BludgerTrack UK: CON 43.9, LAB 35.4, LD 7.9

Latest update from a country where the polls are actually doing something.

With ten days left before the general election, Labour’s recovery in Britain, at least as measured by the polls, has reached an extent sufficient to cause the Conservatives real alarm. Since I last conducted this exercise a week ago, the Conservatives have dropped another 1.8% to hit 43.9%, while Labour is up 2.6% to 35.4%. This leaves both parties well up on their totals at the 2015 election, which were 36.9% and 30.4% respectively. The Liberal Democrats are at 7.9%, which is unchanged on both last week’s reading and their disastrous 2015 election result, while 4.0% is all that remains of Ukip, who polled 12.7% in 2015 and hit a peak of 15.6% on the poll aggregate a month before the Brexit referendum in June last year.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

69 comments on “BludgerTrack UK: CON 43.9, LAB 35.4, LD 7.9”

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  3. Meanwhile the Tories spend most of their time attacking Corbyn for some chat he had with the IRA (or somebody Irish) in the 1980s, etc etc etc.

  4. Hopefully, Corbyn performs well at the leader’s debate. He has nothing to lose while PM has a lot to lose.

  5. May not bothering to turn up at the debate might turn out to have been a bad decision born of misplaced hubris. We will see soon enough

  10. mike m @ #9 Tuesday, May 30, 2017 at 1:50 pm

    So in ‘first past the post polling’….what does this mean?

    I think UK’s equivalent of poll bludgers take a look at the party percentages at each seat, take the average swing and apply it on last election’s results, of course after taking account of many other factors. Those who come on top in each seat is the winner, and they tally that off I guess.

  11. One thing it might mean, MM, is that LibDem voters in the UK (with some help from Gina Miller) have finally figured out how first past the post works, have realised it’s pointless to vote LibDem except in the few seats where they are in the top 2, and are reflecting that in their answers to the pollsters. Or it might not. Maybe I’m giving them too much credit for ability to think tactically.

  13. So, currently the Tories are up by 7 percent on 2015, and Labour are up by 5.

    I’m not sure how this is going to translate into any sort of success for Labour.

  14. It’s clearly not, PeterP, on those numbers. But if the lines keep heading in the same direction they’ll meet about June 8th. IF.

  15. Blimey! If Labour can maintain that trajectory and get a decent voter turnout, they may just squeak it on the day. Something I wouldn’t have thought possible only a couple of months ago.

    I have to confess that I regarded Corbyn as someone whose policies I largely agree with but who stood not a whelk’s chance in a supernova of ever being in a position to implement them. However, I hereby admit that I was wrong. Whilst I would still bet against Labour actually winning, it’s starting to look as if it might not be the Tory landslide I’d have predicted when the election was called.

    Well done JC and all those involved in the campaign. I would hope that Corbyn’s Labour will put a big enough hole in HMS Conservative that victory next time around, with proper left of centre policies, becomes a realistic prospect.

  16. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/30/guardianicm-poll-tories-12-point-lead-offers-labour-crumbs-of-hope

    The latest poll is the ICM in the Guardian which has the gap at 12 per cent. I think this poll is one of those that weights voter turnout largely on the basis of the 2015 poll. The big question is whether that still holds good.

    Wiki has a good summary of the polls to date and is very uptodate.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_United_Kingdom_general_election,_2017

  19. The trend to Labour looks to have stalled a little bit, with the numbers seemingly settling on Con 42-45, Labour 33-36, LD 8-10. Insofar as Manchester had any effect, it looks o have stalled the Labour recovery of last week.

    This suggests that the Tories will get back, with a slightly increased majority (say, around 30-40 seats), a lot less than looked likely even a month ago. That said, the numbers could still move either way – the Tories may yet be reduced to smaller majority (or even a minority, if YouGov’s latest seat projection is accurate), or alternatively, the majority could yet blow out to over a hundred. 40%+ is higher than any winning party has achieved since 2001.

    However it turns out, though, this Corbyn-sceptic has to concede that he’s had a pretty good campaign, assisted, of course, by what a dreadful campaign May is having. And it’s been a pretty fascinating ride.

  21. The Australian’s report on the latest Times You-Gov. As you will see below, it has Tory 42 and Labour 38 (a 4 point split!) and lots of Pollsters poo-pooing it.

    The Conservative Party could be in line to lose 20 seats and Labour gain nearly 30 in next week’s general election, according to new modelling by one of Britain’s leading pollsters.

    YouGov’s first constituency-by-constituency estimate of the election result predicts that the Tories would fall short of an overall majority by 16 seats, leading to a hung parliament.

    The central projection of the model, which allows for a wide margin of error, would be a catastrophic outcome for Theresa May, who called the election when polls pointed to a landslide result. Her support appears to have plunged after the poor reception of the party manifesto, including plans to make more elderly voters pay for home care.

    YouGov’s model puts the Tories on course to win 310 seats, down from the 330 they held when the election was called. Labour would get 257 seats, up from 229, the Liberal Democrats ten, up from nine, the SNP 50, down from 54, the Greens one and Plaid Cymru three. This would leave the Tories 16 seats short of the 326 votes they need for an overall majority in the Commons.

    The poll allows for big variations, however, and suggests that the Tories could get as many as 345 seats on a good night, 15 more than at present, and as few as 274 seats on a bad night.

    YouGov acknowledged that the predictions were controversial and pointed to significant “churn” in voting intentions. But Stephan Shakespeare, its chief executive, said that the model had been publicly tested during the EU referendum campaign last year, when it always had Leave ahead.

    The model is based on 50,000 interviews over the course of a week, with voters from a panel brought together by YouGov. This allows the pollster to assess the intention of every type of voter, from where they live to how they voted in the EU referendum, their age and social background, to weigh the results.

    The estimates were met with scepticism by Tory and Labour figures. One prominent Conservative said that the party was expecting a majority of 50 or more, despite an “atrocious” campaign, and insisted that anger over the manifesto was fading.

    A Labour figure in the Midlands said that while the Tory social care blunder had helped, Jeremy Corbyn’s unpopularity continued to deter natural Labour voters and the party would be losing rather than gaining seats in the region.

    Other pollsters predicted a convincing victory for the Tories. Andrew Hawkins, chairman of ComRes, said: “If voters behave in the way they broadly did in 2015 then the Conservatives remain on track for a 100-plus majority. This seems, on present assumptions, the most likely outcome.”

    An ICM poll released yesterday gave a 12-point lead to the Conservatives, on 45 per cent, with Labour on 33 per cent, the Lib Dems on 8 and Ukip on 5. If this swing were replicated uniformly across the country, it would mean a Tory majority of 76. The spread betting company IG Index suggested that the Tories would win 378 seats, Labour 148, Lib Dems 14 and SNP 46 — a Tory majority of 106. The latest Elections Etc combined forecast by Stephen Fisher, of Oxford University, suggests a Tory majority of 100.

    YouGov used data from the Office of National Statistics, the British Election Study, and past election results. It then estimated the number of each type of voter in each constituency. Combining the model probabilities and estimated census counts allowed the pollster to produce what it hopes is a fairly accurate estimate of the number of voters in each constituency intending to vote for a party on each day.

    YouGov’s final poll in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum put “no” to independence on 54 per cent and “yes” on 46 per cent. The final vote was 55 per cent “no” and 45 per cent “yes”. Today’s YouGov election model is based on voting intention data collected in the past week. It puts the Tories on 42 per cent, Labour on 38 per cent, Lib Dems on 9 per cent and Ukip on 4 per cent.

    Mr Shakespeare said that the figures could change dramatically before June 8: “The data suggests that there is churn on all fronts, with the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats likely to both lose and gain seats. Based on the model’s current estimates, some seats are likely to change hands along EU referendum dividing lines.”

    The Times

  22. Methinks, from the comments in the story, that the Times does not like its own poll and is trying to reassure Tory Readers!

  23. One wonders if, in the event of a hung parliament, the Lib-Dems have learned their lesson about jumping into bed with the Tories. If not, they will thoroughly deserve the electoral obliteration they are likely to suffer come 2022 (or whenever).

  24. ME thinks, Mr Bruckner, that it’s not just the Times – the whole of Fleet Street is getting tired of defending the indefensible. And Brits are more likely to get their news from the Artist Taxi Driver these days; who I really want to see interviewing the failed consumer of deep-fried potato batons (shut up, I can dream).

  25. Bogan – In a hung parliament, the SNP will be the main prize (5o seats). The SNP has said it wants a progressive alliance. Corbyn has said he will not jump into bed with the SNP. I suspect Corbyn will play a long game and wait for a Tory minority govt to fall and go back to the polls later in the year.

  26. Based on the entirely unscientific method of looking at the Facebook feeds of my (small number of) UK friends, I get the impression that many people on the left (or the potential left) are taking this election a lot more seriously than usual. There is an order of magnitude more political content being posted than I remember from the last couple of elections and the Brexit referendum.

    Perhaps Brexit has brought home to some that actions, or, indeed, indifference, can have real consequences, the corollary being that voting does make a difference. Or it can anyway, if you’re somewhere marginal. If this is the case, I can see the effect on turnout, if any, being more beneficial for Labour than the Tories.

  27. Anton, fair point re the SNP, although the Tory/Lib-Dem coalition of 2010 didn’t fall over so I’d regard such a strategy by Corbyn to carry a significant risk. Mind you, the UK situation in 2010 was much easier for a government to deal with than what now pertains. Brexit, tensions within NATO, etc. provide plenty of stumbling blocks and opportunities for party civil wars.

    June 9 will be a very interesting day :D.

  32. With a Blairite leader UK Labour would be in a much weaker position. Good on Jeremy Corbyn for taking a shattered, discredited party and turning it into a competitive force in this election campaign.

  33. Apparently this election Labour is placing much more emphasis on social media. Articles I read state 2015 election saw tories outspend Labour more than 10 times on Facebook. Checking twitter and facebook feeds of party leaders and both Labour and Conservatives you can see Labour is getting much more engagement. Doesn’t mean all that much on it’s own but worth noting.

    I also see right wing tabloid press is in attack mode. Waiting to see “Britain needs Thresa” any day now.

    Let’s hope narrowing continues.

  41. Blanket Criticism @ #37 Thursday, June 1st, 2017 – 3:54 pm

    A little more analysis…

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/election-polls-latest-labour-tories-corbyn-may-yougov-lead-cut-who-is-winning-a7766171.html

    “I think the first rule of leadership is to show up.”

    I agree with the leader of the Greens here. Under no circumstances would I vote for a candidate who can’t be bothered showing up to a leaders debate and presenting their case for the future of their country.

    Margaret Thatcher: “This ladies not for turning”.
    Theresa May: “This ladies not for turning up”!

  43. The narrowing, the narrowing! Or not, depending on what poll you look at. My prediction: huge SNP majority in Sco’land, smallish Labour majority or at least “plurality” in England and Wales due to Teresa’s brilliant campaign, little change in NI, ie, total confusion in the Commons. Jez will play reluctant but will have to accept the support of the SNP (like all those Labor leaders here who have said “absolutely no deal with the Greens” and then done one) and will become PM. Then life for him and the UK and the Brussels negotiators will get really complicated.

  44. If Labour get up in the UK then, as in racing, there should be a Steward’s Enquiry and swabs taken. While Labour should be expected to win around London and in some of the provinces, the Tories have tended to collect the working class conservative voters of late and this should make them safe.
    Labour are on a hiding to nothing in the UK while JC is seen as the horned devil by most of the Tory press – and when in the UK a few months ago – before Cameron went – you would have thought JC was actually the PM on the amount of effort the Tory press was putting in to demonising him. Maybe they knew something?
    In any event, those calling for “some other leader” for Labour overlook the fact that Labour cannot win by turning the clock back to some Blairite period and hoping to pass themselves off as Tory-Lite and not frightening the old ladies in Cheltenham or Bournemouth who, it might be thought, would vote for the LibDems anyway.

  45. This is quite fascinating. The latest poll is Panelbase which uses the worst methodology for labour and has the gap down to 8% (from 15%). Something’s definitely happening.

    I’ve extracted this from You.Gov’s UKpollingreport.

    Secondly we have this week’s Panelbase poll. Topline figures there are CON 44%(-4), LAB 36%(+3), LDEM 7%(nc), UKIP 5%(+1). Fieldwork was conducted between Friday and today, and changes are from their poll conducted at the start of last week. A sharp narrowing of the Tory lead here, and Panelbase now weight their voting intention figures to the age profile of 2015 voters, not the whole adult population, so they are using a method that we’d expect to show a big Tory lead. When they changed their method last week it increased the Tory lead by seven points, so without the change they’d presumably have been showing a very close race indeed.

  46. Sensible comment I picked up on an English blog. Theresa has said no deal is better than a bad deal to keep UKIP supporters onboard. But that might be frightening the bejesus out of everyone else:

    “In order to get the +UKIP, some clear announcements were made that indicate vote cons = hard Brexit. But that argument has come at a cost, and we can see that by the massive swing Yougov are showing in strong remain seats in their nowcast.

    For some reasons polls show the Brexit question as settled – 50% want it, and a further 25% accept the result, but we are not seeing that in the Nowcasts for pro remain seats.

    Brexit IS a big factor, and that is the main reason the polls are moving.. people are scared of the hard Brexit, no deal is better than a bad deal that they are hearing. We can see that by the large swing in remain seats.

    So a hard Brexit message in the last week could well tip the balance, with JC as PM next week.

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