Labour's Nightmare Scenario

Labour's nightmare may be coming to haunt them the night of the 7th of June. In our survey for the Times a week ago (22nd May), there was just a few points difference between the Conservatives' 'certainty of voting', at 65%, and Labour's at 61%. That four-point gap is widening in our latest survey at the same time that the Labour share is reducing.

Double whammy?

On Tuesday (29th May) MORI found that while the same percentage of people with a voting intention said they were intending to vote Tory on 7th June, 30%, more Tories now, 67%, said they were 'certain' they would vote, while fewer Labour intenders, 57%, said they were for sure going to vote on the day.

The Liberal Democrats too have strengthened. Normally they are 'softer' than either of the other two main parties, as they were in the survey for the Times last week, at 51% 'certain', 10 down from Labour and 14 under the Tories. Now they've pulled four ahead of Labour, at 61% 'certain', v. Labour's 57%, but not nearly up to the Conservatives' 67%.

More bad news, correlated, is that among their strongholds in the council houses certainty of voting is only 46%, while among the more Tory owned-outright people it is 68%

In Labour heartland seats, where 24% of the electorate live, 52% is all that can be mustered. In Lib Dem seats, 61%. And in the Tory seats it's 58%.

What does all this mean potentially? Sure a week is a long time in politics, and much can happen over the final week of this campaign. But it's hard to see what. The Tories seem to have played all their cards, focusing on Tax, Asylum seekers, Law & Order and Europe, and nothing has seemed to work. It's too late to change their Leader, and the party organisation will continue to operate, and is likely to get worse in these final days.

Running the turnout figures through the model does suggest that a Labour majority of over 200 is unlikely. There is a window now of between 180 and 200 which may be where it will end up if things hold steady, for the 233 majority that the result in the Times today, 30%, 48%, 16%, projects to, with a Labour gain of 21 seats without factoring in the differential turnout would shift to a loss of two seats on a 57% Labour supporter show on the day, while the Tory loss of `19 before taking that into account would reverse to a gain of 15 seats if they do turn out at a 67% level. On the same basis, the 16% found for the Liberal Democrats would keep them just about level, loosing one seat, but a turnout of only 61% would lose them 12.

So, the push in the final week will be to stiffen the backbone of the core vote, and woo the floaters, it's too late to do any more postal push, so it's getting the vote out on the day that will be the order of the day.

At the outset of the election even Bagehot in the Economist fell into the classic error of expecting polls done before the election even has been called (the MORI poll for the Sun Newspaper, which from those findings projected to a 227 majority, described it as a 'prediction', which it wasn't, and said the Conservatives 'will' (his word) get so many seats, which we didn't. And today no less than Craig Hoy of epolitix, my editor, did a Yahoo interview with me which began with saying the poll today 'predicted' (his word) a Labour landslide. I had to say that 'no, it didn't predict anything of the sort', it measured public opinion o Tuesday, when the fieldwork was done.

To repeat, polls don't 'forecast', they measure what is happening at the time they were taken. As I noted yesterday, some companies weight, filter, adjust, and otherwise manipulate their data thinking they can foretell the future. MORI doesn't.

Polls don't 'forecast', but sometimes pollsters do. My bets are out, and what are they if not my expectation of what will happen on the night?

6 days and counting.