THE BIG READ: current opinion polls are not irrelevant - they show Britain has simply not taken to Starmer or Labour

The Tories and Reform both have big political opportunities ahead but should now learn to concentrate their fire on the awful governing party rather than on each other

Photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash

THERE are at least four years until the next general election and probably nearly five. In such circumstances, conventional wisdom would say that opinion polls are largely irrelevant.

Add in the fact that Labour has more than 400 MPs and it further points to the idea of Keir Starmer being able to do what he likes irrespective of polls and pretty much still be nailed on for a second successive majority in 2028 or 2029.

Now also add in the fact that the official opposition party only has 121 MPs and that verdict would appear to be further cemented. Finally, chuck in the consideration that this beleaguered opposition party now faces a dangerous right-wing parliamentary rival under a charismatic and very well known leader in the shape of Reform and Nigel Farage and it would seem we are all done and dusted: a long Labour hegemony is under way, the Tories are irrelevant and must win a fight to the death with Reform before they can even hope to challenge Keir Starmer’s party. In my view, all these bits of conventional wisdom are wrong.

While it is true that there is no guarantee of recovery for the Conservatives and they carry a lot of negative baggage from the past 14 years – as I have set out many times before – there are plenty of reasons to think their predicament is not nearly as bad as it was when Tony Blair swept to power in 1997.

Let us examine the evidence. Exhibit one does indeed concern the opinion polls. In the Blair era, Labour remained miles ahead throughout its first term in office, apart from during a fortnight in autumn 2000 when the fuel dispute erupted. After the long Tory years, the Blair political recipe kept many right-leaning voters on board. Things could hardly be more different today.

We have now had six national polls since Labour won its “loveless landslide” on a vote share below 34 per cent (itself around ten points lower than the share Blair achieved in 1997). The Labour ratings in these polls have been as follows in chronological order: 39, 36, 34, 33, 33, 30. So there was a mini-bounce in two post-victory July polls right at the start but that soon petered out and already Starmer’s army is down on 30 per cent. His personal ratings are dropping like a stone too. Labour is running 20 points below where it was at this stage after the 1997 election and indeed 15 points below the average poll rating it held going into the 2024 election campaign.

There are many billions of gallons of water to flow under numerous bridges before the next election, but this poll trend is not irrelevant. It points to the idea that the British public have not taken to Starmer or his administration. The man now widely known as “Two Tier Keir” seems to have mistaken the nature of his mandate. Decisions and pronouncements on everything from immigration to different kinds of riots, public sector pay deals to free speech legislation, winter fuel allowance to social care reform and impending tax rises have drawn dividing lines in all the wrong places. Labour has protected its own tribal vested interests and created widespread active hostility towards it among people who were just hoping for a quiet life. It may be able to turn this around, but the usual path of governments is to become more unpopular as time goes on, not less. This is especially true of those in power in challenging times.

Exhibit two concerns the simple mathematical low resilience of Starmer’s majority. Put simply, his MPs have on average much smaller majorities than Blair’s did. Only six have majorities of more than 20,000, while nine have majorities of below 500. The typical Starmer-era Labour MP is sitting on a majority of only around 5,000 arising from a contest in which the main opponent party, the Tories, polled just a 24 per cent vote share. In other words, we should not be obsessing about the large size of the overall parliamentary majority while neglecting the very small size of typical constituency majorities.

Exhibit three concerns the complex nature of Labour’s electoral challenge next time: it will be fighting to hold seats against runners-up coming from all angles: a couple of hundred Tories, nearly 90 Reform candidates, dozens of SNPers, 20 or so Islamist independents, a smattering of Lib Dems and Greens. It is very hard to envisage Starmer having the kind of record in office needed to fight successfully on all these fronts and much easier to envisage him floundering against them all.

Now let us turn to this notion of the Tories and Reform being in a fight to the death,