How Blair Will Win In May 2001

There's no mystery behind Labour's poll lead, says MORI's Sir Robert Worcester -- it's the Opposition, stupid

There's no mystery behind Labour's poll lead, says MORI's Sir Robert Worcester -- it's the Opposition, stupid

At least once a week I am asked, usually by a foreign journalist, "What's holding up Labour's lead in the polls?" My terse reply. "No opposition."

Over the three months April-June, MORI conducted voting intention interviews with 11,932 adults aged 18+ across Great Britain, face-to-face, in-home, using CAPI (Computer Aided Personal Interviewing). Labour's poll rating was 52 per cent, Conservatives 27 per cent, and Liberal Democrats 15 per cent, with six per cent naming other parties, excluding those 11 per cent who said they would not vote in a general election (held "tomorrow"), seven per cent who were undecided, and two per cent who refused to name a party.

These findings represent a further six per cent swing to Labour since the electoral landslide on May 1, 1997 and the subsequent choice of William Hague as leader of the Tory Party, which if projected to seats in the House of Commons would add more than 100 to Labour's 179 majority. That's not likely to happen, but what a position for the Opposition Party to be in at the midterm of a Parliament!

It is not just William Hague's leadership that plagues the Tories, recalling that his most salient attributes according to the electorate are that he is "out of touch with public opinion", "talks down to people", and is "narrow minded".

The top issues are the same as faced Tories at the last election: health care (61 per cent say it is now one of the very important issues for them), education (52 per cent), law & order (43 per cent) and jobs (42 per cent); and the public thinks Labour has the better policies on these issues.

On health, among those who say that health is salient, Labour leads the Tories by more than three to one, 46 per cent to 13 per cent, on education by more than two to one, 41 per cent to 17 per cent, on crime, by 33 per cent to 28 per cent, and on unemployment by 50 per cent to 12 per cent. With the election less than 20 months away (if my forecast of the likely date -- May 3, 2001 -- is correct), it is clear that the Tories are making no headway on issues at all, and with their standing at 27 per cent plus or minus three per cent for 24 months, the electorate is becalmed.

Three people in ten now say that Europe is an issue very important to them in helping them to decide which party to vote for, and among those, the Conservatives have a modest lead, 38 per cent to 26 per cent.

But the slight benefit they might hope to derive from that is outweighed by the detrimental effect that the European policy debate has had on their image. Europe wasn't an "issue-issue" at the last election, it was an "image-issue", because it was, and is, splitting the Tory Party and divided parties don't win British elections. That said, as the Euro dominates political dialogue in the media it will become more of an "issue-issue" in the next election.

The recently leaked memorandum arguing for another "remake" of the Hague image says much of what is wrong with the Conservative Party today. Instead of building on the talent in the parliamentary party, and there is some impressive young talent coming up through the ranks (one thinks of Green, May, Willetts, Woodward), Hague seems to be "hunkering down", moving his office away from his colleagues in the Commons out to Central Office. He is surrounding himself by cronies. Bringing in first Jonathan Holborow and now Amanda Platell to co-ordinate the spin neither of them being as experienced in the real political world as Shaun Woodward -- isn't a smart move. Moving Peter Lilley aside for the dubious political policy nous of the former disciples of David Owen is a questionable move; as is putting his strongest environmentalist Tim Yeo, in the Agricultural portfolio instead of shadowing the expected Rural Affairs Department, including the environment, pipping the Prime Minister's, reorganisation before it is executed.

The most damaging poll data uncovered to date comes from MORI work for The Times last June, highlighted by Peter Riddell, but otherwise unnoticed by other pundits. The Ipsos Excellence Model, developed to inform boardrooms about customer loyalty, was added to the questionnaire for the penultimate Times poll during the last election. It found that there were about 4.2 million people arguing that their friends and relatives should support Blair's Labour Party, while only 1.2 million were advocating Major's reelection: three million more voters in Tony's Army. The first update of this test revealed some startling data: that advocacy of Labour had halved, but with no comparable rise for the Tories.

Further, when asked. "If they were in power, how good would they be at doing what is best for Britain?," there had been no statistically significant change from the time of the election campaign itself. Then, 52 per cent expected Labour to be 'very/fairly good' and now 52 per cent think Labour are 'very/fairly good', reflecting their poll rating now if not then. In April 1997, 35 per cent expected the Tories to be good at governing, now a third, 33 per cent, do, and then 35 per cent expected the Lib Dems to be good; now 33 per cent do. The Tories are expected to be good at doing what is best for Britain by the same percentage of the electorate that expect the Liberal Democrats to be. Hardly a ringing endorsement for Hague's Tory Party at mid term.

"How would you vote if there were a General Election"

160 %
Conservative 27
Labour 52
Liberal Democrats 15

"Pick out the one statement which best describes your behaviour and opinions with respect to the ... party"

160 Conservative Labour Lib Dems
160 Apr 97 June 99 Apr 97 June 99 Apr 97 June 99
160 % % % % % %
I support the party so much I encourage others to vote for it without being asked 3 2 10 5 2 1
If someone asked my opinion, I would encourage them to support the party 11 11 21 17 9 10
If someone asked my opinion, I would be neutral about voting for the party 41 53 45 54 60 65
If someone asked my opinion, I would discourage them from voting for the party 22 16 11 12 11 8
I am so strongly opposed to the party that I discourage others from voting for it without being asked 12 8 3 4 4 2

First published in The Parliamentary Monitor, September 1999.

Sir Robert Worcester is Chairman of MORI and Visiting Professor of Government at LSE. His book Explaining Labour's Landslide has just been published by Politico's.

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