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One of the things I do when I’m not writing this Substack, teaching students, or generally despairing about the state of the country is give talks to companies who want to know what’s going on with the latest polls, trends, and elections.
So, in budget week, here’s a talk I just gave to a company in London about the looming UK general election and the impending collapse of the Tories, along with ten key charts which reflect how the British people are thinking and feeling.
1/ One interesting thing about 2024 is that, if you believe the polls, America and Europe will move right while the UK will move left. While Donald Trump’s numbers are strong and Europe’s national populists prepare for record gains in the spring, the latest polls in the UK all point, clearly, to the election of a Labour government. Here are two stats to keep in mind. For Labour to win their first majority since 2005 they need to be at least 12.5 points ahead in the polls, while for the Tories to win a surprise 1992-style majority they need to be at least 3.5 points ahead. Today, Labour is averaging a 20 point lead in the polls —so, more than enough for a majority.
2/ On these numbers, the Tories would plunge below 100 seats while Labour would be handed a commanding majority of almost 300 seats. Every seat in the Red Wall would go back to Labour while Labour would also re-emerge as a dominant force in Scotland, become even stronger in Wales, win even larger majorities in the big cities and university towns, and continue to spread into the commuter belt and parts of the south. The Tories would be plunged into a historic crisis. Their only available path forward would be to reconnect with non-London England yet most of the MPs who would be left after such a defeat would be one-nation, liberal types who struggle to make sense of more culturally conservative voters in non-London England. In many respects such a defeat would be worse than 1997.
3/ Of course, the polls will narrow. I suspect the Conservative Party’s average share of the vote, at 23%, will inevitably rise as we head into the campaign. There are lots of undecided voters. But I don’t see how the Tories can close the current gap. While people are right to be sceptical about the polls this far out from an election (the old joke being opinion polls are like sausages —once you’ve seen how they’re made you’ll not want to go near them), we should remember that at recent by-elections we’ve seen some of the largest swings against the Tories in the postwar era. What we’re seeing in the polls, then, is reflected on the ground. And at the heart of this is what the next slide shows —just how much the Tories have alienated their former 2019 voters. Support for the Tories among the people who rallied around Boris Johnson and the party in 2019 —most of whom support Brexit and want to lower immigration— has completely collapsed.
And here are another seven key points with charts …
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