By Tim Montgomerie
Follow Tim on Twitter
Lord Ashcroft's latest mega poll focuses on the country's 213 more marginal seats. It involves 19,000 interviews and is one of his biggest ever polls. It doesn't find much cheer for Conservatives. If its findings were replicated at a general election the Tories would lose a net 75 seats and Labour would gain 109. This would give Ed Miliband a majority of 84 - a big majority but not the 114 suggested by national opinion polls that also survey safer, non-battleground seats.
The survey suggests that, despite Eastleigh, Grant Shapps is right to target Lib Dem-held seats so heavily. Lord Ashcroft finds a 5% swing from the Liberal Democrats to the Conservatives. If this was replicated at a general election this would see about seventeen seats change from yellow to blue. That would include Eastleigh because, as voters told Lord Ashcroft last week, many would vote differently in a general election where much more is seen to be at stake than in a by-election which they use to protest.
The poll does find some good news for the Prime Minister. Lord Ashcroft writes that "across the Battlegrounds the Conservatives’ biggest asset remains David Cameron, who leads as best Prime Minister everywhere except the Lib Dem-Labour Battleground, and having the clearest vision of where they want to take the country". The poll also finds that the Tories lead on the economy in every battleground except the Lib Dem-Labour contests.
By Peter Hoskin
Follow Peter on Twitter
Here’s an opinion poll that is worth pondering. It’s from Ipsos MORI, and it asks a single, simple question: ‘Which party do you think has the best policies on Europe – the Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats, UKIP or some other party?’
So, who came out on top? The Conservatives, after David Cameron’s promise of an EU referendum and the budgetary gains he made in Brussels? Ukip, with Nigel Farage soaring high across the airwaves? Nope, neither. Here’s your answer:
Continue reading "More signs that David Cameron’s EU promises aren’t quite connecting" »
By Peter Hoskin
Follow Peter on Twitter
The Daily Mail has written up a new opinion poll on drugs policy, conducted by Ipsos MORI. “Just one in seven want drugs laws liberalised and majority say possession should remain criminal offence,” reads their headline – and it’s true. Looking at the full results, only 14 per cent of respondents think that “the law in the UK should be changed so that the possession of small quantities of illegal drugs is decriminalised.” (Although a further 21 per cent support limited trials of such a measure). 60 per cent think there should be no change to the law at all.
But the poll contains other findings that the Mail’s headline doesn’t capture. Turns out, 53 per cent of people support either the legal regulation of cannabis or the decriminalisation of possessing it. And that includes 50 per cent of those respondents who intend to vote Conservative at the next election. It also includes, as it happens, 46 per cent of Daily Mail readers.
By Harry Phibbs
Follow Harry on Twitter
There is a new ComRes poll out for the Independent on Sunday and the Sunday Mirror. It shows Labour 36%, Conservatives 31%, UKIP 14% and Lib Dems 8%. The previous poll had a 6% Labour lead. However the methodology has changed helping the smaller parties. Apparently that would account for the notional drop of a point in the Labour lead.
However Labour will be disappointed not to do better as the previous poll was just after the announcement of the in/out EU referendum. Of course the polls are all over the place at the moment. But at this stage Labour should be expecting consistent double digit leads, shouldn't they.
UKIP will be delighted to be clearly ahead of the Lib Dems who are down from 10% last time.
On the economy Labour have fallen back:
I trust David Cameron and George Osborne to make the right decisions about the economy
Agree 27% (+2) Disagree 51% (-4) Net agree -24% (+6)
I trust Ed Miliband and Ed Balls to make the right decisions about
the economy.
Agree 20% (-1) Disagree 55% (+3) Net agree -35% (-4)
By Tim Montgomerie
Follow Tim on Twitter
Lord Ashcroft has written about his new poll of more than 2,000 voters here.
He argues that the Europe speech has cheered up the Conservatives - "this is not to be sneezed at" - but has not changed voters' perceptions of our party. The latest YouGov survey certainly suggests the boost we received at the weekend may be fading. It puts Labour 12% ahead. This may be because of the lack of potency of the Europe issue - it may be the economic growth gloom - but it may also partly reflect a failure of the Tory machine. There has been no viral or substantial campaign to follow up on Cameron's speech. One Cabinet minister told me that the Tory Party should have used the last seven days to nail every inch of Ed Miliband into a position where he was defined by his opposition to a referendum. The minister also wondered why Conservative HQ hadn't launched a vivid way of communicating that Cameron is absolutely determined to deliver on his referendum pledge. There is no imagination, they complained. We are seeing the same lack of follow-through that was absent after last October's party conference. A good speech is delivered but where is the campaign to do the other 90% of the selling?
On a day when The Guardian splashes with more speculation against David Cameron's leadership (you'd almost think the newspaper had an agenda!) Lord Ashcroft's poll also suggests that the Cameron v Miliband brand is a much better framing of the next election - as far as Conservatives are concerned - than a Tory v Labour framing.
The table below compares the Conservative and Labour identities:
Continue reading "Can Tories turn 2015 into a Cameron versus Miliband presidential contest?" »
By Tim Montgomerie
Follow Tim on Twitter
Sunday morning update: The ComRes poll's topline finding that Labour's lead was down to 6% has been echoed in other polls. Four Sunday newspaper polls all have Labour's lead below 10%.
THE TEXT BELOW WAS POSTED AT 7.30PM LAST NIGHT...
For what it's worth - at this very early stage of the In/Out campaign - ComRes becomes the third pollster to record the state of public opinion towards Britain's membership of the EU.
By Tim Montgomerie
Follow Tim on Twitter
A ComRes poll for tomorrow's People is another sign that the Eurosceptic, centre right vote is becoming worryingly divided. ComRes give the following vote shares for next year's European elections (I've put the gain on last time's results in brackets)...
We know, of course, that UKIP won't get anything like 23% in the following year's general election but the Tory challenge is to get UKIP down to something close to the 3% that they won in 2010 or they'll be the difference between Conservatives holding seats and losing them. All of the evidence suggests that UKIP is taking many more votes from the Conservative Party than Labour. While Europe isn't the only or even the top issue of concern to UKIP voters it is the party's fundamental purpose. Unless Cameron commits to an In/Out vote in his looming speech I can't see how we are going to begin to cap the Farage phenomenon. If tmrw's Mail on Sunday is a clue to Cameron's mood (see right) I'm not sure he's in the right place to tackle UKIP. It may be why George Osborne might be positioning himself to be the sceptic to Cameron's enthusiast.
* The only good news in those figures is that, as expected, Britain should no longer be sending left-wing racists to the European Parliament.
By Peter Hoskin
Follow Peter on Twitter
Oh look, the Welfare Uprating Bill is published today. That’s the Bill which formalises the Government’s plan to increase many benefits by only 1 per cent a year, rather than by the rate of inflation. It’s the Bill which has given us what will surely be one of the defining dividing lines of this Parliament, as well as of the next election.
Which probably helps explain why today’s papers feature not one but two polls examining the Bill’s provisions. Let’s start with the more eye-catching of the pair.
The Populus poll commissioned by the Conservatives, and written up in the Sun, is wholly encouraging for the Government. The tenor of it is captured by its opening question. Respondents are asked to say which of two propositions is closer to their own views. The first is broadly the Tories’ approach:
Continue reading "Polls show support for George Osborne’s 1 per cent cap on benefits" »
By Tim Montgomerie
Follow Tim on Twitter
The man who spends more on opinion polling than all of the three biggest political parties combined has conducted another landscape survey. This time more than 20,000 people were interviewed last month in order to assess the strength, composition and nature of UKIP's rise. Lord Ashcroft writes about his poll on our Comment pages but in this post I summarise seven of the main findings as I see them.
By Paul Goodman
Follow Paul on Twitter.
The figures for the Independent on Sunday are:
Conservative 28% (-3)
Labour 39% (-4)
UKIP 14% (+6)
Lib Dem 9% (-1)
Others 9% (+1)
Andrew Hawkins of Comres is quoted as saying:
"The Conservatives are leaking votes to UKIP – one in five (19%) of the party’s 2010 voters say that they now intend to vote UKIP. There is good evidence that many UKIP voters are erstwhile Conservatives on the rebound: large proportions are negative about David Cameron and George Osborne on the economy, and about Mr Cameron’s handling of gay marriage."
We also have an Opinium poll for the Obsever. The headline figures are:
Conservative 29%
Labour 39%
UKIP 14%
Liberal Democrats 8%
So we have two polls with much the same result. The evidence to date has suggested that same-sex marriage is losing Conservative activists to UKIP but not Tory voters. But if future surveys report the same findings that judgement will have to be revised.
Could we be seeing the start of the revenge of "the elderly of the earth"?