Poll to Poll

The bleak mood among Conservative MPs will be bleaker still as a result of new polling for the civil society campaign, Best for Britain. Carried out by Survation, the poll of over 15,000 people was undertaken using an MRP analysis not long after the Budget. It puts Labour on 45%, with the Conservatives trailing way behind on 26.2%, the Liberal Democrats on 10.4% and Reform UK on 8.5%. The modelling suggests that if replicated at the General Election, the Conservatives would lose 250 MPs, slumping to 98 seats, with Labour on 468. The SNP would be on 41 seats with the Liberal Democrats on 22. As Best for Britain notes this would give Labour an overall majority in the House of Commons of 142 and it would be “the worst ever result for the Conservatives at a General Election.” It suggests that on this basis, just 13 cabinet ministers would keep their seats, with those reported as eyeing up the leadership of the party, such as the Leader of the House of Commons, Penny Mordaunt; the...

The Conservative gloom continues as polling this week has shown just what a difficult position the party is now in, with none of the potential replacements for Rishi Sunak likely to revive the party’s fortunes. YouGov’s latest poll puts Labour on 44%, with the Conservatives miles behind on 19% when it comes to Westminster voting intentions. As YouGov notes, for the Conservatives, this represents “the same share the party received at their lowest ebb in the aftermath of Liz Truss’s mini-Budget.” Reform UK are just four points behind the Conservatives on 15%. Meanwhile, YouGov reports   that whilst the Labour Leader, Keir Starmer continues to be the least unpopular political figure in the UK with a net favourability rating of -18, Rishi Sunak is languishing on a net rating of -50.   More worryingly still for the Conservative Party YouGov goes on to note: “those who voted for the Conservatives in 2019 have a more favourable opinion of Nigel Farage than they do of Rishi Suna...

That the Conservatives are in an electoral pickle is beyond doubt. Just this week, YouGov’s latest poll for The Times gave Labour a 24 point lead over the Conservatives. Meanwhile, Survation’s latest   data  puts Labour’s lead at  19 points with the Conservatives on their lowest vote share recorded by Survation since February 2023. After a torrid week for the Prime Minister in the wake of Lee Anderson’s defection to Reform UK, and Downing Street’s difficulties in responding to accusations of racism against one of the Conservatives’ biggest donors, the mood music seems to be shifting, with attention turning to the Leader of the House of Commons, Penny Mordaunt as a potential ‘unity’ candidate to replace the Prime Minister in an effort to stem the electoral meltdown the Conservatives now face. One only has to look at the headline to see how serious the proposition is being considered. The Sun on Sunday splashes with: “Tory rebels hatch plan to oust Rishi Sunak and hold ‘...

New polling by YouGov for The Times has reinforced the sense that Jeremy Hunt’s Budget this week has failed to move the political dial in the Conservatives’ favour. According to the poll, carried out between the 6 th and 7 th March, Labour now has a 27 point polling lead. When it comes to headline voting intentions for Westminster, 47% said they would vote Labour (up one point from the week before), compared to 20% saying Conservative (unchanged since the week before). The Conservatives, according to this poll, are now just 7 points ahead of Reform UK. Delving deeper, when it comes to headline voting intentions, among all those who said they voted Conservative at the 2016 General Election, fewer than half, 48%, said they will do so now. Around a quarter (26%) said they plan to vote Reform UK. Further polling by YouGov has also assessed the public’s attitudes to measures in the Budget. It notes that: “The most popular economic measures are freezing tax on petrol and diesel at ...

Following a Budget which had been touted by some as a potential precursor to a May general election, Savanta has published a snap poll looking at the public’s initial response. The results are not hugely encouraging for Rishi Sunak or Jeremy Hunt. Asked who they trusted most on the economy, 30.8% said the Conservative Party, compared to 42.3% saying Labour. Around 30% of those who voted Conservative at the 2019 general election could not say they trusted the Conservatives most on the economy.   Of this group, 14.3% said they trusted Labour most whilst 15.3% said they didn’t know which of Labour or the Conservatives they most trusted. Asked if they broadly supported or opposed the key measures announced in the Budget, less than half, 42.1% said they supported them, with 21.6% opposing them. 7.1% said they did not know. Interestingly, despite it being the most political measure by the Chancellor to shoot Labour’s foxes, of all the measures he announced, scrapping non-dom tax s...