Poll to Poll

In the rush to figure out what the local election results a few weeks ago might have meant if there had been a general election, one crucial piece of the jigsaw was missing, namely Scotland which did not have council elections. YouGov however this week sought to rectify this, with modelling which would spell bad news for the SNP and good news for Scottish Labour. According to the new Multi-level Regression and Post-stratification (MRP) model, the SNP are on track to win 27 seats in Scotland in the House of Commons at the UK general election, down from the 48 it won in 2019. Scottish Labour meanwhile appear on course to win 23 seats, up from the 1 it won at the last election. The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats meanwhile are on course to win 4 seats each in Scotland.   However, the modelling comes with an important health warning. As YouGov notes: “With any projection of Scotland must come a large slice of caveat cake: Scotland has one of the highest concentrations of mar...

On the 20 th May the Conservatives reached a milestone moment. It reached the point of having been in power for as long as Labour were from 1997 ‑ 2010. However, according to YouGov, it did not mark a moment to cheer for Number 10 or Conservative HQ. According to an online poll by YouGov, asked who they thought   had achieved more during their time in office, 41% said the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Just 21% said the Conservative and Conservative-led governments of David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. 38% said they didn’t know. The latest YouGov poll for The Times continues to give Labour a commanding lead over the Tories. It puts Labour on 43% when it comes to headline voting intentions compared to the Conservatives on 25%.   Asked who they felt the best Prime Minister would be, 30% said Keir Starmer compared to 24% preferring Rishi Sunak. In a week which has seen the Conservative Party consumed by a debate ...

Off the back of last week’s local elections, the polling guru, Professor Sir John Curtice suggested that had this been a national election, the projected national share of the vote would have given Labour a 9 point lead over the Conservatives. According to the data, Labour would have been on 35% of the vote with the Conservatives on 26%, the Liberal Democrats on 20% and other parties on 19%. With the dust now settled, writing for The Independent, Sir John suggests that based on last week’s results, Labour is on course for a majority in the next House of Commons of just one seat. Noting that results collected by the BBC suggested that had it been a general election Labour would be ahead in the key parliamentary seats of Calder Valley, Colne Valley, Dewsbury, Ipswich, and Plymouth Moor View, Sir John notes: “On average the swing from Conservative to Labour since the last general election in these key marginals was 12 per cent – precisely the swing that on the current constituency...

As many people across the country prepare to head to the polls for local council elections this Thursday, how best should we judge the performance of the parties when the results come through? One marker will be how the parties do compared to the last time many of the council seats up for election this week were contested in 2019. It was a period when both Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May were both unpopular, with the process of leaving the EU deadlocked in Parliament. Just months after the elections Boris Johnson would become Prime Minister.   According to a note by the House of Commons Library, in 2019, both Labour and the Conservatives were tided on 31% of the vote each, with the Liberal Democrats on 17%. Another point of reference will be how the parties do compared to last year’s local elections when Boris Johnson’s popularity was dwindling amidst the ongoing ‘partygate’ allegations. Labour secured 35% of the vote compared to the Conservatives on 33% and the Liberal Democr...