The Staggers

The New Statesman’s rolling politics blog

Sunday polls still in hung parliament territory

Two Sunday newspaper polls put the Conservatives on 37 per cent.

By Jon Bernstein Published 28 March 2010 9:35

It wasn't long ago that 40 per cent was seen as the must-hit target for the Conservatives, for psychological if not electoral reasons. So it is a mark of how the polls have narrowed since the turn of the year that the Tories will embrace two Sunday newspaper polls that have them on 37 points.

A BPIX poll for the Mail on Sunday puts Labour on 30 per cent, a 7-point Conservative lead, while the YouGov daily tracker, published in the Sunday Times, puts the gap between the two parties at 5 points. Both polling organisations have been showing smaller Tory leads in recent weeks -- notably a YouGov/Sun survey that put the difference between the parties at just 2 points earlier this week.

According to UK Polling Report's Uniform National Swing counter, the Tories remain 41 seats away from an overall majority. The inadequacies of applying a national swing are well known. Yet while it is commonly thought that Lord Ashcroft's efforts in the marginals will mean the Conservatives can offset their electoral disadvantage, other factors may play against the party -- Lib Dem incumbency and tactical voting, to name two.

UPDATE: An ICM poll for the News of the World -- that's the newly Tory-supporting NoW -- puts the Conservatives on 39 points, up 1 on the previous week and 8 points ahead of Labour.

The Lib Dems remain on 19 per cent.

The poll also suggests that one in four people were less likely to vote Labour following last Wednesday's Budget, compared to 9 per cent who said they were more likely.

Follow the New Statesman team on Facebook.

Special Offer: Get 12 issues of New Statesman magazine for just £12

Tags: Polls Guide

More from Jon Bernstein

View the discussion thread.

3 comments

Sun, 2010-03-28 15:32 — Will (not verified)

A long time ago there was this place called parliament. Parliament was based on individuals in the legislature being representatives of their constituencies who could challenge and determine the correctness of the proposals of the monarch and minister.

Nowadays, the system is geared towards the main parties who are more concerned about maintaining power rather than representing their constituents. No longer concerned with the people, MPs sacrifice their judgment entirely to their party in order to maintain a hold on the reigns. It very rare for any Government to suffer any defeat in a Division in the House of Commons: Labour suffered no such policy defeat throughout its first two terms.

If there was complete hung parliament, every MP would be an independent. For one, there would be no party whip. Without it the executive would not be free to bring in bad Bills, in other words, to do what it likes. Public trust in politicians is at an all time low: A January 2009 YouGov had 86% respondents stating that politicians put their party’s interest and their before that of the electorate.

Obviously a completely hung parliament is out of the question. What Jury Team propose is that all MPs should be free to vote in line with their best judgement and not be sanctioned for not obeying any party whip on issues not in their part manifesto. At least this would restore some independence to the back bencher. Read more: http://www.juryteam.org/p18-independent-mps.php

In the current party political system this is the leader of the majority party in the House of Commons rather than the person with majority support among all MPs. Even if a political party has 60% of the MPs in the Commons then if only about half of the majority party vote for their leader this means this person is only supported by 30% of the Commons. It is possible, then, for this country to have unelected and unaccountable

The proper process for recommending a PM to the monarch is for all MPs to be able to participate in the election of the PM immediately after the General Election. Jury Team propose that after each future general election the House of Commons will meet to elect by secret ballot a person who will be recommended to the monarch to be PM. Read more: http://www.juryteam.org/p27-commons-elect-pm.php

If we can’t have a completely hung parliament, then these two proposals will go someway to restoring the independence of the MP and the accountability of the MP. In short, restoring democracy to parliament. http://juryteam.org

Sun, 2010-03-28 22:38 — derek fortune (not verified)

me and my wife to be are voting david cameron to hell with labour

Mon, 2010-03-29 00:28 — Robert (not verified)

The Conservatives' election winning hero is normally taken to be Thatcher.

For me it's Sir Alec Douglas Home.

For an unelected prime minister at the fag end of a 13 year government he did a remarkable job of getting his cruelly ridiculed party to within a smidgeon of a hung parliament.

He left the Tories strong enough to regain power only six years later, having all but eliminated Labour from local government by 1968.

Lord Home's legacy to his party is always underestimated.

The polls could be pointing IMHO to Gordon Brown's legacy to Labour being at least as valuable as Lord Home's to the Conservatives in 1964, if not more so.