Why Caution is Needed on Projected National Vote Share

According to Sky News’s projected national share of the vote following the local elections, Labour is on course to become the largest party in the House of Commons in a hung Parliament.

Writing for the Sky News website, its election analyst, Professor Michael Thrasher, said that if replicated uniformly at a general election, the local council results suggest Labour would be on 35%, followed by the Conservatives on 26%, the Liberal Democrats on 16% and other parties on 22%.

Professor Thrasher goes on to note: “Assuming these changes in vote share occur uniformly across each of the newly drawn parliamentary constituencies in place for the next general election, Labour wins 294 seats and would overtake the Conservatives - but falls 32 seats short of gaining an overall majority.

“The Conservatives fall from 372 seats on the new boundaries to just 242 seats, a projected loss of 130 seats. The Liberal Democrats rise from eight to 38 seats.”

The BBC’s projected national vote share, compiled by Professor Sir John Curtice point to something very similar, with Labour on 34%, the Conservatives on 25%, the Liberal Democrats on 17% and other parties on 24%.

On the face of it then it looks like its all to play for in the general election. However, Conservative HQ would be wise not to look too much into the national projected vote share.

Why not? Because whilst the projections suggest a gap of nine points nationally between the Conservatives and Labour, the local election results suggest that Labour is doing much better in the kind of areas they need to win to get a majority in the House of Commons.

As one unnamed Labour ‘insider’ has told Sky News: “We are very happy with the efficiency of the vote from every corner of the country, from Hartlepool down to Thurrock, from Avon and Somerset up to Redditch, millions of people have sent out a message so loud and clear that even the prime minister in his private jet must have heard it.

"Labour's on course to win a majority. We are very happy with where we are. Others and independents won't get 24% in the general election.

"The voter distribution is where we need to be. In places like Tees Valley we have a huge swing.

"Where do you think all those smaller and independents are going at a general election where there is only a choice of two parties?

"A nine per cent lead is more than enough to win a majority and we are winning the seats we need to win a majority."

Indeed, ITV News’s Deputy Political Editor, Anushka Asthana has reported that experts in both the Labour and Conservative parties believe a national Labour lead over the Conservatives of five or six percentage points would be enough to give Labour an outright majority in the House of Commons.  

Added to that, perhaps the best indicator of what the general election might look like was the Blackpool South by-election with Labour’s victory seeing a swing of just over 26% to it from the Conservatives. This was the third largest swing from Conservative to Labour in post-war by-election history.

And for those in Downing Street clinging to Ben Houchen’s victory in the Tees Valley mayoral contest as a source of some hope, he did so with a swing in vote share of just over 16% from the Conservatives to Labour. That would be more than enough for Labour to pick up every single parliamentary seat in the Tees Valley region at a general election.

It is therefore perhaps little surprise then that Professor Curtice has concluded that “the big message from the local ballot boxes is that the Conservatives remain in deep electoral trouble.”