Today’s ICM poll for the Guardian puts the Labour party on level terms with the Conservatives for the first time since October 2007. But as noted by UK Polling Report’s Anthony Wells, “the Guardian’s report concentrates upon the findings on the economy”. The topline number is buried on page seven of the paper and appears in the tenth paragraph of their online story.
In a blog titled “ICM show Labour and Tories neck and neck”, UK Polling Report observes:
“There is a new ICM poll in the Guardian tomorrow that probably isn’t what David Cameron hoped for on his 100th day in power. Topline voting intention figures are CON 37%(-1), LAB 37%(+3), LDEM 18%(-1). This is the first time an ICM poll has shown Labour catching the Conservatives since October 2007 and the election that never was.
“Despite this rather striking finding, the Guardian’s report concentrates upon the findings on the economy, which is rather more positive for the government.”
In mentioning the finding towards the bottom of their online piece, the Guardian’s Larry Elliot and Tom Clark write:
“But despite some reasonably strong personal numbers for the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, when it comes to voting intentions there are clear signs that the first peacetime coalition in the era of universal suffrage is serving his Liberal Democrats less well than the Tories. Where the Conservatives are holding on to the 37% vote share which achieved in the election, a quarter of those who backed the Lib Dems have since switched sides, leaving the third party on just 18% – down one point on the month, and six on the election. Many of these deserters have drifted towards Labour, taking its standing to 37%, and allowing a leaderless party to run the Tories level for the first time in three years.”
The ICM / Guardian General Election prediction poll put the Tories on 37 per cent, Labour on 28 per cent, and the Liberal Democrats on 26 per cent.
28 Responses to “Guardian buries Labour resurgence”
Barnaby Lane
RT @leftfootfwd: Guardian buries Labour resurgence http://bit.ly/bIjcWb
Chris Read
I'm not sure we need a leader… http://bit.ly/9fNmj1
Charlotte MacKenzie
RT @leftfootfwd: Guardian buries Labour resurgence http://bit.ly/9fNmj1
Ash
“the libertarian Bullingdon boys will fight it out with the lunatic, racist, sexist, homophobic, authoritarian high tories on the backbenches”
An all-too-plausible vision of the future, and a reminder of what uneasy alliances our main parties represent. You have the economically and socially liberal Right split between the LibDems and Tories – the Tory lot in an uneasy alliance with social conservatives, the LibDem lot in an uneasy alliance with social democrats, but looking all too comfortable in each others’ company in government. Then you have the social democratic centre-left split between Labour and the LibDems.
Could we end up with a traditional Conservative Party breaking away from the Libertarian coalition crowd on one side (perhaps absorbing UKIP in the process), and the SDP tradition extracting itself from the LibDems on the other (perhaps being absorbed by Labour in the process) – effectively creating a permanent split on the Right mirroring the split we’ve had on the Left for the past thirty years? Or could the LibDems’ right wing just get absorbed into the Tory Party, leaving an even bigger right-wing party opposing Labour and a separate, centre-left LibDem rump? Or, if we get PR, do we end up with lots of little parties competing to be seen as the ‘true’ successors to the big parties we know and love? Fun times ahead one way or another, I suspect.
BourgJoe
Billy, your prediction that both the Conservatives and Lib-dems will merge taking their 55% of vote with them, thus isolating the Labour party, implies that the 55% would actually go along with it. Believe it or not, most Lib-dems are actually left/centre left leaning, as polls before the election have shown, and this explains their flight towards the Labour party in recent polls.
The idea that the Labour party will become part of the lunatic left wing fringe is an amusing rightwing fantasy that assumes the Labour party is any more than moderately left wing in the first place!