Post by Jim on Mar 17, 2024 13:35:11 GMT
For once the Daily Mail prints the truth.
Tories heading for complete disaster according to a poll they have shared. I'm surprised the mail readers here haven't shared the news.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/us-politics/article-13204731/Tories-Rishi-heading-worst-election-result-history-reveals-GLEN-OWEN-forensically-detailed-new-polling.html
The next election is already lost for the Conservatives.
The only remaining question is the scale of the disaster.
That is the conclusion of detailed new constituency polling, which suggests that the party is heading for the worst result in its history.
The research, conducted on behalf of corporate businesses and shared with the Mail on Sunday, suggests that if an election were held tomorrow the Tories could be reduced to under 150 seats - even fewer than the 165 the party won in 1997, and the 156 in 1906’s Liberal landslide.
It means that Sir Keir Starmer could be on course to win a majority of nearly 250 seats.
The best-case scenario for the Conservatives, under which support for Sir Keir and for Nigel Farage’s Reform party melts away in the heat of an election campaign, currently stands at a 50-seat Labour majority.
Tory MPs are debating whether Mr Sunak should be ousted, to be replaced by Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt
Tory MPs are debating whether Mr Sunak should be ousted, to be replaced by Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt
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Only a ‘black swan event’ - the pollsters’ shorthand for an unforeseen set of rare and consequential circumstances - would deny Labour victory; an example would be a surpise electoral pact between Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, combined with a catastrophically damaging revelation about Sir Keir.
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But as one of the researchers put it: ‘Even that probably wouldn’t be enough now.'
A 220-plus Labour majority would dwarf the 179 Blair landslide in 1997, when the Tories won only 165 seats. Even Tory MPs in supposedly safe ‘middle England’ constituencies, with majorities of up to 20,000, could lose if Rishi Sunak cannot turn his party’s fortunes around.
Tory strategists at No. 10 and the Party’s headquarters insist that the polls will ‘tighten’ closer to Election day, and even on the day itself, with the ‘protest vote’ for Reform melting away as electors face up to the reality of a Starmer premiership.
However, the new research, which is substantially more detailed than traditional polls, points to a vertiginous downward trajectory for Mr Sunak that seems unlikely to be arrested under his leadership. This implies his decision to rule out a May Election could actually worsen the situation for his party. Delaying a poll until the autumn could even lead to an ‘extinction-level’ result.
EXCLUSIVEREAD MORE: Inside Sue Gray's battle for control of Labour: GLEN OWEN and DAN HODGES reveal how Starmer's 'overbearing' right-hand woman is plotting against Blairites in face-off over the levers of power
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The findings are likely to intensify speculation over Mr Sunak’s future, as Tory MPs debate whether he should be ousted, to be replaced by Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt.
MPs on the Right of the party, who have previously argued for former Home Secretary Suella Braverman or Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch to take over, are increasingly considering uniting behind the more centrist Ms Mordaunt in an attempt to stem the predicted losses.
If Ms Mordaunt waits until after the Election it could be too late for her. Even her 15,780 majority in Portsmouth North would be at risk in these circumstances. And the analysis suggests that whole swathes of One Nation conservatives in the Blue Wall seats of the South would be wiped out, leaving the rump of the post-Election party dominated by the Right.
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However, the polling also indicates that no potential leader from within the current ranks, including Ms Mordaunt, former Home Secretary Priti Patel, Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, Ms Badenoch or former Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick, has sufficient name recognition to provide the necessary poll bounce.
Labour’s consistent 20 per cent poll lead would need to fall by around 15 points for the Conservatives to have even an outside chance of remaining in power; the post-war average from this stage in the Parliament is a tightening of five points.
Labour’s current poll lead is the second highest held by any Opposition party since the war. The only one that commanded a higher lead was Tony Blair’s Labour in late 1994, following the sudden death of his predecessor John Smith.
But while Sir Keir’s lead is smaller than that recorded at peak-Blair, the constituency polling predicts an even larger majority than 1997 because Labour’s vote is more efficiently distributed than it was 27 years ago, as the Conservatives suffer a triple squeeze from Labour, Reform and the Liberal Democrats.
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Reform’s support, now averaging at 12 per cent, has eaten into the Tory vote to such a degree that Mr Sunak’s party has fallen below 20 per cent in some polls: even John Major managed 30.7 per cent on Election day in 1997.
Last night, the doomsday findings led one senior Conservative to urge Mr Sunak to ‘put the party out if its misery’ and call an Election as soon as possible. ‘It’s done. There is no point dragging this out any longer,’ they said.
Although most observers still expect a General Election to take place in October, in the wake of Mr Sunak’s announcement last week that it would not be held on the same day as the local elections on May 2, it could still be called before the start of the summer recess in July.
However, former Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries has warned that if Mr Sunak tried to call a snap Election he would face a ‘palace coup’ – with Tory MPs deposing him before he reached Buckingham Palace to ask King Charles to dissolve Parliament.
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Another former Cabinet Minister has likened the Government’s position to the Charge of the Light Brigade: ‘Into the valley of death we go. I personally think we should play it long until October, just in case something comes up. We will face annihilation either way. If Reform get more momentum then we are completely screwed.
Labour¿s lead would need to fall by around 15 percentage points for Mr Sunak to have even an outside chance of remaining in No 10
Labour¿s lead would need to fall by around 15 percentage points for Mr Sunak to have even an outside chance of remaining in No 10
‘I personally don’t give a rat’s a**e any more. I am sick of inept leadership, poor strategy and zero political sense.’.
The former Minister added that while Liz Truss’s short-lived premiership ‘may have been a disaster’, Mr Sunak ‘has contrived to make things worse’. They concluded: ‘We brought this on ourselves. Getting rid of Boris was such a bad idea in retrospect’.
Senior Tory sources claim that Mr Sunak held a meeting with close aides in recent weeks to discuss calling a May Election – not because he thought the party could win, but because he had ‘had enough’ and was mentally exhausted. The source claimed that advisers had talked him out of the idea by asking for ‘more time to turn it around’. But according to someone at No 10: ‘That is very much not the case’.
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Mr Sunak’s belated ruling out of a May Election – he would have had to call one by the end of last week – led to panic among Tory MPs. One quoted Dr Johnson: ‘‘Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.’
One of the most striking findings of the new polling is the lack of personal enthusiasm for Sir Keir, despite his party’s commanding lead. An author of the survey compared the situation with 1997, saying that ‘while that was about the appeal of Blair, this time it is more of a “not the Conservatives” vote’.
Philip Collins, a Labour-linked political columnist, recently warned Sir Keir of the pitfalls of a ‘lukewarm landslide’, writing: ‘The Tories have slid irretrievably but there seems little positive enthusiasm for Labour. What happens when a resistible force meets a moveable object?’
For Mr Sunak, probably the most alarming finding – out of a number of alarming findings – will be the downward angle of the graph since the turn of the year. Asked to explain why, one of the survey’s authors said simply: ‘Tory chaos’.
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The data suggests that the party’s fortunes started to enter terminal velocity at the end of 2023 amid the factional fighting which followed the sacking of Suella Braverman as Home Secretary by the Prime Minister for making outspoken criticisms of the policing of pro-Palestinian marches.
Her resignation letter was followed by the departure of Mr Jenrick over Mr Sunak’s plans to use emergency legislation to rescue his scheme to send Channel migrants to Rwanda, which Mr Jenrick felt did not go far enough. The months since have been characterised by political paralysis as party factions have fought over whether or not to topple the Prime Minister.
By tracking the oscillating vote share in previous Parliaments, the polling calculates that the average lead for a winning Opposition party in the final days before the Election is 10.3 percentage points: Sir Keir’s lead is currently running at twice that level.
Last night a senior Tory campaign insider said: ‘There is an unprecedented softness in the electorate with an extremely high proportion of voters saying they don’t know who they will vote for or are open to changing their minds. It’s why you see very big differences between the numbers in published polls. We are confident that when push comes to shove people will look at Keir Starmer – and particularly [his deputy] Angela Rayner – and say ‘no thanks’. See
Even so, a Conservative victory in the current circumstances would represent the greatest comeback in electoral history.
Tories heading for complete disaster according to a poll they have shared. I'm surprised the mail readers here haven't shared the news.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/us-politics/article-13204731/Tories-Rishi-heading-worst-election-result-history-reveals-GLEN-OWEN-forensically-detailed-new-polling.html
The next election is already lost for the Conservatives.
The only remaining question is the scale of the disaster.
That is the conclusion of detailed new constituency polling, which suggests that the party is heading for the worst result in its history.
The research, conducted on behalf of corporate businesses and shared with the Mail on Sunday, suggests that if an election were held tomorrow the Tories could be reduced to under 150 seats - even fewer than the 165 the party won in 1997, and the 156 in 1906’s Liberal landslide.
It means that Sir Keir Starmer could be on course to win a majority of nearly 250 seats.
The best-case scenario for the Conservatives, under which support for Sir Keir and for Nigel Farage’s Reform party melts away in the heat of an election campaign, currently stands at a 50-seat Labour majority.
Tory MPs are debating whether Mr Sunak should be ousted, to be replaced by Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt
Tory MPs are debating whether Mr Sunak should be ousted, to be replaced by Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt
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Only a ‘black swan event’ - the pollsters’ shorthand for an unforeseen set of rare and consequential circumstances - would deny Labour victory; an example would be a surpise electoral pact between Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, combined with a catastrophically damaging revelation about Sir Keir.
ADVERTISEMENT
But as one of the researchers put it: ‘Even that probably wouldn’t be enough now.'
A 220-plus Labour majority would dwarf the 179 Blair landslide in 1997, when the Tories won only 165 seats. Even Tory MPs in supposedly safe ‘middle England’ constituencies, with majorities of up to 20,000, could lose if Rishi Sunak cannot turn his party’s fortunes around.
Tory strategists at No. 10 and the Party’s headquarters insist that the polls will ‘tighten’ closer to Election day, and even on the day itself, with the ‘protest vote’ for Reform melting away as electors face up to the reality of a Starmer premiership.
However, the new research, which is substantially more detailed than traditional polls, points to a vertiginous downward trajectory for Mr Sunak that seems unlikely to be arrested under his leadership. This implies his decision to rule out a May Election could actually worsen the situation for his party. Delaying a poll until the autumn could even lead to an ‘extinction-level’ result.
EXCLUSIVEREAD MORE: Inside Sue Gray's battle for control of Labour: GLEN OWEN and DAN HODGES reveal how Starmer's 'overbearing' right-hand woman is plotting against Blairites in face-off over the levers of power
ADVERTISEMENT
The findings are likely to intensify speculation over Mr Sunak’s future, as Tory MPs debate whether he should be ousted, to be replaced by Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt.
MPs on the Right of the party, who have previously argued for former Home Secretary Suella Braverman or Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch to take over, are increasingly considering uniting behind the more centrist Ms Mordaunt in an attempt to stem the predicted losses.
If Ms Mordaunt waits until after the Election it could be too late for her. Even her 15,780 majority in Portsmouth North would be at risk in these circumstances. And the analysis suggests that whole swathes of One Nation conservatives in the Blue Wall seats of the South would be wiped out, leaving the rump of the post-Election party dominated by the Right.
ADVERTISEMENT
However, the polling also indicates that no potential leader from within the current ranks, including Ms Mordaunt, former Home Secretary Priti Patel, Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, Ms Badenoch or former Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick, has sufficient name recognition to provide the necessary poll bounce.
Labour’s consistent 20 per cent poll lead would need to fall by around 15 points for the Conservatives to have even an outside chance of remaining in power; the post-war average from this stage in the Parliament is a tightening of five points.
Labour’s current poll lead is the second highest held by any Opposition party since the war. The only one that commanded a higher lead was Tony Blair’s Labour in late 1994, following the sudden death of his predecessor John Smith.
But while Sir Keir’s lead is smaller than that recorded at peak-Blair, the constituency polling predicts an even larger majority than 1997 because Labour’s vote is more efficiently distributed than it was 27 years ago, as the Conservatives suffer a triple squeeze from Labour, Reform and the Liberal Democrats.
ADVERTISEMENT
Reform’s support, now averaging at 12 per cent, has eaten into the Tory vote to such a degree that Mr Sunak’s party has fallen below 20 per cent in some polls: even John Major managed 30.7 per cent on Election day in 1997.
Last night, the doomsday findings led one senior Conservative to urge Mr Sunak to ‘put the party out if its misery’ and call an Election as soon as possible. ‘It’s done. There is no point dragging this out any longer,’ they said.
Although most observers still expect a General Election to take place in October, in the wake of Mr Sunak’s announcement last week that it would not be held on the same day as the local elections on May 2, it could still be called before the start of the summer recess in July.
However, former Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries has warned that if Mr Sunak tried to call a snap Election he would face a ‘palace coup’ – with Tory MPs deposing him before he reached Buckingham Palace to ask King Charles to dissolve Parliament.
ADVERTISEMENT
Another former Cabinet Minister has likened the Government’s position to the Charge of the Light Brigade: ‘Into the valley of death we go. I personally think we should play it long until October, just in case something comes up. We will face annihilation either way. If Reform get more momentum then we are completely screwed.
Labour¿s lead would need to fall by around 15 percentage points for Mr Sunak to have even an outside chance of remaining in No 10
Labour¿s lead would need to fall by around 15 percentage points for Mr Sunak to have even an outside chance of remaining in No 10
‘I personally don’t give a rat’s a**e any more. I am sick of inept leadership, poor strategy and zero political sense.’.
The former Minister added that while Liz Truss’s short-lived premiership ‘may have been a disaster’, Mr Sunak ‘has contrived to make things worse’. They concluded: ‘We brought this on ourselves. Getting rid of Boris was such a bad idea in retrospect’.
Senior Tory sources claim that Mr Sunak held a meeting with close aides in recent weeks to discuss calling a May Election – not because he thought the party could win, but because he had ‘had enough’ and was mentally exhausted. The source claimed that advisers had talked him out of the idea by asking for ‘more time to turn it around’. But according to someone at No 10: ‘That is very much not the case’.
ADVERTISEMENT
Mr Sunak’s belated ruling out of a May Election – he would have had to call one by the end of last week – led to panic among Tory MPs. One quoted Dr Johnson: ‘‘Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.’
One of the most striking findings of the new polling is the lack of personal enthusiasm for Sir Keir, despite his party’s commanding lead. An author of the survey compared the situation with 1997, saying that ‘while that was about the appeal of Blair, this time it is more of a “not the Conservatives” vote’.
Philip Collins, a Labour-linked political columnist, recently warned Sir Keir of the pitfalls of a ‘lukewarm landslide’, writing: ‘The Tories have slid irretrievably but there seems little positive enthusiasm for Labour. What happens when a resistible force meets a moveable object?’
For Mr Sunak, probably the most alarming finding – out of a number of alarming findings – will be the downward angle of the graph since the turn of the year. Asked to explain why, one of the survey’s authors said simply: ‘Tory chaos’.
ADVERTISEMENT
The data suggests that the party’s fortunes started to enter terminal velocity at the end of 2023 amid the factional fighting which followed the sacking of Suella Braverman as Home Secretary by the Prime Minister for making outspoken criticisms of the policing of pro-Palestinian marches.
Her resignation letter was followed by the departure of Mr Jenrick over Mr Sunak’s plans to use emergency legislation to rescue his scheme to send Channel migrants to Rwanda, which Mr Jenrick felt did not go far enough. The months since have been characterised by political paralysis as party factions have fought over whether or not to topple the Prime Minister.
By tracking the oscillating vote share in previous Parliaments, the polling calculates that the average lead for a winning Opposition party in the final days before the Election is 10.3 percentage points: Sir Keir’s lead is currently running at twice that level.
Last night a senior Tory campaign insider said: ‘There is an unprecedented softness in the electorate with an extremely high proportion of voters saying they don’t know who they will vote for or are open to changing their minds. It’s why you see very big differences between the numbers in published polls. We are confident that when push comes to shove people will look at Keir Starmer – and particularly [his deputy] Angela Rayner – and say ‘no thanks’. See
Even so, a Conservative victory in the current circumstances would represent the greatest comeback in electoral history.
