I'm not in the habit of posting updates every other day. But now seems the right time to do just that as things are moving fast this week. As in 'one poll a day' since the botched 'Chequers Deal'. Funniest is what happened to YouGov. The Times commissioned an extra poll ahead of the weekly regular probably to assess the instant fallout of the ongoing Tory debacle. YouGov had that one in the field on 8-9 July. The Times certainly didn't like the results as they showed a tie between the Conservatives and Labour. But the regular weekly poll that was in the field on the heels of the special on 10-11 July was even 'worse' with Labour leading by 2%.
As I said things are moving fast. Remember that two weeks ago that very same YouGov weekly had the Conservatives leading by 5%. Of course this is part of the post-Davis/Johnson frenzy and the influx of new polls will soon slow down. But what they show right now is worrying for the Conservatives and possibly an incentive for the Government NOT to hold a snap GE in September, in the hope of long-term recovery. I think I remember Gordon Brown believed that too some ten years ago.
The big picture:
Out of the six most recent UK-wide polls you can find here, four have been in the field after the Chequers fiasco including two partly and one entirely after the Davis-Johnson walkout. And their weighted average shows Labour closing in on the Conservatives.
This is not the result of Labour doing better as they too are down from 2017. But the Conservatives are doing even worse with a number of voters switching to both UKIP and the LibDems. Current super-sample size is 9,018 with a 1.0% MOE.
With this polling we might either have four outliers in a row or a turning point. Since the former is statistically highly unlikely then it has to be the latter.
Where does that take us?
Updated seat projection is pretty impressive.
For the first time in ages Conservatives would be below 300 seats and Labour would gain significantly more seats outside Scotland than they lose in Scotland. Downside of course is that no party could even dream of forming a viable government coalition and so it's the recipe for yet another snap election. Fancy this: the only time in history when the House of Commons votes to dissolve itself on the same day as the State Opening of Parliament. Would be truly grand for once.
And now the summary of projected gains and losses and the full list of seats projected to change hands. With a handful of Balls moments (what used to be called Portillo moments in the last century).
With only 27 seats changing hands this would by no means be an 'earthquake election'. That would actually be a record-low number of changes since 2001. But the alternate scenarios sound more promising.
Alternate scenarios:
See what happens when I switch to 'Labour minimum' and then 'Labour maximum'. For a reminder of how these work go back to my previous article here.
'Labour minimum' has now become the status quo scenario with Conservatives staying in power only thanks to the DUP, though now that would be just a two-seat majority. 'Labour maximum' is trickier. Even with Labour becoming the first party they would have to risk a 'grand coalition' with the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and Plaid Cymru. And even if that worked it would still be a minority government on at most 310 seats overall. Unless of course….. But this time you won't get me started about that SNP confidence and supply deal….
So these projections show that we have already come a long way from where we were after the 2017 GE. But there's still a long way to go before 'PM Jeremy' (not me, the other one). Labour should know by now what they have to do: go for the jugular all over England, because their weaknesses are still there somewhere Doon Sooth even in the 'Labour maximum' scenario.
An aside about Scotland.
Rumour has it some SNP MPs are worried at the prospect of a September snap GE because they held their seats with only small margins last year. Their concern is about a Tory-Labour one-on-one all over the rest of the UK possibly triggering a Labour surge in Scotland too. So let's get down to basics: last year vote shares were SNP 36.9% and Labour 27.1%. Current Scottish polling says SNP 39.5% and Labour 24.5%. That's a 2.6% swing from Labour to the SNP with Labour losing five seats. And I will stick with that until further polling says otherwise.
So before the Scottish Branch Office of the Labour Party can credibly consider aiming at any gain they first have to get back these 70k-odd voters and these five potentially lost seats. Which is far from a done deal in my opinion. Of course future polls might take an unexpected twist and the SNP should not take anything for granted. For once. But honestly I don't think there's too much to worry about. For now.
Stay tuned for more updates and upsets.
Saor Alba gu bràth
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