Is your glass half full or half empty?

Although a weekend poll for Mori put LibDem support at just 15% an ICM poll for today's Guardian puts them on 19% (albeit two points down from last month).  One-third of those who took part in the ICM poll were questioned after the Mark Oaten scandal broke.

The two main parties are unchanged over the last month with 'Cameron's Conservatives' maintaining a 1% lead over Labour:

• The glass-is-half-full Tory will welcome this - and enjoy the fact that the Tories have finally escaped the lo-flatlining thirties and appear sustainably competitive with Labour for the first time in many years.

• The glass-is-half-empty Tory will be disappointed - they'll say that David Cameron has enjoyed the best publicity we've had for a generation, we've surrendered supposedly right-wing policies on health, grammar schools and tax and yet we're only 4% up on where we were at last May's General Election.

Comments

[Chris Palmer]

Let the complaining begin...

[malcolm]

I'm a glass half full Tory.Which is unusual as I'm generally pessimistic (I support Leeds United and follow British tennis!).
Anecdotally I come across a lot of people who are thinking about voting Conservative who would not have entertained the idea until recently.

[Peter Franklin]

I'm a wouldn't-trust-any-polling-company-apart-from-YouGov-to-tell-me-how-full-the-glass-is Tory.

[Mark Fulford]

Prof Winston says glass-half-full Tories are a a happier, healthier bunch. Count me in!

[Peter Franklin]

By the way, changing perceptions in the Westminster village is just the first stage. Making a lasting impression in the rest of the country is a much harder job -- one which will require perseverence not the serial strategising we've seen in the past.

[Chad]

Half-full and happy. :-)

Just six months ago, the talk was of a poison brand, now we are top of the polls.

All we need now is some policies....

[Trashing the brand]

... Just six months ago, the talk was of a poison brand, now we are top of the polls.

And the person trashing the brand was David Cameron.

I remember that too!

[Jaz]

Half-full sustained opinion polls, despite any major policies is good news..very good news.

[Julian Morrison]

Strikes me as fairly obvious that the public won't rush over to the Tories en masse just from a pretty face and a few days' policy announcements.

Rest assured though, that you have their attention.

[Daniel Vince-Archer]

"The glass-is-half-full Tory will welcome this - and enjoy the fact that the Tories have finally escaped the lo-flatlining thirties and appear sustainably competitive with Labour for the first time in many years."

Well Iain Duncan Smith had a pretty good run towards the end of his reign, although I admit that probably wasn't sustainable. If Sally Rideout Baker is still a visitor to this blog, she'll probably provide the relevant figures.

[malcolm]

Yes I remember you and Sally saying that once before Daniel.My recollection of that period was very different and the conference that year was truly awful.I liked and still like IDS but never really saw him as a potential PM as during his leadership there never seemed a hope that we would actually win an election.
I'm starting to believe that things are different now.Not only because of Cameron ,the wheels seem to have fallen off both Labour and the Lib Dems campaign.
They are rubbished daily in the media and in the conversations I have with 'normal'(non political) people.

[wasp]

This is great news. It looks like the polls might be settling into a new balance with something like parity.

The drive to the centre is clearly working!

[James Hellyer]

I dond't think this can be attributed to David Cameron's policy pronouncements, but more fairly to his being perceived as normal.

The YouGov Conference polls indicated that Michael Howard as leader was enough to make people think we were extremists, quite simply because they perceived him as a whole 30 points to the right of his party. As Anthony Wells observed, anyone else wouldn be perceived as less extreme and so would move perceptions of the party to the centre.

[Curmudgeon]

Yougov had the Conservatives 4 to 5% ahead of Labour in the first five months of 2004. Con 39%-40%, Labour 35%, LD 19/20%.

Howard's pathetic Euro campaign blew it and we never got it back. Don't get carried away - it can still go pear-shaped again!

[malcolm]

Wasn't that a rogue poll cumudgeon?

[Jon White]

Whatever we may think of the new leader, and he is certainly to the left of my vision of Conservatism, it has to be said that light IS appearing at the end of the tunnel.

In the end, only one opinion poll matters - the one on polling day. I believe that I read somewhere that because of the way that Labour have fiddled with the electoral boundaries, if we both poll the same percentages, they still end up with a 50 seat majority.

Ergo - we should concentrate our attack on the Lib Dems, where we can really score, and hope that enough of their voters return to the true fold. The best bet for this happening is if Hughes wins the leadership race.

[Sean Fear]

Yougov gave us that lead fairly consistently in the run up to the Euros, Malcolm. It's fair to say that other polling companies are rating us more highly than they did in the first six months of 2004.

[James Hellyer]

I also recall us having a consistent one to two point lead in YouGov and BPIX polls for a few weeks back in February/March last year, which vanished the moment the pre-election camapign ended.

[Frank Young]

This is cause for both optimism and determination. We have a mountain to climb in terms of appealing to the electorate and a great many difficult reforms ahead of us.

[William Norton]

Is your glass half full or half empty?

Actually, Tim, it's just empty. Good of you to offer. I'll have a Guinness. Where do I collect?

[James Hellyer]

Where do I collect?

If George Osborne ever cuts taxes, he'll buy you a pint.

[Daniel Vince-Archer]

"Yes I remember you and Sally saying that once before Daniel. My recollection of that period was very different and the conference that year was truly awful."

That's largely because the media (egged on by the Portillista mods and/or the Davisite rockers and/or Crispin Blunt) were fixed on the 'Conservatives in crisis' mantra, despite the fact that we'd put in a sustained run in the high thirties (ahead of Labour) in the opinion polls and local election results that far exceeded expectations.

"I liked and still like IDS but never really saw him as a potential PM as during his leadership there never seemed a hope that we would actually win an election."

I agree that it was unlikely we would have won the election under Iain Duncan Smith, a point which surely adds weight to the underlying point being made in my earlier comment that if he could put in a sustained run in the opinion polls, there's no reason why we should start getting excited about David Cameron doing the same.

"Yougov had the Conservatives 4 to 5% ahead of Labour in the first five months of 2004. Con 39%-40%, Labour 35%, LD 19/20%."

A lead which can be attributed to two things - a) the poll lead inherited from Iain Duncan Smith; b) Michael Howard's honeymoon period.

"Howard's pathetic Euro campaign blew it and we never got it back."

Dining out on the expected outcome of the Hutton Inquiry (which, of course, never materialised) was probably where things started going tits-up for him, not the European elections, which actually went rather well.

[John Hustings]

My memory of it was that it was the emergence of Robert Kilroy Silk and the pressure from UKIP that caused the Tories to flounder, and the squeeze from both left and right caused Michael Howard to flip-flop all over the place on a number of issues. Bringing back John Redwood (as much as I respect him) was a sign of this desperation.

[Peter Harrison]

because of the way that Labour have fiddled with the electoral boundaries

I don't think that accusation sticks. The boundaries are set by the Boundaries Commission. I don't think there is any evidence of gerrymandering. However, we thoroughly mishandled the review which took place during the Major government. This should have given us quite a few additional seats. However, a failure to manage the review properly led to MPs fighting for their personal interests even when those were in conflict with the party's interests.

As I understand it, the Commission's original proposals for that review would indeed have given us a number of additional seats. However, we allowed MPs to fight to retain their majority (or their seat) even when a reduction in that majority or loss of that seat would have benefited the party overall.

Labour's approach to that review was far more professional than ours. The result, unsurprisingly, is the current position where we end up with fewer seats if we get the same number of votes.

[James Hellyer]

What happened was the then Party Chairman, Sir Norman Fowler, encouraged each affected constituency to field its own legal team, rather than fighting on a national strategy as Labour did. The result was that each constituency fought to maintain or increase its Conservative vote, even if this meant that safe seats became even safer and marginals became hopeless cases.

[Rob Largan]

"I don't think there is any evidence of gerrymandering."

True the Boundary Commission sets boundaries, but when they accept the Labour proposals for boundary changes without question, its fair to say gerrymandering has gone on. It has happened at every level and must be stopped altogether. Reform to make the Boundary Commision truly independent, with neither party allowed to put boundary proposals forward. Unfortunately it is too late until the next boundary change, we are, electorally speaking, screwed.

[Derek]

It is the fact that Conservative seats have more electors than Labour ones which is unfair. All seats should contain the same number of electors. This could be compensated by giving each MP a weighted vote in the House of Commons. The MP for the Isle of Wight represents over 100,000 people so he could have 1.3 votes, whereas a small seat in Scotland with only 26,000 voters would have an MP with 0.3 votes. With this method it would not be a majority of MPs, but a majority of votes that would form the government.

[Rob Largan]

Derek, surely it would be much simpler to make sure at the next boundary changes, we make radical changes, and force all constituencies to be the same size.

[Andrew]

Then you'd have large disparities in size between constituencies - some of the Highland/Island ones would be massive and completely impractical for people wanting to see their MP.

[John Hustings]

"Then you'd have large disparities in size between constituencies - some of the Highland/Island ones would be massive and completely impractical for people wanting to see their MP."

Let's just abolish Scotland.

[William Norton]

Drawing boundaries isn't easy - if it were, we'd have equal-sized constituencies already.

In fact, equality of size isn't the only factor. The Commission has a rough quota, at which they're supposed to aim as an overall average, but there are other factors which overrule that such as the rule that the City of London cannot be subdivided, or Orkney and Shetland can only be joined together, and you're not supposed to cross county or London borough boundaries. Ultimately, they can junk all of the rules if special geographical considerations apply, such as size, shape, accessibility etc. Quota is really relevant in that they don't like large disparities between neighbouring constituencies. A more important driver is ensuring that the relative total seats for England, Wales, Scotland and N Ireland apply (which is where the quota comes from).

Should we make such a fetish of quota, any way? Sounds like a one-size-fits-all rule set by Whitehall to me. Too rigid an application would result in daft things like people in the same house being in different constituencies. Aren't MPs supposed to represent communities, not groups of people?

The Commission doesn't strive for absolute numerical equality, and isn't meant to. The willingness to junk rules depends on the individual commissioner. The only time I've given evidence to one of these enquiries they were quite happy to any one to add his tuppence worth - providing the evidence related solely to number of voters, ease of movement within a proposed boundary and whether there was any historic tradition of particular communities (which nowadays means local govmt wards) being in the same constituency.

The accusation that the Boundary Commission is biased will not stand up. It's impartial - but it does have to take account of those guidelines, and only evidence supporting one or other of the guidelines.

Railway engines are also impartial, but where you lay down the lines is where they tend to go. The result is that you tend to get large above-quota county and small under-quota urban seats in England, and relatively smaller seats in Wales and pre-2005 Scotland (not sure now that there's been a reduction up there). Guess who benefits from that.

Agree with the comments that the Party fouled up in the 1990s, for exactly the reasons given.

[Selsdon Man]

"Dining out on the expected outcome of the Hutton Inquiry (which, of course, never materialised) was probably where things started going tits-up for him, not the European elections, which actually went rather well."

Really Daniel Vincent Archer? We lost several seats to UKIP. It ran a better campaign with much less money.

[wasp]

The other thing with boundaries is the turnout.

In seats like both Sunderlands turnout is 45-49% normally, in my Tory held constituency it was 71% in 2005.

Meaning it takes more conservatives to elect an MP than it takes socialists.

[Elena]

Happily half full. Of course, we need to sustain these leads, but it's looking mighty good so far. Coupled with the fact that people don't seem worried or scared of voting Tory now, I expect us to have a pretty good year.

[Selsdon Man]

Does Wasp think that Tories in Sunderland stay at home? I don't think so!

[Selsdon Man]

May I point out that, due to devolution, Scottish MPs should have less work to do, i.e. not vote on or scrutinise English and Welsh legislation. They would then have more time to serve large constituencies.

[Daniel Vince-Archer]

"Really Daniel Vincent Archer? We lost several seats to UKIP. It ran a better campaign with much less money."

Both the main parties and the Liberal Democrats were affected by UKIP, Cells Don Man. (In fact, an argument could be made that the Liberal Democrats were the chief losers in that election.)

In any case, Michael Howard ballsed-up on the Hutton Whitewash before those elections IIRC.