Polling Shows Things Tightening Between Labour and Conservatives

The prevailing wisdom throughout the recent party conference season was that Boris Johnson was master of all he surveys. And yet, delving into the polls published during the past week, the gap between the Conservatives and Labour would not be described as decisive for the Tories.

According to polling conducted on 18th October by Redfield and Wilton Strategies, the Conservatives have a lead of just 3 points, with them on 40% and Labour on 37% in respect of voting intentions for Westminster.

Data compiled by Kantar Public based on a survey carried out between 14th and 18th October puts the Conservatives on 39%, down 4 points since its last poll in September. Labour meanwhile is on 34%, up 4 points.

YouGov’s weekly poll, carried out between 20th and 21st October,  sees the Conservatives drop 4 points compared to last week on 37%, with Labour up 2 points on 33%.

Taking on board recent polling, the New Statesman’s election calculator suggests that if they were replicated in a general election, the Conservatives would win 334 seats in the House of Commons, down 31 compared to the 2019 general election. Labour would be on 232 seats, up 30 from 2019. Overall, the New Statesman’s current calculator suggests a Conservative majority of 18 seats, down from the 80-seat majority it won in 2019.

Labour HQ meanwhile will be eying up the results of Ipsos Mori’s latest Political Pulse survey which showed that 49% of Britons who were questioned said the country is heading in the wrong direction, up 5 points since September. Ipsos Mori notes that this the highest proportion of voters who have said this since the start of the year. Just 24% of respondents said the country was on the right track, down 5 points from last month.

Meanwhile, as Rishi Sunak prepares this week to present his autumn Budget and Spending Review, he will be consoled by the findings from the Ipsos Mori survey suggesting that with a net favourability rating of 0 he has a better rating than the Prime Minister, the Health, Home and Foreign Secretaries and the Labour Leader, Keir Starmer.

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