Snap polls: week 2
A series of mini-blogs covering public opinion, polling and GE 2024
‘Change’ has been very evident during the general election campaign but not in voting intention polls which continue to show large Labour leads. That would suggest a good week for Labour given the party’s ‘Ming vase’ strategy but, after last week’s first steps, it made several mis-steps over the future of MP Diane Abbott.
After a gaffe-prone start by the Conservatives, Ipsos found four in ten Britons rating their campaign negatively. They appear though to have had a better week; if not yet turning a corner, they have stopped going backwards and will be cheered by Reform slipping out of double figures in several recent polls.
Reassurance, excitement, both
Much has rightly been made of the 2024 general election having shades of 1997 but, to me, it feels like 2017 in reverse. One party — Labour now, the Conservatives then — have a large lead and are pushing a reassurance vibe. The other — the Conservatives now, Labour then — are gunning for excitement, desperate to cut-through. With nothing to lose, they are responsible for a clutch of eye-catching policies designed to seize the coveted ‘narrative’.
In 2017, Corbyn’s Labour Party pledged, among other things, to nationalise England’s nine water companies, re-introduce the 50p rate of tax on the highest earners and bring in a new rate of 45p for earnings of £80,000 and above, expand childcare, and charge companies a levy on salaries above £330,000 (it wasn’t until 2019 that he famously offered “free broadband”).
Theresa May went with a ‘strong and stable’ pitch which worked until she spooked voters with a clumsy plan for social care, performing a U-turn and then insisting that “nothing has changed”.
Perhaps May’s team were seeking the sweet spot in marketing — achieving both reassurance and excitement. That target is evident in 2024 too; Sunak is talking about “sticking to the plan” while pushing bold policy propositions while, as Alastair Campbell noted, Starmer has started to use the phrase “stability is the change”.
Last week, Sunak’s team proposed a kind of national service for teenagers, a ‘Triple Lock plus’ to benefit pensioners, a crackdown on anti-social behaviour, and a cull on ‘Mickey Mouse’ degree courses (not their words, the media’s!).
Meanwhile, Labour pitched lowering the voting age to 16 and are sure to remind younger voters that the Renters Reform Bill, a Conservative 2019 manifesto pledge, fell as the election was called (Labour’s strategists may remember Matt Singh’s analysis that the ‘Youthquake’ of 2017 was in fact a ‘Rentquake’).
Home truths and voting power
Housing is a sticky issue, especially for younger generations. According to Ipsos, it features in the top three as very important in determining voting decisions for those aged 18–34, but it comes fourteenth for those aged 55 and over.
This is a symptom of a wider psephological phenomenon. Age was a key dividing line in voting in 2019, reaching its widest point in Ipsos’ time-series of estimates of voting patterns dating back to the 1979 election.
Five years ago, an estimated 19% of 18–24-year-olds voted Conservative, down from 27% at the previous two elections, just a third of the party’s share among those aged 65 or over (Labour did equally poorly among the older age group). YouGov recently had The Tories’ share on 8% (fieldwork 27–28 May)!
At the 2019 general election, the crossover age, the point at which voters were statistically more likely to vote Conservative than Labour was 45. The Economist’s forecast model last month, revised this to an eye-popping 68!
Were the Conservatives’ policies this week pitched at those older voters? Possibly, probably. Certainly, this tactic would make sense in one important way — this age group’s tendency to vote more than younger ones, gives them substantial voting power.
While 18–29-year-olds are 26% of the British population, they account for an estimated 22% of those who go on to vote. The equivalent figures for those aged 65+ are 24% and 29%. If anything, this probably under-states the situation given patterns in electoral (non)-registration but, while the precise proportions may be elusive the story is the same; in retail terms, you get more bang for your buck when targeting older voters.
This may make sense in the short-term but isn’t sustainable going forwards. The Millennial generation of 27–42-year-olds represents around a quarter of the adult population and are the largest age cohort in half of constituencies (over 300 seats). Britain has an ageing population but we should remember the middle-aged Millennials and Generation X will age too and will not necessarily turn blue as they do.
Some on the right recognise this. A piece by Onward last year identified Millennials’ “broadly centrist, aspirational and future-focused” policy positions and a feeling that “the Conservative Party is not delivering for them”. The right, especially the radical right, does better with the young in many parts of Europe. In Canada, the centre right has made significant gains among younger voters, built around an improved offer on housing.
Snippets
According to Ipsos (fieldwork 24–27 May):
- The public are more likely to think Labour has better policies than the Conservatives on the NHS and cost of living (the two most influential issues according to voters).
- 44% expect a Labour majority government after the next election, 23% a hung parliament with Labour as the largest party, 8% a Conservative majority government.
- In terms of preferred outcome, 39% would prefer a Labour majority, 8% a hung parliament with Labour largest, 20% a Conservative majority government (14% say some other result and 14% say don’t know).
- 23% of Britons hold a favourable opinion of Rishi Sunak, 22% are favourable towards the Conservative Party. Things are better if not brilliant for Keir Starmer (31%), and especially Labour (38%).
- Writing in Politics Home recently, Philip Cowley and Matthew Bailey challenge the notion that there was any great enthusiasm for Labour in 1997, and suggest that this doesn’t matter to electoral outcomes when the die is cast and voters just want rid of the incumbent.
Finally, something to remember about election campaigns. In More sex, lies and the ballot box (2016), Christopher Wlezien shared his analysis of polling across the world and concluded that in Britain as elsewhere, “the electoral cake is substantially baked well before the voters go to the polls”.
In other words, election campaigns are very rarely decisive, although this one has been fairly eventful so let’s not write it one off yet!
