Wings has been regularly pointing out for the last 11-and-a-half years that by far the most reliable indicator of who’s going to win an election isn’t voting-intention polls, but “Who would make the best Prime/First Minister?” polls.
So the SNP should be really really alarmed about this.
Because those are some shocking numbers.
The media might be shocked. But readers of Wings aren’t.
Because there’s simply no excuse for anyone acting surprised.
Some considered thoughts on the evening’s events, then.
Yeah, nice work, Britain.
For quite some time now, and in particular since the turn of the year, this site’s been pointing out two things about polling for the 2015 UK general election.
One is that Labour’s lead has been in steady decline since 2012. The other is that the polls present a falsely optimistic picture for Ed Miliband’s party, as ultimately a significant proportion of UKIP support is likely to vote tactically, because only two people have a chance of becoming Prime Minister and only one of them is promising what UKIP supporters want above all else – a referendum on leaving the EU.
Pleasingly, on one level at least, today we were proved right.
A new poll by Populus for the Daily Politics is out today, with some interesting rankings for the four UK party leaders. (Which in a UK context includes Nigel Farage, despite his representing a party without a single MP while there are seven other parties at Westminster who do have seats.)
As you can see, UK respondents were asked to identify the three main qualities they associated with each leader, from a list of positive and negative ones. It’s fair to say none comes out covered in glory – fewer than one in five people think the UK’s Prime Minister is “competent”, for example. But the balance is striking.
Three opinion polls this week have all suggested that Labour’s opinion-poll lead over the Conservatives is continuing to shrink. ICM put Ed Miliband’s party just three points in front, as do Ipsos MORI, while Populus have a mere 1% between the two parties.
For perspective, the same distance out from the 2010 general election, the Tories were 16 points in front. By seven months away from the vote, in October 2009, their lead was an incredible NINETEEN points, and they still couldn’t win a majority.
Who fancies Labour’s chances?
We always feel a bit bad when we point out in the interests of reality that Labour isn’t going to win the 2015 general election, because notwithstanding the fact that they’re only actually about 1% to the left of the Tories, 1% is still better than nothing.
And as we’re having a bit of an Ed Miliband day today, we thought we should do something constructive for the millionaire leader of the People’s Party for balance, so we’ve put together a nice picture gallery of Not Very Red Ed to show how at ease he is meeting members of the public, and how if he gets elected he’ll be closely in touch with the concerns of ordinary hard-working people.
Take comfort, readers. The Milibot 3000 is ++ ON YOUR SIDE ++.
Labour Uncut, 11 February 2014:
It may be worth remembering that these figures also don’t, as far as we can ascertain, factor in those UKIP voters likely to return to the Conservatives when it comes to the crunch of a UK election that might install Ed Miliband as Prime Minister rather than a Tory leader promising to hold a referendum on EU membership.
Don’t come crying to us in May 2015, No voters. We keep telling you what’s coming.
The Huffington Post, 15 December 2013:
This, remember, is after a summer in which the nation’s political commentators almost universally agreed that Miliband’s conference promise of an energy price freeze and subsequent talk of a cost-of-living crisis was winning the hearts of the country.
Last week three separate opinion polls showed Labour’s lead over the Tories down to a pitiful five points, despite 70% of the population saying they’d felt no benefit from Britain’s feeble economic “recovery”.
We don’t think Labour has ever sacked a leader who hadn’t contested at least one general election. Ed Miliband will lead them to the polls in 2015, and only one in five Britons thinks he’ll end up in Number 10. Don’t take our word for it. Don’t heed the experts. Don’t even examine the statistics. Listen to the people who’ll be voting.
We’ve been having a dig through the recent YouGov poll (fieldwork 26-29 November) commissioned by The Sun. It’s full of all manner of interesting data, strengthened by a rather bigger-than-usual sample of 1,919 voters.
We were intrigued to note, for example, that 56% of respondents in England and Wales disapproved of the government’s record (with just 30% in favour), but 55% of those same people thought Scotland should vote to stay in the Union they themselves were so unsatisfied with (just 21% said they’d vote Yes if they had a vote).
Now, it’s possible to explain some of this apparent contradiction away. For example, fully 90% of UK Labour voters disapproved of the UK government, but 60% still wanted Scotland to vote No and remain subject to it. The rationalisation, of course, is that they think everything would be fine under a Labour UK government.
Don’t they?
ComRes for ITV News, 20 July 2013:
We’ve explored the “Kinnock Factor” previously on this site, but some numbers from the latest YouGov weekly polling surprised even us today. Labour’s lead over the midterm Conservative-led government is still falling – to just 6% this time – and Ed Miliband’s personal ratings are even worse than David Cameron’s, but that wasn’t it.
You’ll probably want to click on that image to enlarge it.
Wings Over Scotland is a (mainly) Scottish political media digest and monitor, which also offers its own commentary. (More)
