Tory support at its highest since May 2008
The Conservatives have surged to their highest polling lead since May 2008 in the first full poll completed since Theresa May announced the general election.
On headline voting intention, 48 per cent of respondents said they would back the Conservatives if an election were held tomorrow, an increase of four percentage points. Just 24 per cent expressed said they would vote Labour.
According to Electoral Calculus, this would give the Conservatives a majority of up to 190 — even larger than Labour’s 1997 landslide.
Theresa May also hit her highest ever personal approval rating in the YouGov/Times poll, with 54 saying she would make the best prime minister. Just 15 per cent said the same of Jeremy Corbyn, while 31 per cent don’t know.
Unsurprisingly, the majority of the public (63 per cent) now expect a Conservative majority. Four per cent overall predict a Labour majority, including just 12 per cent of Labour’s own voters.
See: Campaign gets off to a slow start with stilted PMQs – but Corbyn’s attacks on May hit home
13 Responses to “First general election poll promises vast Conservative majority”
MarkRD
YouGov are not to be trusted. Here’s some more info I put together on UK polling companies. ComRes – CEO & Chairman Andrew Hawkins was a lobbyist in Westminster before becoming a Conservative Party advisor during John Major’s ’18-month winter’. Greig Baker, ComRes’ former Research Director was previously a member of the Conservative Shadow Defence and Foreign Affairs research and advisory team. Lionel Zetter, another ComRes director failed to be elected as a Conservative MP. Senior Consultant Aahad Ali once worked for Mary Macleod, former Conservative Member of Parliament for Brentford and Isleworth. For balance, Meghan Oliver, Associate Director, once worked for the Office of Tony Blair Government Advisory Practice…
YouGov – Stephan Shakespeare, the firm’s CEO as of 2017, once stood as a Conservative candidate for Colchester; he was also a Conservative Party pollster and the founder of http://www.conservativehome.com. He co-founded YouGov with Nadhim Zahawi, the Tory Member of Parliament for Stratford-on-Avon since 2010. Anthony Wells, another director, worked in the Leader of the Opposition’s Office for William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard. Chairman Roger Parry was a Conservative Party policy advisor when Jeremy Hunt was Culture Secretary. Ben Elliot, non-executive director, was appointed Trustee to the Board of the Victoria & Albert Museum by Prime Minister Theresa May in December 2016. I’ve received multiple reports of Labour supporters signing up to YouGov and then never receiving political surveys. I’ve also been told that users are directed to a survey on Jeremy Corbyn as part of filling in their member’s profile.
ICM – Set up by Nick Sparrow who previously worked as a private pollster to the Conservative Party Central Office.
Survation – Responsible for The Sun’s recent front page survey claiming that 1 in 5 Muslims sympathise with jihadi fighters. Chiefly known for their monthly voter-intention polls on behalf of the Mail on Sunday and its work for Sky News. Director Paul Smith was Senior Campaign Consultant on Sadiq Khan for London campaign, a strategist for their 2010 election campaign and a Trade Union Co-ordinator for Ed Miliband. Former Research Director Patrick Briône was a Research Consultant for the LibDem thinktank CentreForum. The only company to claim they correctly predicted the last election result but CEO Damian Lyons Lowe suppressed the findings.
Populus – The Times pollster, therefore News UK’s pollster. Therefore News Corp’s. Lord Cooper of Windrush, the director and founder is a Tory peer and former Conservative Party Director of Strategy. Rick Nye, Populus strategy director is a former director of the Conservative Research Department. Both co-founder Michael Simmonds and Associate Director Daisy Powell-Chandler previously worked for the Conservative Party, Simmonds as Director of Membership & Marketing, Powell-Chandler as Professional Director. Powell-Chandler was also Research Director for the Thatcherite think tank Centre For Policy Studies.
Doug1943
At last we will have a real choice!
For decades there have just been the real Tories, and Tory-lights. Now we have a true socialist at the head of a true socialist party. The millions of people mentioned by Margaret above, who hate the capitalist system but have not been able to vote against it, will now have the chance to do so.
Of course there will be enormous pressure on Corbyn and his backers to water down their message, to hide their true politics … — I notice that already Corbyn’s website has removed his praise for Hugo Chavez’s socialist Venezuela, where in fact he should be proudly running as the British Chavez — but if they will stick to their principles, and promise deep-seated radical change, by whatever means necessary, a frontal assault on the whole capitalist system, the transfer of wealth from those who have it to those who don’t, then the results of the election will astonish us all.
Michael WALKER
Nice to see we have input form people who think that running a country with no medicines, restricted food and shortages of every thing – as in Venezuela – is something to be applauded..(Doug1943)
I take it Doug lives in an alternate existence or does not read the news about Venezuela.
And MarkRD does not believe Opinion Polls.
I take it he has done his own polling of thousand of representative voters and weighted them for various factors and has oodles of data which he’ll no doubt share with us to prove the pollsters are wrong.
Oh : he has not.. SO another fantasist then.
Labour are adopting the policies and appearance of a cult with supporters like this. Fortunately for the country, they help the Tories by turning off voters as their claims are so extreme and they have no facts to back up their claims.