Tories down to 34% in Populus survey

A Populus poll for this morning's Times gives the Tories a narrow 1% lead over Labour.  As noted by UK Polling Report the slightly disappointing change for the Tories is that the party's share of the vote is down to 34% after being at 36% for the previous four Populus polls.  Whatever the exact Tory lead might be it is clear that the Tory position is not strengthening.  The overall Tory lead in ConservativeHome's poll of polls is now just 3%.

A majority of Tory members will accept David Cameron’s modernisation project so long as it keeps the party ahead in the polls.  His period of maximum danger will arise in the period after Gordon Brown’s near certain election as Labour leader.  If Brown enjoys a sustained honeymoon effect there must be a real risk that members will decide that the sacrifices of traditional Conservatism won’t have been worthwhile.  The comfort for David Cameron in The Times' poll is that the Tory lead appears to grow to 7% if Gordon Brown became leader but we've previously discussed the unreliability of such 'what it?' polling.

* The ConservativeHome poll of polls has been adjusted slightly to take account of revised ICM data from their last poll for the News of the World.

Comments

[ToMTom]

Any election is more likely when the polls read like this one than any that show the Conservatives ahead...........

[tapestry]

Toynbee talk has upset trad conservatives. They're threatening Cameron with UKIP, and UKIP's number on intended voters has soared.

It's better to get Cameron into office first, then fight the europhiles to death within the party. Meanwhile deselection and selection of candidates are the most powerful political weapons that are in the hands of Conservative voters/members. Why don't they use these powers? Buggering off to UKIP merely prolongs the agony.

Cameron's a winner. Brown's a loser. UKIP's a way to blow off steam nothing more. The way to get Britain out of Europe is to make sure your Conservative MP or PPC is a hardened eurosceptic. deselect all others, and win the next election. Anything else is hot air.

[HF]

Q: Biggest Reason?
A: Greg Clarke and Polly Toynbee.

[Jonathan Mackie]

Tapestry - I'm no lover of Gordon Brown far from it, but where is the empirical evidence that he is a "loser"?

We are in great danger of believing that he will be a push over. As much as I hope he is, I don't think we should underestimate this man.

[Opinicus]

We're trying to get Cameron into office despite all his most recent efforts to prevent it. When we give up in disgust and failure, there is only UKIP.
36% on the poll of polls, down 3% since I started bloggin here, isnt even enough for a hung parliament.
Yes I know this is a rogue poll and yes the feeling on the ground is much more positive etc etc etc etc
But "in the bowels of Christ I beseech thee, think thee that thou may be wrong?".

[Right wingery]

I totally agree with the comments of others. This poll has got me really mad. Labour are possibly as unpopular with the country as the Tories were before they got totally hammered 10 years ago and here we have a poll which shows just a 1 point Tory lead! It is clear that the 2% we have lost has gone straight to the 'others', possibly UKIP.

Greg Clarke may have totaly ruined my dream of seeing the back of Labour with his totally crass statements. He is as much of a fool as some of the crackpots in UKIP who are benefitting from his shocking judgement.

Why hasn't Cameron sacked him? If he can sack a parliamentary candidate for forwarding on an email which has zero impact on our opinion poll rating why hasn't he shifted someone who could cost us the election if he opens his mouth nearer the date?

[changetowin]

Your comments on Greg Clarke are totally over the top. I would like to register my support for his comments (and not for the spin put on his comments by the papers!!!).

The notion that this poll has been so affected by Greg Clarke's comments about a Guardian journalist seems ridiculous to me. But even if what you say is true do you think these people are really going to stay away at the General Election. I would wager that they would prefer a Conservative government (even a progressive one) to a Labour one led by Browne...

Much more likely that this poll is showing the impact of a few months in which Labour infighting has dropped off our tv screens and newspapers. Brown remains a serious threat. All those who want to beat Brown need to unite and get behind the project - changing our party so we can improve Britain.

[Right wingery]

changetowin - we are NOT going to win a majority in the Commons with 34% of the vote. We won't even get there with the 39% quoted in the Cameron v Brown figures.

We are NOT going to win by actively trying to turn away conservatives from the Conservative Party!

Why do you hold conservatives with such raw contempt?

[changetowin]

I don't! I just think we need to appeal beyond our own support base to win an election. We tried core votes and have rejected it for a reason. Just because you recognise the need to appeal to a broad audience doesn't mean your attitude to your base is one of "raw contempt".

[Michael McGowan]

No you don't believe that, Changetowin. You and your kind do NOT believe in a broad church. You adhere to the bankrupt Portillo theory that you can alienate your core vote (who will still vote for you out of deference) and win a General Election by picking up floating Lib Dem-leaning votes in a few constituencies in Greater London and the South-East. This strategy has always struck me as utterly bonkers, even from a purely tactical perspective. If Gordon Brown and Ming Campbell do a deal to foist some variant of PR on the Tories. it will look even more bonkers....and cynical too.

[The Orator]

Tory share down 2% + Lib Dems down 1% + Labour unchanged = 3% boost for voter apathy.

[ToMTom]

NHS

Why not focus on this issue and ACT LOCAL

[DavidDPB]

The Government is about as unpopular as it was at the time of the last election, where the Conservative Party, appealing only to its core vote, polled below Labour.

It's rather difficult to conclude therefore that if only we went for the core vote strategy, the Conservatives would somehow magically reverse what happened previously and emerge with an even greater lead. To do so rather assumes that it is the job of the electorate to change, rather than a party. That's not leadership, that's blind stupidity.

[changetowin]

No you don't believe that, Changetowin. You and your kind do NOT believe in a broad church.

Such nice types you meet on here, aren't they?!

Please, Mr McGowan, don't presume to tell me what I believe.

[Michael McGowan]

I don't need to presume to tell you what to believe. I merely observe your comments.

[changetowin]

You should try being a bit more civil, expecially to fellow Conservatives. I've found that when you respect others they in turn have much more respect for you. We're a broad church (not that the comments on here always show that) and I think, barring hate speech, we should welcome debate and difference of opinion. Diversity is a good, not an evil.

[HF]

Changetowin said "Your comments on Greg Clarke are totally over the top. I would like to register my support for his comments (and not for the spin put on his comments by the papers!!!)."

You may support his comments, I do not. You may agree with him that Toynbee should be allowed to attack Thatcher on Newsnight while he chose not to rebut in front of her.

What you have not denied is that the Toynbee saga shifted 2% away to the "others". Something/s did.

[EML]

Disappointing. But at least Labour are stagnant.

[changetowin]

HF,

I was referring to Greg Clarke's use of Polly Toynbee's desert analogy NOT some interview on Newsnight which I didn't see!!!

And if you actually read my comments you'll see that I said that the slight shift in this poll probably has much less to do with this and more to do with a respite from Labour infighting.

We do face a serious challenge from Labour and to convince the public that we've really changed. Putting the brake on change is the last thing we need now. We need to go faster.

[Yet Another Anon]

we are NOT going to win a majority in the Commons with 34% of the vote
Barring a major collapse in the Labour vote with Labour support mainly going to smaller parties and not to the Liberal Democrats it would be improbable.

Opinion Polls on voting intention are normally very unreliable - even by the margin of error they admit they allow for the fact that the Conservatives could be actually on 37% and Labour actually on 31%. Labour are still on course to win the next General Election but I think the Conservatives are still on course for exceeding the total number of votes they got in 1997 and their biggest advance in percentage votes since 1979 and in terms of seats being up to around 225 seats or so primarily at the expense of the Liberal Democrats who I think will lose out both to Labour and the Conservatives.

[Sean Fear]

"Putting the brake on change is the last thing we need now. We need to go faster."

That presupposes that the "change" message is one that appeals to much of the electorate. I don't think it does, and may even be demoralising our supporters.

To give Cameron credit where it's due, I've liked what he's had to say about crime, Trident, and this report, in the past couple of weeks, but for me, the months preceding the past fortnight have been pretty grim.

[DavidDPB]

"That presupposes that the "change" message is one that appeals to much of the electorate. I don't think it does, and may even be demoralising our supporters."

The alternative is to continue as we did in the last election and the one before that. That didn't exactly bring home the bacon, which I personally found even more demoralising.

[Julian Williams]

Reading this blog over the last few months there have been few who can justify Cameron other than as a vote winner. He is moving to the "centre" where all the votes are.

Issues like the EU are off the agenda because they make the Tories look like a group of "rightwingers" (who Cameron calls fruitcakes and racists anyway, and thinks the Tories can do without their type).

This is the strategy. The 1% lead is the justification for this strategy?

I am neither a fruitcake or rightwing, I quite like more attention being given to "green" issues. But I cannot live with this "leader" who seems so shallow and uninterested in real issues facing this country. Brown is more attractive to me than Cameron, and I am a small business who cannot bear the damage Brwon has done to the economy and my business prospects.

I went to a Conservative meeting last week, the MP gave speech telling us not to worry, they are still Conservatives, there is a grand strategy and it is working. Speaking to others I found very few who believed this messageand quite a few who are saying they, like me, will not vote for the Conservative at the next election.

[Richard Weatherill]

Whilst political anoraks (such as me) might get quite excitable about us donning the Toynbee frock in preference to Winston's siren suit, I find it hard to believe that such issues (even as interpreted by the tabloids) have more than the most marginal effect on the voting intentions of the electorate at large.

As The Orator has pointed out, the main beneficiary from this latest swing has been the Apathy Party. Unfortunately (although we might find it hard to believe) there is still a large number of people who aren't all that dissatisfied with the Labour government and who certainly don't (yet) regard the Conservatives as offering an attractive voting alternative.

"It's the economy, stupid!" The credit-fuelled boom train is accelerating out of control, but hasn't yet hit the buffers. Meanwhile, the "dour, grim cove" (DC's words) seeks to make the ride more comfortable by means of his Byzantine state-benefits system.

On a separate topic, I must say how well I felt David Cameron came across on ITN last night in his response to IDS's interim report.

[Sean Fear]

"The alternative is to continue as we did in the last election and the one before that. "

The alternative is to win *additional* support, without alienating *existing* support.

[Michael McGowan]

Sean, I agree....comme toujours. Changetowin, apologies if I was rude: it was not intentional even if we disagree.....as we often do. I agree with you on Greg Clark: while the whole episode was very maladroit, Greg thankfully didn't in fact say anything with which Polly Toynbee agreed!! Where I have a bigger problems is that the belligerent tone of the modernising message has been very much at odds with the essential broad church concept. I am not a social Conservative really but there has to be a place in the Conservative family for such people. However, you would get the impression listening to a lot of modernisers that such people should be driven out as lepers. The "Tory Taliban" to quote Alan Duncan. Not clever when the Tory Party needs their votes.

[Peter Coe]

Michael McGowan wrote:

"You adhere to the bankrupt Portillo theory that you can alienate your core vote (who will still vote for you out of deference) and win a General Election by picking up floating Lib Dem-leaning votes in a few constituencies in Greater London and the South-East."

Not wishing to intrude into the row between the traditionalists and the modernisers but Michael, could you tell me why you think it is a "bonkers" strategy - it is, after all the strategy that won Labour two record majorities and seats that had never before elected Conservatives.

For what its worth, I share your view that the strategy is bonkers but not for your reasons: I think the leadership has studied the new Labour manual and tried to replicate the spin and image side (and done so reasonably well), but I just don't believe that the modernisation project is anything more than a set dressing, behind which very little has actually changed.

It's unconvincing, simply because the party Michael Howard presented to the world just a year and a half ago is unrecognisable to the one David Cameron now proclaims. With Labour, the process of change started after the 1983 election and new Labour didn't emerge until after John Smith's death in 1994 - that's eleven years of gradual change away from unelectability.

I'm not arguing that this is how long it will take for the Tories: my point, linking back to your critique of the "Portillo wing" is just that there seems to be some expectation that you change a logo and talk about the environment and you become electable.

And that's where the leadership has simply misunderstood the new Labour project - it was much more than just spin and it didn't just happen overnight.

[simon coote]

Well, the next general election will be an interesting one. Why? I believe that the turnout will be one of the lowest in modern times. The main question to be answered by Cameron and the party is 'what will we do for people'? Provide housing (people financially kebabbing themselves is the only way to get a house in their own communities nowadays is wrong)? Provide a referendum on the country's future in Europe (fat chance)? Provide a rigid but fair immigration/asylum policy(forced removal for any illegal with no provision for appeal and therefore not handing the legal eagles any more of our cash)? Unless we (the electorate) have clear answers to these, and many more,questions the masses will just walk past the polling stations on election day.