat’s “severe English backlash” would be ignored by a Conservative government because they will have other more pressing issues to deal with; because they have no policy option ready for something too complicated to deal with by crisis management, and because they neither know, understand or care about Scotland.
The effect in Scotland would be more important. It would make it more difficult for the three Unionist parties to defend the Union, increase the support for independence, and weaken the resistance to a referendum.
If they dared, Scottish Conservatives could Bavarianise, support the SNP’s referendum, campaign against independence (perhaps not too enthusiastically), accept the will of the people, and – win or lose – all they would need is a new name so that they could win back former supporters, and bid in competition with the Libems for coalition with SNP or Labour. If independence was the outcome, they could target the post independence SNP right and sooner or later hope to be the major party in coalition.
A Con/Lab coalition is unthinkable, you say? It would need to be NewLabour of course, and Scottish Labour would be further to the left if the Socialists don’t recover.
Certainly it is impossible without rebranding and either independence or Bavarianisation. They are Unionists, and it’s a matter of principle, aren’t they, so they won’t do it?
The UKIP and any Old Labour suppporters here will not, I hope, tell me that it is unreasonable to suggest that a party might abandon a long established principle, in the hope of obtaining power?
Bernard Shaw asked a woman if she would be prepared to sleep with him for money.
“Of course not” she said.
“What, not even for a million pounds?”
“Oh, well, that would be different.”
“Well, here’s five pounds.”
“Don’t be disgusting! What sort of woman do you think I am?”
“We’ve already established that. What I am doing is negotiating the price.”
That’s what coalition government is about. Deals between a willing buyer and a willing seller. Scottish Conservatives aren’t allowed to play in that game, and Scotland is the poorer for it.
@Jack – I think there are loads of Eurosceptics in the UK Green Party! In addition, surely if voting anti-EU becomes a priority for a voter, they are even more likely to switch to UKIP if their ‘default’ party of support is pro-EU than if it is anti-?
@AL J
“Can Cameron win it” you say, with a lead in the marginals like this, like BOB THE BUILDER, yes he can.
A question to Anthony and to all contributors;
Does anyone else think it is time to put an end to projected general election results based on notional uniform national swings, given that the swing is very likely to be considerably higher in the marginal constituencies?
Andrew,
No! I recall polls in marginal seats going back as far as 1970 suggesting that one party was outperforming there in relation to the country as a whole. As often as not such forecasts were not vindicated by the subsequent results.
Specifically on the eve of poll in 1987 the Tories had a lead of 6 – 12% yey a poll of marginals suggested that Labour was doing much better there – so much so that a hung Parliament was possible..Yet the actual result – a Tory majority of 102!So my advice would be to take these findings with several pinches of salt.
After thinking about this poll for two days now I have come to the conclusion that Labour’s vote has increased but ONLY in thier safe heartland seats. This was the case in the 1951 general election, Labour increased their share of the vote but lost to the Conservatives becuase their share of the vote only increased in their safe seats. What else would explain why the Tories are still leading in the northern marginals!
@ Alec – what I meant was we haven’t heard much from the Tories in terms of specific policies which I expect will change as we approach the GE. More it has been bad news stories which may have impacted on the current polls.
Although not scientific I would agree with other contributors that the word on the street is that Brown has to go. I think if the party had ditched him the prospect of a hung parliament or even a narrow Lab victory would have been greater.
Now I still think that hung parliament is at the most negative of eventualities for conservative supporters but I wouldn’t rule it out even though I think that the Tories will scrape in at worst.
I’m basing that on what happened in 1979, probably the most likely past election from which to predict the next. Back then Labour were ahead in some of the polls during the campaign.
I STAND CORRECTED!
The population of Scotland is 5,168,500 according to 2006 figures. I thought it was at least 10 million. I’m from Wales. But I suppose that’s not much of an excuse as I lived for 3 years in the Borders and my daughter was born in Melrose. Shame on me!
I would hardly call the odd poll giving Labour a slightly higher percentage than what was considered a terrible performance in 1983 anything for them to get excited about
Lets continue wirh GE result projections. It may annoy some but I find it quite exciting.
I remember Kinnock and Labour doing well in the marginals. There was a ‘rolling poll’ every week during the election and Labour was suposed tp be catching up and even overtaking the Conservatives in the marginals. We all know what happened in 1992!
So I’m with Graham on both counts.
Anthony
The current WMA leaves a total of 15% for Others.
Could you tell me how this will impact on seat calculations when trying to predict the forthcoming general election.
If you haven’t already done so could you write a piece on the subject particularly in the circumstances when it appears the Conservatives have fallen under 40% and Labour are entering the high 20s, and if YouGov and Mori are to be believed, on the cusp of 30%.
Thank you.
Richard
Everything still to play for it seems.
Also seems supporters of party B are just as likely to exaggerate their chances/the doomousity of party A as supporters of party A were the reverse a few months back.
Andrew
“Does anyone else think it is time to put an end to projected general election results based on notional uniform national swings, given that the swing is very likely to be considerably higher in the marginal constituencies?”
Not exactly but I think it is time to put an end to projected general election results based on notional uniform national swings without separate treatment for Scotland where it is known that the swings are very different.
@Phillip JW
Glad to hear it, though the “its all down to Scotland” line seems to have been pushed by many others too, including Mike Smithson on PB (surely a betting man can do some simple arithmetic?
.
On an 9% recent increase in Lab support in Scotland (and I am sceptical it is so high – this change is based on comparison with a different pollster), around 0.75 of the national 2% increase could come from Scotland.
The 2% drop in Tory support certainly doesn’t come from Scotland! The starkest feature of recent polls to me, is not a solidification of Labour support, but rather a drop in Tory support.
I think people being polled are saying they will vote Labour so that Brown will call an early election and we can get rid sooner rather than later.
It seems fairly obvious that if the Tories are doing well in the north they will do well almost anywhere, (the almost meaning
Scotland). We have all read the reports of Labour dead in the south, dead in the midlands and doing far less well than usual in the west and particularly Wales. I am begining to pick up some idea of the Scottish situation by reading the learned gentlemen on this site.
However, Scotland is not crucial to the Conservatives for this GE.Therefore IMPO, based on this Tory resurgence just where Labour dont want them to gain a foothold, the Ashton strategy has worked a treat. Its been alluded to but not much, with marginal swings everywhere except Scotland, of some impact,
The Tories can win on a quite low national swing. A deal less than 10%. This clever activity is clearly based on their overiding problem of coming from so far back in the first instance.
Philip JW
You were probably thinking of the number of benefit claimants in Scotland…
‘WES WHITE
@Jack – I think there are loads of Eurosceptics in the UK Green Party! In addition, surely if voting anti-EU becomes a priority for a voter, they are even more likely to switch to UKIP if their ‘default’ party of support is pro-EU than if it is anti-?’
Wrong. Green issues are universal; global warming being but one example. As such Green people are happy with a more universal perspective on all matters, including lawmaking. As such EU is a happy place for them, not least due to the strong Green parties on mainland Europe. Green is the antithesis to UKIP / BNP / right wing tories (incidentally of course – and ironically for the Greens – business is also pro EU)
Incidentally I still cant see the point of an anti EU position such as UKIP; what makes them think that after spending a decade stuffing up the EU by withdrawing from it that the EU will then give the UK any economic rights to Europe? It’s farcical-the EU will tell us to drown in our mess. Then we go down the economic gurgler… (Or do we believe the EU will love us as we are British and so deserve special treatment… What racism, what stupidity…)
I think a poll of Labour’s 150 safest seats would be extremely interesting. If it could be shown whether or not the Labour vote is holding up better in these seats than in the rest of the country then we would have a much better idea of the sort of lead the Tories need to win a majority.
It is great news for the tories that they are doing well in the marginals. Lets be honest the tories have to win 117 marginal seats to win the election and this suggests that in the north they will win all the target seats. If this is the same in the south were it is likely to be more tory than the tories should win a majority.
They have a ten point lead but the marginals suggest they will win the key battleground seats. They should hold on to the others they hold because labour have failed so bad. I think the key is to win in Yorks and then the Tories have got a governement.
Dont forget the 17 point lead they had a few days a go either. Polls are very unpredictable at the mo and UKIP will more likely turn Tory in a GE.
Given this 4-point reduction in the Tory lead, and your projection of the Con majority as down to 28, what is your view of the Sunday Telegraph’s editorial coverage of their figures today? Objective?
The expenses scandal will surely throw many of these general trends completely out of predictive kilter.
I imagine it might be possible to quantify an outrage factor, dependent on the degree of individual sitting MP abuse, but with second home flipping apparently still considered acceptable in Westminster, voters might act more harshly where least expected.
On the ‘Scottish Explanation’, I think its totally bogus and needs to be ditched entirely. the Scottish poll showing Labour up 9% was comparing this week with August. This poll compares with the last Yougov poll on the 13th of this month (I think). Unless all the 9% rise in the Scottish poll occured over the last week or so it is not a valid comparison and is therefore meaningless, apart from the poor maths is assigning a 2% national poll movement entirely to the Scots.
Secondly, the marginals element of the poll clearly favours the Tories. However – be careful. When was the last marginal poll conducted? Do we know the direction of travel of the lead in marginals? Does it mirror the fall in the national lead? An 8% swing in the marginals looks good, but not so good if the swing was 10% a month ago.
Am i missing something?
This poll within MOE could be
CON 42%
LAB 26%
So nothing would have changed.
In fact this is even more likely to be the case because of the Nothern poll.
Alec,
I have suggested before that the enhanced swing in marginals over UNS is expopenential.
If 6.5% swing on UNS equates to 8% in marginals, I reckon it would be more than 9.5% if UNS 8% and 5% UNS would not equate to 6.5% in marginals but something less.
Reason being the dynamics and sentiment will have changed.
@Alec
Politics Home survey in September had the swing in the North around 9-10%, so direction of travel could indeed be downwards.
Usual caveats, different pollsters, etc.
I repeat – polls on marginal seats do NOT have a good track record!
Alec
The Labour in Scotland poll of +9 is a comparison with the August poll and puts them back up to their 2005 level. The SNP and Tories are both -2 since Aug (though up +6 and +2 respectively on their 2005 vote). The big change was the LDs – down -6 since Aug, and -11 since 2005.
Labour for some unknown reason to me seems to do better at the end of the yr in polls,this is what happened in 2008 when they got to within a point of the tories.
However the labour bounces have become so small now they are not really visable,this poll is as i have stated within MOE,the thing that will kill the Labour bounce(it that is what it is) off in my opinion as with 2008,was the budget and the defciit & media reaction to it.
I personally believe Labour are dead in the water,i also believe once XMAS & New Year in behind us the public mood will be one of getting labour out & getting them back for real or percieved grievences,especially against Brown.right or wrong that is what i expect to happen.
I’m still not convinced over this. The promise of ‘out performing in the marginals’ has happened before with regional polls, and they’ve tended to be wrong. And YouGov’s sample set is after all going to be the number of people in that region who have internet connections, knew about YouGov to register with them, were interested in politics enough to do so, and have been incentivised by cash prize offers. Add that to the reduced sample set from regional polling, and I’d have to say the poll is a wash.
(http://ukelectiontrend.blogspot.com/2009/11/yougov-and-marginal-polling.html)
Taking the fact that a budget is due just weeks before a dissolution of parliament,i have been wondering since the last budget was held at its latest date ever, if this was acually a ploy to go in FEB-MARCH 2010 for the GE,this would give Labour some element of surprise & would importantly avoid the Budget.
Brown could say a budget wasn’t held in 2008 until Arpil 21st so therefore a yr will not have expired until April 21st 2010 & not being open to the charge of ducking a hard budget.
I don’t know if there is any precedent for a GE in this period in UK history but i think its not out of the question.
John B
I didn’t mean that the UKIP would hurt the tories in Scotland. I think they will hurt them in marginals in England that they need to get a majority.
Last election you can even look at many seats where the UKIP made a difference and this election I think it will be greater. I don’t think UKIP will have any effect in Scotland but they will elsewhere.
I also don’t think UKIP will have any MP’s. The UKIP’s only goal is to destroy the tories and cost them 50 seats and have a hung parliament. If you listen to their new leader his focus is to destroy the tories. They know they will have no influence in a hung parliament because they will have no MP’s they just want chaos so nothing gets passed. Their vote I think will be the surprise of the election and not BNP’s vote.
James
I understood that you meant that UKIP might damage the Cons in England.
There are anti-EU sentiments in Scotland, but few in Scotland are going to vote for the English Nationalists. Even fewer will be in the handful of constituencies where they could damage Cons prospects and not many of these will have a majority as small as a UKIP vote.
Alec/OldNat
I can accept that Labour are now at 2005 levels and always have been around that level OR that they were down -9 by August and have made a slight recovery, but +9 in four months has to have an explanaton so obvious that we all know what it is.
It’s just as Anthony was saying about the supposed sudden drop for the Conservatives.
My guess is that the next poll will show labour down again.
That damned Captcha just wiped out 5 minutes work!!
The Conservatives fortunatley do not need Scottish seats to win a majority (as nice as it would be to win some) and Wales is moving away from Labour in droves apparently.
As I have said before England is Basically Conservative and most of the marginals should fall like dominoes to the Conservatives on Election night.
My prediction:
Con ~ 40-42
Lab ~ 27-30
LD ~ 17-19
One thing you can do is always copy the text you’ve written before pressing the submit button in case it rejects it. Or you can use Apple computers.
I frequently forget to enter the CAPTCHA code, but then I get an error message, click on my browser(Firefox)’s back button, and then enter it. No problem.
The marginal campaign isn’t as easy as it looks though.
Obviously not all marginals are the same. The tories in the recent by elections actually underperformed in a by election in a london area seat from their 2005 vote total. I’d imagine the swing to the tories in marginals around london won’t be the same as the swing in the heartlands.
Also Lib dems won’t have the same drop off as labour so the swing to the tories won’t be nearly the same in the seats tories are targeting that the lib dems have. Lib dems actually are doing well in the southwest.
So if you take the 130 new seats the tories would have to win from the last election in order to get to 130 labour target seats you have to get up to seat 169 where the swing would be almost 9 percent. Because in the first 169 tories target seats 35 of them are lib dem and 4 are SNP. I don’t think they are going to be picking up that many lib dem seats.
So you look at the 9 percent swing to get at labour’s target seat of 169 and then add in the fact that the swing to the tories in seats around london will be far smaller and you see why it is such a mountain for the tories to get to 326 seats. Even if you give the tories a combination of 15 lib dem and SNP seats which I don’t see happening you still wind up with a swing of over 8 percent. That is why I think 300 seats for the tories when you look at the seat breakdowns and where they need to pick up the seats is probably their ceiling instead of 326.
That is why this poll in the overall vote shows the tories would be short of a majority. Because all marginals aren’t the same so to extract the 8 percent marginal to all of them isn’t realistic.
POLL ALERT
New poll in Sunday Times Scotland. Unfortunately I’m getting a 404 Error so no details, but according to the headline support for independence is down.
@ Syuart Dickson – Its an Ipsos mori poll suggesting only 25% of Scots want a referendum and independence would be supported by only 20%, as against 46% to stay with the UK. It’s being billed as bad news for Alec Salmond.
@James – I would tend to agree with your analysis. There will be areas where the marginals swing is more or less pronounced, and how these affect seat will be crucial.
I also think its worth mentioning what a few people now seem to be seeing, and that is the fact that political timing may assist Labour up to a point. The SNP have been in power for a while now, and with the inevitable difficult choices have some mid term problems. Boris has been London Mayor for a while, and has made a few errors etc. Tory councils are now making tough budget decisions and their opponents have some ammunition to fire about what a Tory administration looks like in practice. And Cameron is no no longer ‘new’ – he’s been around for a few years now, and while Blair maintained his freshness in the run up to 97, Camron’s various policy switches and changes in presentational emphasis have in part at least removed the sense that he is a new broom coming in.
Of course there will be area where Tory councils are popular and could add votes, but looking around the country there are more and more local issues like Norfolk, Zac Goldsmith’s admission he’s a non dom in Richmond etc, that might swing a few votes in particular seats or regions.
I don’t want to overstate this – at 10% up they’re in the driving seat – but the longer the game runs the more chance there is of the losing team getting back in the game.
@ALEC
Me thinks you are clutching straw again brother. The marginals that were showing a Tory 10 % lead are south & midlands, therefore an 8% lead in the northern marginals is an excellent overall situation. Boris having a very bad hair day and other peripheral issues are not going to make up for British banks being in the excrement in Dubai to the magnitude of £50billion.
(Next up France and Germany £10 or £11billion each). The Iraq war inquiry will also bring senior Labour figures into focus for critisism, not least James Gordon Brown. It really is not looking good. Looking at withdrawing from Helmand might help a fraction. However, it will be a British military defeat which will have claimed the lives of 350 troops, minimum. Left to their own devices the Afghan Army will be in league with the Taliban within months and the whole thing will have been a complete waste of life and treasure. Admittedly by this time Brown will be gone.
James
Regionality is important in England too, especially for the LibDems. Not as important as it is in Scotland, perhaps, but enough to make simple national projections unsafe at the level of precision we need to predict whether there is a landslide, a working majority or a hung parliament.
What do you reckon would be the outturn if, as appears to be the consensus on the previous thread, that the excess of Labour over Conservative MP’s from Scotland was 30 or more? My own estimate is 33. Opinions differ in detail depending on which seats commentators think likely to change but the net result is within a surprisingly narrow range.
Alec
The notion that the SNP are inescapably losing support because they are in mid term is either lazy speculation with a total disregard for readily available fact which might inform it, or a bad case of partisan over optimism and failure to recognise that the world has changed since the 1950’s when alternate elites accepted that each side would take its turn at government (in this the best of all possible parliaments) and anything else would be “just not cricket.”
OldNat pointed out on the previous thread that satisfaction with the SNP government was high. This is despite being mid-term, and despite or because of a uniformly hostile negative and often personalised campaign by the press in support of Labour.
Wendy Alexander was right. The Unionist cause would be best served by an early referendum while support for independence is still low.
Independence is however clearly a matter for a referendum and there is no connection at whatever with voters choice in either Scottish or UK elections.
Voting for the SNP for the Scottish Parliament is for most a pragmatic choice usally on the grounds of competence and in the last election it was not the untested SNP’s competence that was the issue.
Independence has nothing to do with it. Three other parties which share the non-nuclear and other ethical issues votes are also pro-independence..
The high level of satisfaction is no doubt due to low expectations or at least a low threshhold of satisfaction as one cannot point to any innovation that has been dramatically successful and popular. As was said on these pages over a year ago it’s “bog standard competent government and a few minor gimmicks” That’s a winning formula in view of quality of the competition.
For the UK parliament, it is clear that a large section of the Scottish electorate either cannot see any point in sending a SNP MPs to a parliament they wish to leave, or they vote for a government. It would be interesting to know which. LibDems would like to know too.
Partly for that reason, but mainly because of FPTP, there will only be about 10 SNP’s in the next parliament, half AS’s target. If that is the outcome, many in the other parties will be foolishly complacent and focus on other issues, thinking the SNP has peaked whereas what may well happen is that there will be enough improvement in the SNP’s position from third place in many constituencies to turn them into marginals winnable on a very small swing indeed which would flip the FPTP jackpot in the SNP’s favour.
Please look at how FPTP works in Scotland and you will se what I mean. Look at what is does to the Conservatives, and compare LibDem+Nat with Labour.
Finally, this is a long posting, but I’ve come back to the point I started at and where James left off: Regionality.
@King Harold – I have no need or desire to clutch straws. A fourth Labour term would not be my favourite outcome by any means. On the issues, Statto’s earlier post shows that while the swing in northern marginals is clearly very good, as with the national polls the direction of travel is downwards. If the swing has shrunk from 9-10% in September to 8% now, a further similar movement leaves you in hung territory, although obviously we don’t yet know if these movements are repeated elsewhere (except the electorally less significant Scotland). The comments of Tory activists also suggests a strong boost to the LDs in the south west, backed up by some council byelections (accepted of course that these are notoriously unreliable indicators) so that could be another region where Tory marginal targets are becoming a little more difficult. As to your comments regarding Dubai – the total debt is £49B, with the largest UK exposure thought to be RBS at £2.3b, most others a few hundred millions. Of the debt, it won’t all be lost by any means, if there are actually any losses at all. This is why the FTSE bounced back by 1% on Friday. Its more of a nerve thing, rather than a huge financial hit. Besides, the long term collateral damage to the UAE will be immense if Abu Dhabi doesn’t step in and reach agreement with creditors, so I would expect this issue to die down relatively quickly. Brown is performing politically much better on Afghanistan at present, clearly with the GE deadline in mind, and the Iraq enquiry is I expect for most people old news. It also has the advantage of heaping blame on Blair, which I suspect is one of the reasons Brown was almost invisible in the original discussions on this.
I don’t want to overstate my points – I’m not hoping for a Labour win, nor am I saying its all over for Cameron – he’s the clear favourite by a country mile and there are many, many bananna skins for Brown. All I’m saying is that for some time there has been a collective willingness to assume an easy Tory win and implosion of the Labour party. Up until Madelson’s speech at the Labour conference I thought this could still have happened, but I wrote back then that I felt that was something of a turning point. Labour will fight this election hard and Cameron has not been as sure footed since his own conference. I think we’ve already passed the high tide mark, but I have no idea how fast the tide will flow from here.
@ Alec
Of the RBS debt figure of £2.3bn it is thought that only £200m is at real risk according to an article I read, mere pin money compared to the rest of their toxic debt pile!
Certainly there is partisan over-optimism from English Tories on these pages, and a realistic downgrading of expectations now will avoid disappointment later but It will take a lot less than an easy Tory win for Labour to implode after the election.
That is so even if they win by a small margin. There are tensions within the party that now present themselves as a debate over the leader, but have deeper roots.
Labour in Scotland have not yet come to terms with loss of office. Their MSP’s loyally defend UK NewLabour though the membership was much further to the left. Maybe it is those that are gone that are Left. Those that are left may be those who back winners and strong leaders and they are not really Left at all, but they may start supporting another team if Labour are relegated. Of course they will demand that the team manager is sacked and half the players.
Reigional strengths are the counterpart of weakness and wipeout elsewhere as the electoral map shows all too clearly.
The Trade Unions have their own difficulties. If it were nothing more than the financial effect of decline in membership consequent on rising unemployment they could weather the storm, but they are losing members for other reasons.
Labour party members did not expect that a Labour government would never compromise with its principles, but there have been too many disappointments, over too long a period, for many former supporters to stomach.
Lord Ashcroft should keep back a shilling or two for the following election.
There will be a case to have it very early to get a working majority, and the option of a further full five years before the voters have an opportunity to turn out the Conservatives but crucially, to outspend Labour before they have recovered financially from the first election and when their fair weather friends in business no longer want to know them.
If not in power, high profile Labour MP’s will look to fresh fields and pastures new and by constituency assocations’ views on their expenses either as a consequence of deselection or unwillingness to actively support re-election will cull many others.
There are many and varied reasons why party morale and membership can be expected to slump on loss of office. In time, it would normally be expected to recover, but if an excuse can be found for an early election, that will not only lengthen the Conservatives period in office, but deal Labour a damaging blow to its self-confidence and, vitally, its finances.
FPTP is likely to ensure that we still have a two-and-a-half party system. Labour will be the second party after the coming election, but it shouldn’t count on that still being the case if the following one is early, and that’s possible even if my speculation of what may happen to the Scottish lobby fodder turns out to be unfounded.
Labour are in trouble and will lose the election. The Conservatives should be under no illusion that they will win it. The last election that was “won” was in 1945 and then only because it was a fresh start in a new era after party divisions had been set aside “for the duration of the war”.
I wrote a long reply to Jack but got caught by the captcha, so in more succinct form: yes, there are plenty of Green supporters who would scoff at the idea of ever voting UKIP (and vice versa) – that’s beside the point. Lots of Greens are anti-EU because they see localism as a core part of green strategy and the handing up of power as working against it. Lots of Greens are anti-EU for the same reasons that much [not all] of business is pro-. I’m not saying I agree with them but don’t think they’re not there! It’s a big mistake to oversimplify the views of the supporters of any party that isn’t a single-issue party.
All that said, it’s a pretty miniscule point to be arguing over… what fraction of 2% of the vote might switch to the other 2%… doesn’t really matter, does it.
@John B Dick – would be an interesting paradox if Labour enter civil war because they have been defeated, while at the same time the Tories do likewise after having just won. There are many issues within both parties that open deep rifts, and a big majority is probably more likely to open these in both parties.
Nutshell:- Tories still ahead, but slightly down. Labour still behind but slightly up. All polls bar one are broadly within MOE but definite trend towards narrowing of Tory-Lab gap.
Cautionary Note:- We are not getting very many polls, compared to conference season and its aftermath. It is harder to get an overall picture when there is only one poll a week or less. It means that sample-bias, differences in method and other variables are more of a factor and the actual perceptible shifts are harder to see.
Things to watch for:-
Afghanistan (Labour making a clear effort to get onto the front foot, extremely convenient timing/location of the conference in January, Obama about to launch a surge which should improve security and help Brown),
Iraq Enquiry (Old news, but will keep the scab picked and may keep sections of Labour’s hard-left and Muslim vote from turning out, chance of a bombshell, can’t hurt Tories, might hurt Labour),
Budget (Expect Labour to launch about twenty quid’s worth of sweeteners for the very poor and thirty quid’s worth of wealth taxes to distract from the bad news – press reaction may determine whether Darling gets away with it).
Expenses (Further revelations over mortgage claims, CPS decision on charges, probably hurt Labour and Tories equally but if very grim may boost Others again)
Recession (Everyone expecting economy to grow in next set of figures so probably no boost for Labour, but VAT rise and job losses may lead to a double dip before the election. In the unlikely event that recession drags on another quarter, Labour will be hurt)
Europe (likely to have faded from memory by election, especially with faceless politicians taking the new key roles – will only be an issue insofar as Cameron’s management of dissent is concerned)
Conclusion:- As always the question is whether the relative improvement in Labour’s position reflects a fundamental change. In general I’d say that good news creates good news, so that if Labour can ride on the improvement for a while they may get back in the game. However, it only needs one setback to get the “Brown is finished” narrative rolling again. Labour needs a banana-skin free winter. Tories need to keep their faces on the news but without committing to too much, for fear of opening up rifts/debates within their own ranks.
I think it’s rather unlikely that Labour are going to have a high level of internal strife. The time that would have burst was after the local elections if it were going to happen. There is a level of discontent in the Labour party, but there *isn’t* a division in the Labour party over it, everyone’s unhappy with the leadership.
On the other hand, the Conservatives are pretty obviously still critically divided over Europe, and to a lesser extent divided over social issues. There are still a body of reactionaries on the right side of the Conservatives who are going to threaten defection to UKIP if they don’t get their way.
There’s enough of an issue here that a slim majority for the Conservatives might not give them enough votes to be a functioning government. I’m not particularly looking forward to having a government paralysed in even deciding what their policies are, let alone get them through parliament.
i am new into uk poll forum, but what i would say is that we are starting to see movement. movement is good for labour and it is bad (regardless of scotland) for the cons.
movement shows people are undecided and irrespective of anything lab are within shooting range; that is for sure.
movement also adds pressure and further movement as movement become momentum (as it were). the cons should be worried as picks ups and falls back have occured before but now you are getting into a different social economic and “events” space.
if i was the cons i would indeed be worried
@Neil A
I’ve calculated a trend regression of polling starting well before conference… (http://ukelectiontrend.blogspot.com/) And it shows that the trend for Labour improvement is present in the long term, masked by the ‘event’ variations. And while the conservatives do have a long term trend of improvement as well, it’s not as steep as Labour’s trend. The trend for a Conservative lead has been going down over the long term, and this is even more pronounced when you take a short term post-conference trend.
@ ALEC & JOHN B DICK
Post the GE there will certainly be much gnashing of teeth and renting of garments within Labour. Fighting for the soul of the party ect. With most probably a leap leftwards.
If the Tories with a 20 to 40 majority, then feel able to indulge themselves in civil war about Europe, they will deserve all they get from the British people. Perhaps I am to optimistic in feeling Cameron will not allow this to happen but who knows.
Labours best bet IMPO, is John Crudas with a proper socialist commitment. This Nu Lab thing has not worked out despite 3 victories. Their credibility is destroyed and will take long to return.
@NEIL A
A very sensible commentry. My only caveat would be Iraq/ Chilcot.
Its true we have heard it (or most of it) before, but the chancellor and 2/IC of Blairs govenment can only pull the McCavity stroke if allowed to get away with it. Whilst the media are tearing Blair to shreds, there is nothing to stop Cameron attacking Brown and drawing attention to his senior position within cabinet at the time.
Further, Brown gave Blair full support at the most difficult period of despair and “not in my name” demonstrations. I just dont see
Cameron letting it go if the Labour front bench of the time, do not just look questionable, but downright guilty.
Has anyone been following the local by-elections ? Particularly, in Tory target seats. It’s not going well for the …. Tories. Big swings to LD and some LD swing to Labour.
Firstly, it does appear that there has recently been a slight swing back to Labour. I’m not quite clear why as little seems to have happened: indeed I think Labour, and the LibDems slightly, may be benefiting from “no news is good news”.
There is now an obvious cloud on the horizon in relation to Dubai’s financial problems. These will not do the Government any good, but may or may not indirectly do their electoral prospects harm.
The YouGov investigation of marginals – thank you and well done YouGov – actually confirms the informal impression that i and others have that qualitative comments for individual seats on this site suggest that the Tories are outperforming the polls in crucial marginals. This is interesting not least because for some time in elections Labour has tended to hold down adverse swings in marginals (Redditch in 2005 is one example). This was probably in part because Labour, with smaller resources than the Tories, concentrated their campaigns, but also in [part because of tactical voting. For instance, in 1983 and 1987 Labour lost votes heavily to the SDP/LibDems in seats they held until the previous election. But in the past there was a sizeable “anybody but the Conservatives” (or perhaps anybody but Thatcher) vote. All the indications now are that there are a considerable number of “anybody but Labour” voters.
With respect to people knowing whether their seat is marginal. I think this is usually true of Northern marginals such as YouGov will have polled. For instance, South Ribble, where I have lived and campaigned, is by Northern standards a notably amorphous seat in terms of identity, but all the same people knew that they were in the constituency and had some idea of its political status – not least the local paper not only referred to stories but referred to its marginality on newsagents’ posters. The same does not apply in large city marginals in places like Birmingham, Bristol and, particularly London. But on the other hand the frequently moving, largely rootless, voters in this area tend to be politically volatile if they vote at all.
A final point, about the outcome if there is no overall majority. If the Tories are near enough an overall majority that they will win votes if the Nationalists – SNP and Plaid – abstain, they will in effect be safe as a minority Government given that the Nationalists will not take part in the large proportion of votes in the Commons which concern England alone. Even if the Tories were somewhat weaker than this, I think that the LibDems would attract unacceptable negative sentiment in terms of public opinion if they maintained a Labour Government to impose legislation and government on an England which had returned an overall majority of Conservative MPs.
The situation in relation to devolution now is very different from that in 1974. However there is a partial precedent in relation to constraints on Government formation in that it rapidly became obvious in 1974 that Heath could not form a minority Government dependent upon support from Ulster MPs. I know all too well that the Tories imposed rule on Scotland and Wales between 1979 and 1997, but they had an overall UK majority, and actually subsequent devolution shows that the situation was intolerable to the extent that it was followed by arrangements preventing repetition.
I believe, as I have implied above, that in the event of there being no overall majority UK-wide in the election next year a minority administration would need support:-
1. To deliver a majority of all MPs on UK-wide matters
2. To deliver a majority of English MPs on matters such as health and education where Westminster powers now relate to England alone.
If these conditions are to be met, room for negotiation immediately after the election in relation to the formation of a Government will be very limited, even if there is no overall majority.
@IMTIAZ KABIR
Yes I am predicting a re run of 1945 all over again.
The polls are telling us that Gordon Bown is considered a wonderful man and the public want him to stay on for another 20 years.
Imtiaz,
The Tories aren’t doing brilliantly in local council by-elections. That’s partly because most of the seats up for grabs were last contested at various high points of Tory support. England has vast numbers of Tory councillors. It will be disappointing for the Tories that they can’t hold on to all of them, but not entirely surprising.
I think these poll results are fixed. A very small amount of the population has ever been asked their voting intention. I have never been asked in all the 12 years I have been voting. Whatever methodology these people use 1,000 people is too smaller amount to get a very accurate result. People do not normally change there voting attentions every week. I have joined the You Gov site and get hardly any surveys and have not been on a poll I think some pollsters are just biased to Labour .
There are about 7 political phone polls a month, so for this year 70,000 or so people have been interviewed in them. Add in private polls and it’s probably still only 100,000 or so. In 12 years it’s no surprise that you’ve never been interviewed for a poll, on average you’ll be interviewed once every 400 or so years.
Even for panel polls like YouGov, they’ve 250,000 people on their panel, and have done 50 or so polls with voting intention this year – so most people will not have been asked one.
As Anthony says the polls are generally pretty accurate. Much experience has been developed by the main pollsters. a smaple of 1,000 is generally regarded as reliable to a MOE of 3%.
It is difficult to see how there will be any other result in the GE but a Tory victory. The more interesting figure will be the percentage of the electorare participating -50%?
JOHN C
“It is difficult to see how there will be any other result in the GE but a Tory victory”
While I would like to hope you are right you seem to be ignoring what may be the most important factor(s) that may influence the result i.e. the unexpected ones. Looking at the polls over the last few years the largest swings followed unforeseen events e.g. (1) Brown’s failure to have a GE in Autumn 2008 and his stated reasons for not having an election & (2) the favourable publicity he got at the time of the banking crises in Autumn 2009.
Mike,
In the absence of a crystal ball it is nonetheless difficult to foresee what those unknown / unforeseen events might be !
As things stand, a Con victory remains the most probable (but not certain) result. Recent movements in polls may have eroded the probable margin, and even increased the possibility of a hung parliament. What we are still a very long way from is any reasonable likelihood of a Lab victory.
There is still time for things to change, but any change in teh likely outcome will need to be driven by a major (unknown / unforeseen) event shifting the polls rather than continuation of existing trends.
I rather liked Neil A’s well balanced review of what issues could affect the GE, but just to show how we shouldn’t take anything for granted there are already issues developing that he didn’t foresee. Revisiting dirty hospitals won’t help Labour, although unless the theme develops this is likely to be short lived and with minor long term consequences. However, the Zac Goldsmith story is potentially more damaging for the Tories, as it feeds into a strong and existing theme. I would imaging it means they have now lost another potential marginal, but one issue missing from Neil’s list was the Ashcroft factor. Cameron may have a serious vulnerability here, and the Goldsmith story edges attention closer to Ashcroft. Brown actually made a very good joke about Osborne’s IHT proposals in the Queen’s speech debate, and its clear Labour are targeting the ‘wealth and privilege’ angle. If any embarassments do emerge, even relatively minor ones, Cameron stands to lose rather a lot as he has staked so much on ‘cleaning up’ politics.
Frederick Stansfield
“In the past there was a sizeable “anybody but the Conservatives” (or perhaps anybody but Thatcher) vote. All the indications now are that there are a considerable number of “anybody but Labour” voters”
These people are going to determine the outcome.
You make a good point about the non-voting Nats. A majority over the other large party and the LibDems will do, most of the time. 30+ Labour’s Scottish MP’s will vote on English matters. The SNP will have only 10 MP’s but that’s 10 denied to Labour and the LibDems, and every little helps.
They may or may not have enough to defeat a Conservative government on eg Trident, if Labour votes against.
They would demand a lot for any formal arrangement short of coalition and would find it too difficult to be in Coalition at any acceptable price in the UK parliament, though not in the Scottish Parliament.
This is probably a more appropriate thread.
Politics Home are reporting Comres in the Independent as:
C37(-3) L27(nc) LD 20 (+2)
So re-enforcing the trend that (presumably) Lisbon has hurt the Conservatives (what else could it be?)
It seems that raising awareness of the marginal nature of voters’ constituencies would assist the Conservative vote in those seats.