View all newsletters
Sign up to our newsletters

Support 110 years of independent journalism.

  1. Politics
  2. The Staggers
13 June 2012updated 08 Jul 2021 12:27pm

The real story is that the polls aren’t changing at all

By Stephen Bush

Commentators are falling into an unhelpful cycle in this election: first, overreading larger than usual Conservative leads from the family of pollsters that tend to show bigger Tory leads (YouGov, IpsosMori, Opinium) and then overreacting to smaller Conservative leads from the group of pollsters (ICM, Survation, ComRes) that tend to show smaller ones.

This week, an Opinium poll showing the Conservatives on an eyewatering 47 per cent, 19 points ahead of Labour, triggered a raft of takes about how the election was all over bar the shouting, that Jeremy Corbyn’s aides should start updating their LinkedIn profiles, et cetera, et cetera. Today, an ICM poll showing the Conservatives on 41 per cent, just seven points ahead of Labour, has set off another wave, often from the same people, about how the Tory party’s 2017 collapse is happening again.

But what both polls have in common is that they show no change within the margin of error. Opinium shows the Conservatives up by three points, while ICM shows Labour up by two. To the extent that the polls are showing any change, it is that ICM Survation and ComRes are now consistently putting the Conservative lead at or above six per cent – above the threshold at which John Curtice, the eminent psephologist, estimates that they ought to be in majority territory.  

What we can say for certainty is that, whatever happens, this election is not a whole lot like 2017. In 2017, the story in the polls was one of consistent, outside the margin-of-error growth in the Labour poll share from the beginning of the campaign and a sudden, drastic falling-off in Conservative support trigger by their manifesto, which was chockfull of unpopular policies.

There are two and a half weeks, an awful lot of undecided voters, and the impact of the Liberal Democrats on the Conservative’s majority hopes remains uncertain and hard to accurately predict. That’s a lot of time for something to go wrong for the Tories, but if it does, it will be “like 2017” only in the same sense that the election of 1987 was “like 1959” in that they both ended in the same way. The differences however will be quite significant – and the route to another hung parliament quite different.  

As I wrote a fortnight ago, it’s not very interesting if the story of the election continues to be “frontrunner maintains steady lead, impact under our electoral system unclear”. That is, however, remains the real story of the the election so far.  To the extent that there is another, it is that we are increasingly looking at a pattern across all the polls that if repeated at a general election, would mean a Conservative majority – albeit one of indeterminate size.

Content from our partners
The promise of prevention
How Labour hopes to make the UK a leader in green energy
Is now the time to rethink health and care for older people? With Age UK

Select and enter your email address Your weekly guide to the best writing on ideas, politics, books and culture every Saturday. The best way to sign up for The Saturday Read is via saturdayread.substack.com The New Statesman's quick and essential guide to the news and politics of the day. The best way to sign up for Morning Call is via morningcall.substack.com Our Thursday ideas newsletter, delving into philosophy, criticism, and intellectual history. The best way to sign up for The Salvo is via thesalvo.substack.com Stay up to date with NS events, subscription offers & updates. Weekly analysis of the shift to a new economy from the New Statesman's Spotlight on Policy team. The best way to sign up for The Green Transition is via spotlightonpolicy.substack.com
  • Administration / Office
  • Arts and Culture
  • Board Member
  • Business / Corporate Services
  • Client / Customer Services
  • Communications
  • Construction, Works, Engineering
  • Education, Curriculum and Teaching
  • Environment, Conservation and NRM
  • Facility / Grounds Management and Maintenance
  • Finance Management
  • Health - Medical and Nursing Management
  • HR, Training and Organisational Development
  • Information and Communications Technology
  • Information Services, Statistics, Records, Archives
  • Infrastructure Management - Transport, Utilities
  • Legal Officers and Practitioners
  • Librarians and Library Management
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • OH&S, Risk Management
  • Operations Management
  • Planning, Policy, Strategy
  • Printing, Design, Publishing, Web
  • Projects, Programs and Advisors
  • Property, Assets and Fleet Management
  • Public Relations and Media
  • Purchasing and Procurement
  • Quality Management
  • Science and Technical Research and Development
  • Security and Law Enforcement
  • Service Delivery
  • Sport and Recreation
  • Travel, Accommodation, Tourism
  • Wellbeing, Community / Social Services
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
THANK YOU