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Another day, another poll

The other day I wondered whether the Cameron honeymoon was over. Only fair, then, to point out that Labour are at their lowest point since 1987 in the latest ICM poll...
Submitted by Peter Welch on 25 October 2006 - 6:37am | Categories:

ICM puts the parties at

Tories 39%
Labour 29%
Lib Dems 22%.

Apparently this is hung parliament territory.


Comments

On 25 October 2006 - 11:11am, James (not verified) wrote:

If this poll is reflected more widely elsewhere and sustained rather than being a one off, then dismissing David Cameron's popularity as a 'honeymoon' is premature to say the least.

The good news for us though is that if LD support remains broadly above 20% we are very unlikely to see the significant loss of LD seats that many Tories (and Labour members) are confidently predicting.


On 25 October 2006 - 12:05pm, Peter Welch wrote:

Yes - and that is why I posted.

Although it could be the case that support for the Tories is now running ahead of support for their leader (or that the gap is narrowing etc) and that would start to impact on the relationship between leader and led (the theme of my earlier post).
Tories at 39% and Cameron at +20% means he tells them what to do and they listen. Tories at 39% and cameron at -2% is not the same.

But i don´t know what the ICM figure for Cameron is, and take your general pont.

Peter

http://pigeon-post.blogspot.com/


On 25 October 2006 - 12:23pm, Julian H wrote:

James: I agree that the LD figure is positive for the party and (to blow my own trumpet) predicted only yesterday that the LDs would consistently poll just over 20% for the next year or so.

However, this does not mean that southern seats are safe against the Tories. That depends on where their 39% is coming from and where the LDs' 22% is coming from. If much of the Tories' 39% is in the south, and the LDs are holding strong in the north, then southern seats could be in danger.


On 25 October 2006 - 7:27pm, James (not verified) wrote:

I very much agree Julian. I just don't know enough about polling to be able to make those important distinctions about distribution of votes that are so critical to regional and in turn overall national outcomes.

My gut feelings are these really: I do think that with the current leader and recent conference vote on taxation that the Party will be able to make a robust defence of those southern seats. Some I am sure will revert to the Conservatives, but I have great faith that the LDs are experts at entrenching themselves once they have won a seat - it's breaking through that credibility barrier to win it in the first place that's the problem.

I also think that in the South West especially local issues do actually genuinely matter. Many of those seats 'should' have fallen to the Conservatives, but actually defy national swings. Provided that there is not a catastrophic fall in the LD vote below the mid teens, I remain (perhaps foolishly) optimistic. After all, 1997's 46 seats were won by 'just' 16.4% of the vote, and I'm far from convinced that national pollsters and swingometers have really adjusted themselves sufficiently to accurately forecast seats in a three way contest.