The Conservatives Have a Giant Mountain to Climb

As the general election campaign gets underway, the first tranche of polls are being published. They continue to show the mountain that the Conservatives have to climb if they stand any chance of making a half decent showing at the polls.

Opinium’s new poll for The Observer provides a feast of data to be trawling through.

To start with, when it comes to headline voting intentions, Labour is on 41% with the Conservatives on 27%. The Liberal Democrats are on 10%, level with Reform UK, with the Greens on 7%.

Asked who they feel would make the best Prime Minister, 35% of those questioned said Keir Starmer, compared to 22% opting for Rishi Sunak.

Six weeks out from the election its interesting to establish to what degree the public is tuning into political news at the moment.

For Conservatives, they will be concerned at the degree to which the image of Rishi Sunak announcing the election in the rain might have cut through to the public. 48% of those polled said they had heard a lot about it, compared to 32% saying they had heard a little and 20% saying they had not really heard anything about it.

More worryingly for Conservative HQ, given the idea of an improving economy will be central to its electoral strategy, just a quarter (24%) of people said they had heard a lot about the news that inflation has fallen to 2.3%, with 45% saying they had heard a little and 30% saying they had not heard anything about it.

That said, Labour will be needing to do more to explain its priorities if it forms the next Government, with 19% saying they had heard about the party’s six first steps for change, compared to 42% saying they had heard a little about them and 40% saying they have not really heard anything about them.

Overall, 62% believe Labour will form the next Government either as the largest party in a hung Parliament or with an outright majority, with just 16% saying the same about the Conservatives. Among those saying they voted Conservative in 2019, 54% forecast a Labour win of some description compared to 27% predicting a Conservative win.

YouGov’s latest data puts Labour on 44%, with the Conservatives trailing on 22%.

However, additional polling by YouGov provides yet more depressing reading for the Conservatives.

When it comes to voting by age, only those aged 70 or over are more likely to vote Conservative than they are Labour whilst men and women are more likely to vote Labour than Conservatives.

Just 49% of those who voted Conservative in 2019 currently say they will vote for the party again according to YouGov, whilst Labour is, at the moment, holding on to 83% of those who voted for it at the last election.

Brexit no longer has the salience it once had. Whilst 74% of those who voted leave backed the Conservatives in 2019, that is now down to just 34%.

In a sign of how badly affected those right across the housing market have been meanwhile, YouGov finds that Labour leads the Conservatives no matter what housing tenure someone is living in. The one exception is among those who are outright homeowners, but even among them they split evenly 32% to 32% for Labour and the Conservatives respectively.

And finally, according to The Telegraph, in a further blow to the Conservatives who have pitched themselves as best placed to ensure the country’s security, polling by More in Common finds that 34% most trust Keir Starmer to keep Britain safe, compared to 26% saying the same about Rishi Sunak.

 

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