An opinion poll in the Times is our first opportunity to see just how much damage the Labour party’s losses at the local election and the Prime Minister’s reshuffle have had on party support. Topline figures for the Populus poll, with changes from the last Populus poll at the beginning of April, are CON 38%(+4), LAB 30%(-6), LDEM 20%(-1).
The poll would have been taken between Friday and Sunday, while the media coverage of Labour’s local losses and speculation over Tony Blair’s future was at its height. It’s likely that their poll rating will recover as the immediate crisis passes, on the other hand the poll itself may put further pressure on Tony Blair’s leadership as Labour MPs worry about their future.
Were these results to be repeated at a general election then the Conservatives would be the largest party, 22 seats short of a majority. This is based on a uniform swing - in reality a swing of that size is very unlikely to be uniform and such a swing of opinion against Labour would almost certainly be accompanied by anti-Labour tactical voting.
If Labour do change their leader the situation may not improve for them. Populus also asked a hypothetical question about voting intention with Gordon Brown as the Labour leader and found the Conservatives on 41%. It’s important to note that such questions are hypothetical and aren’t even directly comparable since they include the names of the party leaders while normal voting intention questions do not. Despite that it certainly suggests that a Brown leadership will not be a magic cure-all for Labour’s problems.
UPDATE: Other findings in the poll include 54% of respondents agreeing that while it was all well and good to remove failing ministers “the government’s biggest problem is Tony Blair himself”, 72% dismissing the reshuffle as an attempt to deflect attention and 65% agreeing with the statement “the way things are going Labour will lose the next general election”.
The percentage of people thinking that Blair should stay on until near the end of the Parliament has fallen from 33% to 25% since last month (amongst Labour voters it falls from 50% to 41%). 50% of the public now want him to go by the end of the year (28% of Labour voters agree).
UPDATE 2: Somewhat delayed, MORI’s April political monitor has also been released. It was conducted over the weekend prior to the local elections, so before the reshuffle. The topline figures, with changes from the previous MORI poll a fortnight earlier are CON 36%(+6), LAB 32%(+2), LDEM 21%(-4). As ever MORI’s polls are more erratic than their competitors, probably because they do not weight by past vote which serves to dampen down sample error for the other pollsters.
12 Responses
As Mike has pointed out at pb.com the interpretation (as eg. Guido is making) that “Blair leads” equates to a smaller lead than “Brown leads” is misleading. Probably the main cause of the ’shift’ against Labour in the latter survey is because the voters are reminded in that about David Cameron.
May 8th, 2006 at 5:38 pmIt’s quite likely that’s part of the reason - normal voting intention question don’t include the names of the party leaders. For a direct comparison we’d need a poll that asked a “normal” voting intention question using the same format. Even then questions like that are purely hypothetical - I suspect that when (or if) Gordon Brown does become Labour leader then he will get at least some sort of honeymoon boost through positive media coverage. That said, it still doesn’t bode well for him.
May 8th, 2006 at 5:53 pmAnthony,
Any details on the voting intention for others in the populus poll, looking at the combined results for the mainparties the “others” vote seems to be 12% where as Populus normally has it at 9-10% ?
Was any pollingb done in Scotland ?
Peter.
May 9th, 2006 at 3:26 amThe only details of the others is that the BNP were up to 3%. Given that respondents are less likely to admit to voting BNP to a live interviewer as opposed to a computer screen, this is probably pretty much in line with the online polls showing the BNP up at 6 or 7 percent.
The poll would have included a representative amount of people from Scotland, but as always with normal GB voting intention polls, the number of people polled won’t be enough to draw any specific conclusions about voting intention in Scotland.
May 9th, 2006 at 3:59 amAny historical polling evidence to show that 8% behind is where governments “normally” find themselves twelve months to two years on from an election win? I know there was a change in polling methods after 1992, and that between 1994 and 2005 Labour enjoyed an unusually steady poll lead (save for the petrol protest blip in 2001), but doesn’t conventional wisdom say that governments drop back mid term before recovering (at least partly) as a general election approaches?
May 9th, 2006 at 11:40 amConventional wisdom certainly does say it (though the huge sort of opposition leads in the polls that were seen during the 1980s are probably an artifact of the polling methods used back then) - but it isn’t just some magic effect - there’s good reason for it.
Governments tend to do think they expect to be unpopular early in the term so the effect fades. Governments also have the freedom (within their 5 year limit) to chose the election date - it isn’t the approaching election that makes their poll rating rise…they call the election because they have recovered in the polls.
Since 1997 there hasn’t been such an obvious mid-term slump sort of pattern.
May 9th, 2006 at 12:24 pmInteresting that in the MORI poll, Ming Campbell’s net ratings are higher than David Cameron’s. Given all that has happened politically since the poll, it already feels a bit dated, but I think it reinforces the picture that (at least until last Thursday) the Tories weren’t really making headway in the polls this year.
As for what the next few weeks will bring, who knows … ?
May 9th, 2006 at 1:51 pmAnswer to May 9th, 2006 at 12:24 pm.
May 9th, 2006 at 2:46 pmThe 4th year of every Tory government from 79 to 97 showed improvements in the Tory poll-rating.
Labour’s poll-ratings appeared to improve in 2004-5, albeit that when the election actually came, they drifted off again.
god it seems your all a bit anti- tory i think that now we have a real chance for a better government and the whole country should be behind david cameron and the conservative party. As for Labour……….. oh dear, what a mess!
May 9th, 2006 at 3:30 pmLet’s face it, it is time for a change. The voters sense that - in the local elections, they switched straight from Labour to Tory which means they are looking for an alternative Government. If they simply wanted to make a protest, they would have voted Lib Dem or other. Labour is experiencing a Majoresque 4th term in its 3rd term - it is difficult to see how they can recover. Basically, the Government is broken and it would need more than a change of leader to fix it.
May 9th, 2006 at 5:04 pmThere is no evidence that there was substantial if any direct switching from Labour to Conservative last Thursday . Much of the swing was caused by differential turnout changes . Turnout was up in London and many Conservative southern council areas but well down in Labour areas in the Met Districts and the North . In most Met seats the actual Conservaytive vote fell but not of course by as much as Labour .
May 10th, 2006 at 6:26 pmRichard,
I would say that Labour are looking like the Tories in their first term, all they need is a bit of fresh blood, i.e. Gordon Brown. They can then go on for three more terms by which time the Tories will ever be history or a little to the right of Labour.
May 12th, 2006 at 4:54 pm