Why voters are abandoning Labour
YouGov have done a study which you can read here in which they asked a couple of hundred voters from their polling panel who had been pro-Labour in May this year and have now moved to "Don't Know" or to another party what were the main things putting them off the Labour party.
Not a huge sample I know, but bear in mind that this is a particular segment of a panel of several thousand members which they use to track support. That panel was used for the published YouGov polls and produces results over the past eleven months broadly in line with this rolling average of the work of several pollsters.
They then took a thousand members of that panel who had said in May 2016 that they would vote Labour, and of whom more than 200 were now "Don't know" or had switched to another party.
YouGov then asked the switchers to write a couple of sentences on why they switched and analysed the responses, which break down as follows:
NONE OF THIS MEANS THAT THE CONSERVATIVES HAVE THE NEXT ELECTION IN THE BAG.
Things can change. But to have a good shot at an outright victory, an opposition is usually regarded as needing to be at least ten percentage points ahead of the government a year before the election. Labour has more time than that, but YouGov's latest opinion poll data here has them eight points behind the Conservatives, with Jeremy Corbyn thirty-two points behind Theresa May and eleven percent behind "don't know" on who would make the best Prime Minister.
The challenge for the Conservatives is to deliver Brexit in a way which maximises the opportunities and minimises the costs, make sure the economy continues to grow, and make a reality of Theresa May's words about making sure that everyone benefits from that growth. If we can do that, nobody will ever find out quite what a disaster the present Labour party would make of running Britain.
Of one thing we can be certain - whether Corbyn or Smith wins the Labour leadership election, Labour is light-years away from being able to form a coherent government.
Not a huge sample I know, but bear in mind that this is a particular segment of a panel of several thousand members which they use to track support. That panel was used for the published YouGov polls and produces results over the past eleven months broadly in line with this rolling average of the work of several pollsters.
They then took a thousand members of that panel who had said in May 2016 that they would vote Labour, and of whom more than 200 were now "Don't know" or had switched to another party.
YouGov then asked the switchers to write a couple of sentences on why they switched and analysed the responses, which break down as follows:
NONE OF THIS MEANS THAT THE CONSERVATIVES HAVE THE NEXT ELECTION IN THE BAG.
Things can change. But to have a good shot at an outright victory, an opposition is usually regarded as needing to be at least ten percentage points ahead of the government a year before the election. Labour has more time than that, but YouGov's latest opinion poll data here has them eight points behind the Conservatives, with Jeremy Corbyn thirty-two points behind Theresa May and eleven percent behind "don't know" on who would make the best Prime Minister.
The challenge for the Conservatives is to deliver Brexit in a way which maximises the opportunities and minimises the costs, make sure the economy continues to grow, and make a reality of Theresa May's words about making sure that everyone benefits from that growth. If we can do that, nobody will ever find out quite what a disaster the present Labour party would make of running Britain.
Of one thing we can be certain - whether Corbyn or Smith wins the Labour leadership election, Labour is light-years away from being able to form a coherent government.
Comments
Lucky we have some sort of guidance (the leave alliance is still your friend).
here you go
Though that is where we are, and as the "monographs" continue to appear then my advise would be to heed them.
There is no time anymore for playing "my party is better than your party" its just daft to be honest, that is one of the main things that has been wrong with British politics for years.
Now, thankfully, there is a country to govern, now I may not like the idea of representative democracy, but sadly that is the system in place so get on with it. There is never a need to tell the pubic that some party is s**t, when election days come we will tell you.
Don't cling to a mistake, just because you spent a long time making it"
I don't think people involved in the political world are ever going to be able to resist pointing out when supporters of a rival viewpoint do or say something they think silly or just plain wrong, although sometimes if the MSM have already picked up and run with the story they can and will let them do it! But you have to be prepared to fight your corner under either a representative system or a direct democracy one.