What the 2011 Local election results show is that Cameron will not be able to erode the Labour lead by 'calling voters home' - Ed Miliband's lead may be small but hard to shift
The Westminster conventional wisdom – that Ed Miliband’s Labour Party is not doing well enough – appears to be based on two contradictory notions. The first is that Labour needs to build a larger opinion poll lead than its current typical 4-5 per cent, as it will gradually erode before the next election. The other is that the Tory vote is holding up – as evidenced by last week’s election results. But if, in effect, the Tories have not lost any votes to Labour, it’s hard to see what erosion can take place.
Both opinion polling and the local election results provisionally point to the same picture: Labour has picked up votes from the Liberal Democrats, but not from the Conservatives. So, for example, from the findings of the latest Ipsos-Mori monthly poll, we find that almost 20 per cent of Liberal Democrat voters have gone over to Labour, only 3 per cent of Conservatives have. In fact, 5 per cent of Lib Dem voters have gone over to the Tories.
This would seem to be borne out by the 2011 local election results, which showed large gains for Labour by historical standards, the Liberal Democrats being decimated. Meanwhile, the Conservative actually added councillors – which you would expect if some Labour-aligned voters who backed the Liberal Democrats at the 2010 general election have ‘come home’, allowing the Lib Dem vote to fall below their Conservative challengers.
So if Cameron is to claw back those four to five points, it’s not going to come from Labour – who are either voters that stood with the party through the nadir of 2010, or are former Lib Dem voters, presumably unhappy with the decision of Nick Clegg to go into the coalition.
How the votes churned will only be fully understood after weeks of analysis. However, the prime minister’s best bet appears to be for the Lib Dem image to shift left, so his junior coalition partner can bring back some of those former voters, and may even leave their right flank vulnerable to the Tories. But that seems impossible under the leadership of the current deputy prime minister. Which suggests a very odd scenario:
It’s in David Cameron’s best interest that the Liberal Democrats dump Nick Clegg before the next election.
28 Responses to “Good Tory results give Cameron a 2015 headache”
Anon E Mouse
Henry – They may be leading even given the margin of error but even despite Ed Miliband’s obvious limitations they are not far enough ahead.
If an election was called tomorrow Labour would lose even if they could afford to fund a campaign. 2% is not ahead enough. It couldn’t be better for Labour at the moment with the cuts yet Blair lead by 21% at the same time as leader.
Miliband’s a dud just like Brown was and the Labour Party need to ditch him and get his brother in place. I’d vote for David Miliband because he looks and acts like a leader and so would other people…
PJD
A recovering economy between elections is not necessarily a good predictor of who is going to win the next one. Just as John Major!
Comparing Miliband’s position to Blair is bogus. Ed is up against a year old government. You can perhaps compare his to Hague in 1997/8. Going back to 1979/80 is problematic as Foot didn’t take over from Callaghan until Oct 1980 – well over a year after losing the election. Before that you would have to go back a long way to find another comparable situation to Ed Miliband’s.
Anon E Mouse – yes some of my comments were my own opinion, but others were factual 3, 5 & 7 in particular.
Anon E Mouse
PJD – Governments lose elections – oppositions don’t win them.
Point 3 – But not good enough in Wales. The Tories increased their seats there as well and if Labour can’t win in their heartlands, as Scotland has shown they clearly can’t, they are doomed.
Point 5 – You misunderstand sir. 40% is not dire but their lead is not good enough and it is within the margin of error ahead – that’s why I mentioned Blair’s lead. The lead isn’t good enough.
Point 7 – It was mainly blue in 1997. It still is. the point links to my heartland remarks. 25% of the Labout MP’s are Scottish – lose that block and you finish the party once and for all…
Thomas Boyd
Labour lost Glasgow Anniesland by 7 votes to the SNP.
I hope Labour support more powers for Scottish Parliament
in the UK.
Daniel Elton
Well done on @fabians and @YouGov catching up on @leftfootfwd's analysis of @Ed_Miliband's new voters from a year ago! http://t.co/GkyfFBoU