The Election's Not Over Yet
Sir Robert Worcester examines why it's far too early to call the result of the election and the different issues that will be key to the result.
It's nail biting time at Tory Central Office where the backroom boys and girls have realised that the election's not over yet.160 But elation isn't order of the day at Labour headquarters either, as I said in my piece for the Mirror on Saturday[1] 160
Saturday's Mirror reported the Ipsos poll[2] voting intentions at 40% Conservatives, 32% Labour, 16% Liberal Democrats, and 12% Others (including 3% each for the Greens and UKIP, 2% for the Scottish National Party and BNP, 1% for Plaid Cymru. The other 1% comes from rounding to the closest integer). 160
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The electorate of this country isn't much keen on elections these days.160160 "None of the above" is what many people would vote if that was the choice on the ballot paper.160 Of those who tell us that they are "absolutely certain to vote", 52% of the electorate in this poll and around 50% for over a year, five (and a half) people have changed their mind on which party they'll vote for in the election I certainly believe (and have for several years) will be held on 6th May.160 That swing is still insufficient to give the Tories an overall majority if there's a uniform swing across the country.
We use my colleague, Dr. Roger Mortimore's (and co-author of our election books[3]) "Swingo" model to see the impact that our voting intention shares to see how shares at certain levels would project to seats in the House of Commons.160
On the current figures, there would be a `hung parliament', with the Tories with a plurality of seats, 317, up from the 209 they got in 2005, 9 seats short of the 326 the need to have a majority.160 At as low as 16% (unlikely) for the Liberal Democrats, they would lose exactly half their seats on the uniform swing, which isn't about to happen to the LibDems in my view.160 I call it the Simon Hughes effect, who only just won the Bermondsey by-election narrowly over a quarter century ago, and who has increased it ever since.160
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Ipsos, on 52% turnout
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Ipsos, on 78% turnout160
Turnout's the Key
When Blair won his landslide in 1997, 72% voted; now just 52% say they are "absolutely certain to vote".160 But from past experience, even about 10% of them won't bother for one reason or another on the day.160 But then half of those who say they are likely to will.160 And they lean towards voting Labour. That's why turnout on May 6th is so important.
Last time just 61% voted, and the time before 59%.160 Won't be as low as 52%, but then it won't be as high as 78%, the percentage of those who have a voting intention, but many of them are not really sure they'll bother.
At 52% current voting intention figures suggest that Cameron will go to the Palace on the 7th of May.160 If instead the turnout was 78%, Labour, with the support of the LibDems who have said they will support the party that gets the most seats in this election, could have a coalition government.
What would the LibDems demand in return.160 Certainly changing the voting system. Likely, seats in the Cabinet.160 Perhaps a written constitution?160
The Tories need to win 117 seats to win a majority, perhaps 140 to have a working majority, a huge mountain to climb. But they'd nearly do it if on a uniform swing in all constituencies the outcome was as our poll today projects.
Many observers believe that the Ashcroft money and a more popular leader of the Tories will carry the day, and confound the pollsters with a healthy victory.160 They may be right, but as one shadow cabinet minister said to me recently, "how do you campaign for a low turnout?"
It won't be, but if the next election were to see a turnout of 78%, as it did as recently as in the 1992 election, another close race, the Queen would be seeing Gordon again, this time in his own right, having won on his own.160
That would according to our latest poll, taking everyone who gave us a voting intention (78%), would be much closer, fewer intending Labour voters saying they were `absolutely sure' they'd vote than Tory supporters, the margin would be (again, remember, on a uniform swing) much nearer, 38% to 34%, which Roger's model shows would project to some 300 Labour Members of Parliament, 26 seats short. If he quickly took David Clegg's offer of support by their projected 38 MPs (I expect more) would give a Lab/LibDem majority of 12.
Oh yes, and this message is to the160 contributors to160 political betting dot com who are very quick, too quick, to let forth, there was another poll published today, by YouGov in the Daily Telegraph, which reported voting intention shares of 38% for the Tories, 31% for Labour, a seven point Conservative lead compared to Ipsos's eight.160 I've run their figures in the `Swingo' below.160 On these shares, the Tories with under the magic 40%, at 38% would lead Labour by 30 seats, and Cameron would be called to see the Queen.
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YouGov, in the Daily Telegraph160
Issue are about 40% of electoral determinants
In Sunday's Observer, we report on the public's attitudes to the economy. The Chancellor announced last week that the country, finally, is out of the recession, the worst for a lifetime (mine).160 But what do the public think?160 "Not me, gov." At least for three prospective voter in four.160 And as the public tells us that the number one issue facing the country is the state of the economy, this must have an impact on the coming election.160
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There's light at the end of the tunnel, at least with the 44% of the public who bounced back from the dip in economic optimism immediately following the Chancellor's gloomy PBR.160 The recovery in economic optimism over these past two years has been dramatic.160 At its depth, just 7% of the public had any confidence that the general economic condition of the country would recover within the year.160 Slowly, but steadily (I've shown the `line of best fit' and entered the correlation regression of .88, showing just how `steadily' confidence has returned).160
Epictetus, the blind 1st C. slave philosopher, was recorded as teaching that "perceptions are truth because people believe them". His point was that people act on what they think, not necessarily on what they `know', because we all think things are true that in fact just `ain't' so.160 At the lowest point, the media were all saying that, like Epictetus, that perception of a turn up in the economy was the solution to the recession, and if people believed that the economy is improving, house prices would improve (they have been), sales in the shops would improve (a storming Christmas in the shops they report), and the stock market would shoot up (and it has).160160
The other key's the image of the leaders and their parties
If issues are 40%, then image is 60%, with leader image in most elections polling findings show that around 35% is the image of the leaders, and 25% the image of the parties. We use a list of adjectives that people use to describe their views of the leaders on such attributes as `capable', `understands the problems facing Britsin' and the like, and for parties, `united', and `good team of leaders'.160 But for shorthand the simple quadruple-barrelled (simple?) `like him/like his party' set of question we summarise simply in the table below, and for the anoraks, in the table that follows. Bottom line?160 `We don't like them much, leaders or party".160
Cameron's got the edge; while there's a quarter more of the electorate who tell us they don't like him than do, it's more or less, slightly more in fact (-1), and the Tories have the edge, -13% rather than -19%. Adding them up, just dividing by two Cameron and the Tories index at -7, Brown and Labour -22.160 This has to be a serious problem for the Prime Minister as we head toward election day.160 The final table is also instructive, comparing as it does the changes in the responses to these questions with Brown/Labour down further from -22 to -44, and Cameron/Conservatives having improved +26.
It's like the two chaps being chased by the bear: one stopped to put on his racing shoes, the other fellow said "you'll never outrun the bear", to which the first replied: "I don't have to outrun the bear, only outrun you!"
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There's much more that could be said, and it is my hope that readers down to here will be willing to look further at my immediately earlier blog,160Too Early to Call?160on ipsos-mori.com, on the factors that in my view in addition to turnout will determine the outcome of the next election.
Sir Robert Worcester is the Founder of MORI
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[1] Daily Mirror, 30.01.10, p. 7
[2]160 Ipsos interviewed 1,001 British adults 18+ nationwide by telephone between 26-28 January 2010.160 Ipsos is a member of the British Polling Council and follows its rules, and is a Corporate Member of the Market Research Society and adheres to its Code of Practice.
[3] In 2005, "Explaining Labour's Landslip", published by Politico's.
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