Good times bad times
Three more polls have been released since my last projection but they fail to paint a clearer picture of what might happen at the next GE, snap or not. Trends confirm the smallish and shortish Labour surge in July followed by a smallish Tory surge but of course it is, as always, a wee smitch more complicated than this.
The six-point rolling average dampens the impact of outliers, which is exactly what it is designed for. But the details of individual polls show some surprising discrepancies. Polls delivering anything from a 4% Conservative lead to a 4% Labour lead prove that once more we are not really on solid ground and the actual result might well be as much of an upset as the 2017 result.
The six-point rolling average dampens the impact of outliers, which is exactly what it is designed for. But the details of individual polls show some surprising discrepancies. Polls delivering anything from a 4% Conservative lead to a 4% Labour lead prove that once more we are not really on solid ground and the actual result might well be as much of an upset as the 2017 result.
With all the necessary caveats duly recorded, my updated super-sample includes the six most recent polls, fielded between 17 August and 7 September. Sample size is 9,835 delivering a 0.96% MOE. Conservatives enjoy a 1.1% lead which is slightly beyond MOE and would boost their chances in a large number of marginals.
These results are both disappointing for Labour and unsatisfactory for the Conservatives. Again the only ones who should be (cautiously) satisfied are the SNP and to a lesser extent the Liberal Democrats. UKIP are also doing well compared to 2017 but would still fail to gain even a single seat.
Dazed and confused
The current seat projection is quite interesting in an ironic way. Conservatives would bag the same number of seats Labour won in February 1974. And the Conservative-DUP coalition would have the same number of seats as the aborted Conservative-Liberal coalition would have had back then.
Recent developments hint that actual results could be even worse for Labour. Already five sitting MPs have been the target of successful no-confidence votes by their CLPs and at least four others could suffer the same fate in the near future. Add to that Chuka Umunna's jibe at Corbyn's 'dogs' and it really sounds like the opening skirmishes of a full-fledged Labour Civil War. If it reaches the point where deselected MPs choose to stand against the official Labour candidates it could spell disaster for the party as a whole.
Obviously MSM can be expected to make any form of Labour dissent 'the next big thing' as they tried with their made-up SNP Civil War. SNP supporters killed that one with ridicule but somehow I think Labour supporters (especially Scottish ones) are too tight-assed to achieve the same result. All the Tories need is for the narrative to unfold unchallenged until Labour goes down a further 2% in the polls. Then a weakened Conservative party could secure yet another term and possibly even without DUP support. And I don't even mention case-by-case support Tories would get from Labour Brexiteers and 'moderates' as happened too many times in the past.
Trampled under foot
Under current polling only 24 seats are projected to change hands. A record low since December 1910 though it would be quite close to 1951, 1955, October 1974 and 2001. Labour scoring a net gain of only two seats further shows their current strategy does not work. Clearly the 'for the many not for the few' message falls on deaf ears in privileged 'Little England' south of the Severn-Wash line. Getting the message through in already safe seats and turning them into sinkholes certainly won't help. And neither will the wild goose chase after unwinnable seats in Scotland (more on that later).
The full list of MPs projected to be unseated also confirms that Labour are right now on the losing end. Even Anna Soubry would save her seat in marginal Broxtowe and LibDems would gain back Sheffield Hallam, one of the iconic Labour gains last year. The SNP would be much more successful, unseating more than a third of Scottish Tory MPs while Labour would only unseat a meagre 3% of English Tory MPs and none of them a major player in current Commons.
Any GE fought under current polling's voting trends would indeed be not-so-good times for Labour as their representation would increase by less than 1% while LibDems would see theirs increase by 33% and the SNP by 31%.
The song remains the same
By now we are used to alternate scenarios delivering nothing better than a hung Parliament and in most cases an unmanageable Parliament. The updated alternate ranges of possibilities are no exception.
The 'strongest and stablest' possible outcome would still be a 2017ish hung Parliament, only with Labour further weakened by losses to the SNP and LibDems, and even to the Conservatives in a number of English key marginals. Even at the top of their game Labour would remain the second party by one seat.
With the 'Labour Maximum' scenario taking us again to a 1910ish outcome, little could be done to avoid another snap election and probably even that would fail to deliver a clear and decisive result. The reason for this kind of unmanageable situation is obviously the combination of many factors. Tories making a pig's ear of Brexit, Labour unable to define a clear stand on Brexit and stick to it, buyer's remorse and fear of the future, you name it you got it…. Public opinion has definitely come to distrust both major parties but still hasn't decided which one is the least worst choice. And it might stay that way for many months to come.
Communication breakdown
Jeremy came to Scotland. Jeremy went back to Islington. Venit vidit loquebatur. Vincentur. (*)
What Scottish Labour and Corbyn fail to grasp is that Scottish demographics work against them. In July Survation fielded a comprehensive 'poll-till-you-boak' Scottish poll. I guess the results would be roughly the same if the same questions were asked today. Crosstabs confirm that the SNP do better than their national averages among 18-24s and 25-34s on all questions. And more to the point also better than Labour with sometimes huge leads. The SNP would bag 56 seats to Labour's one on both the 18-24s' and the 25-34s' Westminster vote.
Scottish Labour still haven't come to terms with the idea that Scottish youth want a vision for the future, not just spad-driven short term plans. And (rightly or wrongly) a majority believe the SNP offer just that sort of vision while Labour is still knee-deep in the tired old Westminster power plays. All recent Scottish polling, not just Survation, points to the same unavoidable conclusion: Scottish Labour are out of sync with the younger generations and failure to reconnect will sooner than later lead to their final demise.
They also have a long history of misreading Scotland as a whole. 2015 proved it. Then in 2017 they clearly did not believe they could actually gain seats back from the SNP. Best proof is that none of the 2015 heavyweight losers tried a rematch. So they had to handpick second-tier candidates and are now burdened with second-rate MPs who would barely qualify as Councillors for Brigadoon. The previous generation had the Feeble Fifty now ours has the Useless Seven.
Scottish Labour's liabilities are many. They appear just as directionless and inconsistent as the UK Labour Party. They elected a Corbynista as their leader but prominent party bigwigs still do their best to undermine Corbyn even if that means undermining the party as a whole (aye that's ye Anas and Ian). After the 2017 Local Elections they were unable to define a clear and stable line, choosing to be part of anti-SNP coalitions in several councils while striking coalition deals with the SNP in others.
Their current policy proposals are also strangely unfocused and unconvincing. A mix of 'we oppose it because SNP propose it' and 'we opposed it in the past but support it now because SNP made it popular' won't work. Besides their misleading of voters about which matters are reserved and which ones are devolved is easily debunked. Yapping #SNPBad day in day out certainly won't win an election and recent Scottish polling is here to prove it. The obsessive 'no to IndyRef2' talking point is also close to its sell-by date. They will find themselves in an awkward position when one of their MSPs comes out in support of Independence, which my gut says might happen sooner than everybody expects.
Scottish Labour's liabilities are many. They appear just as directionless and inconsistent as the UK Labour Party. They elected a Corbynista as their leader but prominent party bigwigs still do their best to undermine Corbyn even if that means undermining the party as a whole (aye that's ye Anas and Ian). After the 2017 Local Elections they were unable to define a clear and stable line, choosing to be part of anti-SNP coalitions in several councils while striking coalition deals with the SNP in others.
Their current policy proposals are also strangely unfocused and unconvincing. A mix of 'we oppose it because SNP propose it' and 'we opposed it in the past but support it now because SNP made it popular' won't work. Besides their misleading of voters about which matters are reserved and which ones are devolved is easily debunked. Yapping #SNPBad day in day out certainly won't win an election and recent Scottish polling is here to prove it. The obsessive 'no to IndyRef2' talking point is also close to its sell-by date. They will find themselves in an awkward position when one of their MSPs comes out in support of Independence, which my gut says might happen sooner than everybody expects.
Of course Scottish Labour's problems are not just lack of direction, inconsistency and failure to deliver anything meaningful. Their main problem might actually be their leader. Richard Leonard has held the position for ten months now and his public image is far from stellar. Here's what the already quoted comprehensive Scottish poll says about Scottish and British party leaders:
Richard Leonard has both the lowest favourables and unfavourables of all Scottish leaders. But only he also has the highest 'no opinion' of them all and that includes people who don't (or pretend not to) even know who he is. Not registering on the radars of more than one third of the potential electorate has never been good news for any public figure. Especially not when rumours abound of a possible snap GE in the near future.
So to sum it up Labour certainly have a future unless they stage a Scapa Flow in the next few weeks. But this future is definitely not in Scotland.
(*) He came he saw he spoke. They will be vanquished.
Ramble on
If the last batch of new polls is any indication, the next batch will probably also be contradictory, inconclusive and possibly unreliable. But as always that will be all we have to try the least bad projection of what the next House of Commons will possibly look like.
It will probably take some major event to decisively swing polls firmly in any direction. Like some unforeseen-but-yet-predicted upset: government defeated on yet another Brexit vote by the unholy alliance of Mogglodytes and Soubrynistas, May deposed by Mogglodyte coup at Tory Conference, New-New-Labour split, SNP actually kicking off IndyRef2, snap GE actually called... Or whatever ruffles a few feathers and allows MSM to say 'I told you so'. Which they will anyway.
Stay tuned for further broadcasts
No comments:
Post a Comment