Poll to Poll

Opinium has published its latest polling for The Observer which points to potential signs of progress for Labour. The survey which took place on 27 th May, just a day after Dominic Cummings gave his scathing evidence to MPs on the Government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic sees the Conservative lead over Labour cut from 13 to 6 points compared to Opinium’s last poll on 13 th May. On headline voting intentions, the Conservatives are on 42%, down 2 points. Labour meanwhile is on 36%, up 5 points. 33% said that they felt Boris Johnson is best as Prime Minister, down from 40% two weeks ago. In contrast, 27% now say Keir Starmer would be the best Prime Minister, up from 23%. That said this still remains below the 28% who said they did not know who would make the best Prime Minister. Opinium goes on to note that: “In similar vein, Johnson’s approval ratings have also fallen  from +6% to -6% while Starmer’s has held steady at -9%.” In a sign that Dominic Cummings’ evide...

  Westminster was this week transfixed by the seven or so hours of evidence provided by Boris Johnson’s former Chief Adviser, Dominic Cummings, to the Health and Science & Technology Committees on the Government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet for all the hype in the media, how much cut through has what he has said had with the public? According to polling by YouGov whilst just 10% of the public said they were following the news around Cummings’ evidence very closely, 31% said they are following it “fairly” closely with 29% saying they were following the news, but “not very closely”. And what do the public think of the content of what was said? According to the poll, 32% felt that the criticisms made by Dominic Cummings were mostly accurate, with 26% saying they were mostly inaccurate. 42% didn’t know what to think about the accuracy of the accusations he made against the Government. YouGov notes: “This is possibly unsurprising, given a previous YouGov poll ...

To say that unionist politics in Northern Ireland has been going through a turbulent period would be an understatement. Following the resignation of Arlene Foster as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, the party’s MPs and MLAs have elected as her replacement Edwin Poots, the current Minister of Agriculture, Environment, and Rural Affairs in the power sharing executive at Stormont. Outlining the challenge he faces, PoliticsHome has noted that: “Poots fiercely opposes the post-Brexit arrangements for Northern Ireland and has been reluctant to implement the infrastructure required for border checks in his role as agriculture minister.” It goes on to say that he is now “also tasked with building momentum ahead of next year's assembly elections, with the DUP's support dwindling in recent opinion polls. He is expected to focus on winning back support lost to the hardline Traditional Unionist Voice, but faces losing more moderate voters to centrist party Alliance.” And...

Labour headquarters would do well to avoid today’s polling by Opinium for The Observer if they want to have a half decent day with the results spelling out clearly the scale of the mountain needs to climb to get back into the game. The survey, which took place between the 13 th and 14 th May puts the Conservatives, when it comes to headline voting intentions on 44% compared to Labour on 31%. To put that into context, the 13 point lead for the Conservatives compares to the 5 points that Opinium gave them at the end of April. If that wasn’t bad enough, whilst 40% of respondents said that Boris Johnson would make the best Prime Minister (up 8 points since two weeks ago), just 23% said they felt the Labour leader, Keir Starmer would, down 6 points since the end of April. That puts him just below the 24% of respondents who said they did not know who would be the best Prime Minister. Digging deeper, 28% of respondents said they approved of the job that Keir Starmer was doing as Labo...

The election of Labour’s Tracy Brabin as the first Mayor of West Yorkshire last week will have been a bitter sweet moment for Keir Starmer. Whilst undoubtedly pleased to have won, it led Ms Brabin to step down from her position as MP for the West Yorkshire seat of Batley and Spen, triggering a by-election to take place on a date to be confirmed.   After the party’s heavy defeat in Hartlepool, it’s a by-election Labour will be looking to nervously. On the surface there is a difference. At the 2019 election in Hartlepool the Brexit Party, whose voters effectively handed seat to the Conservatives last week, polled over 10,500 votes. This compared to Labour’s majority at the time of over 3,500. In contrast, again in 2019, Labour’s majority in Batley and Spen was just over 3,500. Even if the 1,678 people who voted for the Brexit Party at the time had voted Conservative it would not have been enough to defeat Labour. As such, this is a by-election that is likely to hinge on whe...

Amidst the near constant stream of election results that continue to come in, it is now an opportune moment to consider how the parties have done in terms of the overall share of the vote they have secured. In Scotland, with all the results for the elections to Holyrood now in, when it comes to the constituency section of the ballot, the SNP has secured 47.7% of the vote. This is in contrast to the 46.5% it secured in the 2016 elections to the Scottish Parliament and the 45% it won at the 2019 General Election . Again, on the constituency vote section of the ballot, the vote shares for the other parties were as follows: Labour: 21.6% (down from 22.6% in 2016, but up from 18.6% in 2019) Conservatives: 21.9% (down from 22% in 2016, but up from 25.1% in 2019) Liberal Democrats: 6.9% (down from 7.8% in 2016, and down from 9.5% in 2019) Green: 1.3% (up from 0.6% in 2016, and up from 1% in 2019) As the debate over Scotland’s constitutional future hots up, it is important to n...

With polling day for elections across the country now just days away, it is the Labour Party which has the most to fear. Aside from the elections to the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments, the contest which will tell us most about the state of British politics will be the parliamentary by-election in Hartlepool. It will especially tell us whether Boris Johnson’s appeal in the so called ‘Red Wall’ seats endures, or whether Labour is able to stop the rot that set it at the 2019 General Election. According to a poll published today by Survation for Good Morning Britain of voters in the constituency,   the Conservatives could be on course to win handsomely. 50% said they would vote for the Conservative candidate, Jill Mortimer with 33% going for Labour’s Paul Williams. What is more, the poll further demonstrates the appeal that Boris Johnson has in the seat with a net favourability rating of +23% compared to Keir Starmer on -18%. But this represents just the tip of a large iceberg...

With days to go until voters head to the polls for elections right across the UK, predictably we have today a blizzard of polling to go through. Firstly, in Scotland, the Daily Record reports on two polls for the elections to Holyrood. The first, carried out by BMG Research for The Herald newspaper puts the parties, in the constituency vote section of the ballot on SNP 49%, Labour 21%, Conservatives 19% and the Liberal Democrats 9%. On the regional list vote, the results were SNP 37%, Conservatives 22%, Labour 17%, the Greens 9%, the Liberal Democrats 8% and Alba Party 4%. According to the Daily Record, if replicated across Scotland such results would give the SNP an overall majority in the Scottish Parliament with the SNP winning 68 seats, the Conservatives 25, Labour 18, Greens 9, the Liberal Democrats 7 and 2 seats for Alex Salmond’s Alba Party. The Daily Record goes on to say: “The second poll, carried out for the Sunday Times by Panelbase, gave the SNP the most slender majo...

  As the Labour Party looks forward to what this Thursday’s elections holds for it, it would be forgiven also for looking back wistfully. Exactly 24 years to the day Tony Blair entered Downing Street for the first time as Prime Minister. He did so on the back of a remarkable set of general election results . On a 10% swing to Labour from the Conservatives, Blair secured a majority in the House of Commons of 179 seats, having won 45% of the votes cast. Fast forward to today and with the Conservatives having been in government for 11 years, and amidst allegations of sleaze against Boris Johnson new polling by YouGov could not be bleaker for the Labour camp. YouGov note that between the 16 th and 28 th April it “surveyed people living up and down the ‘Red Wall’ who are in areas that have local council (district, borough, or unitary authority) elections next week. Based on the voting intention figures among those who either plan to vote in the local elections, or have already ...