Poll to Poll

Opinium has published its latest polling for The Observer, with the fieldwork carried out between 25 th and 26 th March. The headline voting intentions among those likely to vote and who picked a party they would vote for were as follows: Conservative – 41% Labour – 37% Liberal Democrat – 6% SNP – 6% Plaid Cymru – 1% Green – 5% UKIP – 2% Brexit Party – 1% Other party – 2% Looking deeper into the figures, what is striking is that among those polled living in constituencies gained by the Conservative Party in the 2019 General Election in England and Wales, 46% now back Labour, with 44% supporting the Conservatives. Opinium notes that: “Both Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer have seen small drops in their approval numbers. Johnson now has a net approval of +1, down from +7 two weeks ago. 42% approve of the job he is doing (-2) while 41% disapprove (+3). Meanwhile Starmer’s approval is now -5, down from +5. 30% approve of the job he is doing (-4) while 35% disapprov...

  The 6 th May will see the political parties in the UK face their biggest electoral test this side of the next General Election. As with all elections, the polling industry is entering its peak season. London Mayoral Contest In London, elections for the Mayor of London use the Supplementary Vote system. Under it, voters make a first and second choice when they vote. If no candidate gets more than 50% of the first-choice votes, all except the top 2 candidates, are eliminated. As a result of the system, since the role of Mayor was established at the turn of the century, no one has won the contest outright on the first round of voting. New polling by Opinium suggests that this is a record that could be broken this year. The survey of voters in London for The Evening Standard puts the current Labour incumbent, Sadiq Khan, on 53% of the vote in the first round, with the Conservative, Shaun Bailey on just 28%. This would give Khan an outright victory without the need to go t...

  I should start by adding a health warning to this post. It is written as news is breaking that Scottish First Minister and the leader of the SNP, Nicola Sturgeon, is reported, in the words of The Herald, to have “misled parliament over the Alex Salmond affair”.   It goes on to note: “Sky News said the Holyrood inquiry into the affair found the First Minister gave "an inaccurate account" of her actions and so misled the cross-party investigation. “However it stopped short of saying she did so "knowingly", the threshold for resignation under the Scottish Ministerial Code.” The paper’s Scottish Political Editor, Tom Gordon, goes on to note: “The decision is likely to increase pressure on Ms Sturgeon to stand down before May's election.” That said, Opinium has published polling commissioned by Sky News on the political landscape in Scotland. Ahead of May’s elections to the Scottish Parliament, the poll gives the SNP a commanding lead. On the constituency v...

On paper, the parliamentary by-election caused by the resignation today of Hartlepool’s MP, Mike Hill, should not pose too many problems for Labour. After all, the party has won every election their since the seat was first contested at the February 1974 election, its most notable MP being one Peter Mandelson, one of the architects of the New Labour project. And yet Labour HQ will be nervous as it prepares for the first parliamentary election under Keir Starmer. The trend in the seat has been clear. Having secured a high watermark of a majority of 17,508 in 1997, by December 2019 Mike Hill, then Labour’s candidate, had a majority over the Conservatives of just 3,595. His share of the vote, at 37.7% was down 14.8% compared to 2017. It’s a seat that is surrounded by a number that constituted the breaking of Labour’s ‘Red Wall’ in 2019, with nearby seats including Redcar, Stockton South, Sedgefield, Darlington and Bishop Auckland all having flipped Conservative. The election wi...

Following the postponement, due to the pandemic, of various elections that had been due to take place last May, for political geeks, the 6 th May 2021 will provide a wealth of data in what will the biggest electoral test for all the political parties this side of the next General Election. ‘Super Thursday’ as it will inevitably be seen, will involve elections for: 21 county councils. 124 unitary, district and borough councils. 13 directly elected mayors. 39 police and crime commissioners. The Scottish Parliament. The Welsh Parliament. The London Assembly. With the Conservatives having been in power now for 11 years, these elections should, in theory, provide rich pickings for the Labour Party under Keir Starmer. And yet, with the COVID-19 vaccine roll out going so well and the Conservatives once again pulling ahead of Labour in the polls, it is Keir Starmer who is facing a trickier time going into these elections than Boris Johnson. As the first electoral test for ...

  As Buckingham Palace considers if, and how, to respond to the fairly explosive interview given by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to Oprah Winfrey over the weekend, new snap polling by YouGov suggests the public have more sympathy with royal family. The survey conducted between the 8 th and 9 th March found that 36% said that their sympathies lie most with the Queen and royal family more broadly, down 2 points from when the same question was asked on 4 th March. In contrast, 22% (up 4 points) said they had more sympathy for Harry and Meghan, with 28% feeling no sympathy for either side. 32% said that they felt the Duke and Duchess have been treated fairly by the royal family, with the same proportion saying they have been treated unfairly. 36% were unsure either way. YouGov go on to note: “Britons are under no illusion that royal life is easy either, approaching two fifths Britons (38%) think that being a Royal is both a burden and a privilege (38%). A further 23% thin...

New polling out today suggests that the rift between Scottish First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, and her predecessor, Alex Salmond, could now be cutting through to the public. It follows a week in which Ms Sturgeon was questioned by MSPs looking into the botched handling by the Scottish Government of allegations against Mr Salmond of sexual harassment. According to the poll of Scots by Savanta ComRes for The Scotsman and conducted between the 4 th and 5 th March, it finds that, bucking recent trends, 46% of respondents said they would vote against Scotland leaving the UK in any second referendum, compared to 43% who said they would support such a move. 10% said they did not know how they would vote. With those who did not know how they would vote taken out of the equation, the results put those against independence on 52% and those in favour of it on 48%. The Scotsman goes on to note that 35% of votes said that the ongoing Salmond inquiry was the main reason driving them away f...

As the Chancellor has today gone out to sell his Budget to the public, he’ll be cheered by a series of snap polls suggesting that the public, by and large, feel he got the balance about right between beginning to address the national debt whilst supporting economic growth. For YouGov , 46% supported the measures in it, with just 11% opposing it. That said, 42% said that they did not know what they thought of it. It found too that 66% of Conservative voters support it, with 38% of Labour voters supporting it, compared to 18% who oppose it. YouGov go on to note: “When it comes to specific measures in the budget, the extension of the furlough scheme to September is also widely welcomed. Half (49%) of Britons approve of the scheme lasting until about this time – just 16% think it should be ended earlier. A further 14% want to see the scheme in place for longer still, with Labour voters more likely to feel this way than Conservatives (19% vs 8%). “There is also widespread support fo...

  To coincide with St. David’s Day yesterday, the BBC published its annual poll of adults in Wales conducted by ICM Unlimited. With the survey undertaken between 28 th January and 21 st February, the findings provide clear pointers towards how things might shape up in the elections to the Welsh Parliament in May, feelings about the Parliament itself and what Wales thinks about independence. When it comes to voting intentions for the Welsh parliamentary election, for the constituency ballot, 39% of those surveyed said they would vote Labour, up 8 percentage points since last year. The Conservatives have fallen by 7 points to 24%, the same level of support as Plaid Cymru. The Liberal Democrats meanwhile are on 4% with the Green Party on 1%, UKIP on 2%, the Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party on 1% and 4% saying they would vote for another party. For the regional ballot, Labour is on 37%, an increase of 6 points compared to last year. The Conservatives and Plaid Cymru are on 22%...