Friday 28 March 2008

Conservatives command a 14 point lead over Labour (YouGov Poll).

As confidence in Gordon Brown's ability to manage the economy (and Darling's I suppose) drops like a very large stony thing, the Conservatives have polled at least 40% for the last six months. The Lib Dems are hovering around the mid-teens (no pun intended). And if Nick Clegg does not whip his Peers to abstain from the vote for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, then I can see that reducing drastically. I don't think it will be long before we see a 20 point gap between the Conservatives and Labour (45-25). Could we see a decade of Labour and the Lib Dems fighting it out for second position?

This poll would give David Cameron and his MPs a 100 seat majority in the house of commons. And that is what is probably needed to reverse the mess this Labour government have got us into. Of all the questions asked by YouGov in this poll, maybe this will be the most damaging to Gordon Brown:

Do you think that Alistair Darling is doing a good job or a bad job as Chancellor of the Exchequer?

A good job 14
A bad job 56
Don’t know 30

5 comments:

William Gruff said...

A fortnight ago they enjoyed a sixteen point lead. They seem to have slipped.

Daily Referendum said...

Mr Gruff,

It's close enough for government work.

William Gruff said...

No it isn't.

I haven't looked at the figures but I recall Labour's embarrassingly triumphalist rally in Sheffield, just prior to the 1992 general election. You were a Labour voter then, and like me, sick of Major's troupe of clowns, as was the country. As I recall, Labour's lead over the Conservatives was greater than sixteen points and everyone was predicting a sure Labour victory. I predicted a Conservative victory of between 12 and twenty seats and I was ridiculed by everyone I spoke to.

The Conservatives won by twenty one seats.

My prediction was based solely on historic voting trends, as I understood them from the limited sources available then. I predicted that Gordon Brown would bottle an election, and I was one of few to do so, when Tory bloggers were telling the world that Grooovey Dave had only to measure up for carpets and curtains and he was in, based solely on Braun's voting trends.

The Conservatives cannot win the next general election and holding the party conference in Blackpool cannot change the result. Expect a hung parliament, with an unprecedented number of independent MPs, and be prepared to cancel your subscription.

There are troubled times ahead, as Nick Clegg knows.

Daily Referendum said...

I remember reading that historically the Tories always poll less than they actually achieve in the election.

I think May could be a good indication of how things will turn out.

William Gruff said...

You'll also have read that boundary changes tend to favour the Conservatives?

The results of the next general election cannot be other than unprecedented and thus seminal.

There has never been such a degree of disaffection in a system as inclusive as we have now, in Br*tain.

Apathy will not deter voters; they will choose not to vote because of the appallingly low calibre of the candidates.