Tony's Army

Four years ago some four million people, one elector in ten, enlisted in Tony's Army, saying that they supported the Labour Party and that they encouraged others to vote Labour without being asked. Only a quarter as many were canvassing others on behalf of John Major's Conservative Party.

Four in ten of Tony's foot soldiers have deserted the field of battle in this election, but still, he has some four times the army of advocates, some 2.6 million people, trying through word of mouth to convince others that a second Blair term is to be desired. That is three times as many as the roughly 900,000 who are slogging away for William Hague to become Prime Minister.

And while somewhat under two million people say they are so strongly opposed to the Labour Party that they discourage others from voting for it without being asked, some four and a half million so despise the Tories they are going out of their way to rubbish them.

This innovative analysis was first employed in the 1997 campaign, using the Ipsos Excellence Model, used by a number of major corporations to test their corporate image in a system 'beyond customer satisfaction'. It showed how powerful a factor word of mouth advertising was in the last election, and although both main parties are down from 1997 levels, the relative levels of support are proportional today.

Taking the net support scores, adding those who are in support of Labour against those who oppose them on this more sophisticated questioning technique gives Labour a plus 10, while the Conservatives are a minus 14, one more bit of evidence to those mentioned yesterday to show that although Labour support is at record levels, and the Tories at their nadir, still the Labour support is firmer than the Tories. As I said yesterday, counterintuitive.

To continue my winners and sinners as I will through the election:

Winner: The Channel 4 hype and graphics and the enthusiasm with which they presented the quite ordinary focus group and soundbite poll done by the somewhat tarnished Frank Luntz, the American pollster they brought over to show us how to do it, who seemed mostly to be replicating the work I was doing for Harold Wilson in the seventies.

Sinner: Frank Luntz, censured by the American Association for Public Opinion Research for cutting corners and refusing to cooperate with the enquiries into his methodology. Does Channel 4 know about this?

Sinner: Hill and Knowlton, who put up a very interesting website, but who under their poll section have as the 'latest', the MORI poll done for the Sun and published on the 2nd of May. It is now the 12th, and two NOP polls, one MORI and one Gallup as well as Systems 3 in Scotland have been published, even before those in the Sunday papers.

Winner: Matthew Parris, who wrote a column in 1989 announcing that much to the surprise of everyone including himself, Tory colleagues had elected Sir Anthony Meyer as their Leader, thus replacing Mrs Thatcher as Prime Minister. Saturday, in the Times, he outspun the spin doctors in rewriting history to rewrite the script for the Prime Minister's announcement of the start of the election, contriving for him to arrive at an assembly at the school, his talk to the children about the future of the country, not to the press corps; cutting the length in half, and speaking entirely to the children, leaving the "drivel" (his word) to be released by others; explaining to the children his political philosophy, cutting out the acronyms and "slick, dreary names of programmes"; urging the children to listen to other politicians' views, and lauding them as "good men and women who wanted the best for our country", and would have advised Tony to exit "swiftly", without goodbyes and handshakes, leaving the children to sing their hymn. Tony, if Matthew can be persuaded, you'd do worse than to employ him for your second term of office!

Sinner: Often, that poll picker specialist John Curtice, writing in the Independent's 'Rough Guide to the Election' saying "Throughout the last parliament ICM has consistently recorded a lower Labour lead than either MORI or Gallup. One of them, at least, is wrong." John, think about it, maybe they are measuring different things?