Before we start in earnest here, I want to say right off the bat that what follows is not a prediction. We live in completely bonkers times and I am not about to tell you what will happen at the next election because I really have no idea. In fact, all I’m going to do is lay out the hard evidence that exists about what the country currently thinks about the prime minister and his party, try and map it onto basic politics and in turn, political history, all in order to demonstrate that the Conservative party and a lot of the Westminster bubble are sizeably underestimating the amount of electoral trouble the governing party are in at present.
Despite the polls turning on the Tories, giving Labour leads of up to 9% recently, combined with actual electoral events like the North Shropshire by-election, there still seems to be a consensus amongst pundits that the Tories remain positioned to win the next general election, whether it happens in 2023 or 2024. I don’t believe the evidence supports this any longer. Again, that isn’t to say that the Conservatives can’t win the next general election, far from it; simply that if I was laying a bet tomorrow, I would put money on Keir Starmer to be prime minister after the next election. This is something I wouldn’t have done until very recently.
The fact is, the polling is brutal for both the Conservatives as well as Boris Johnson himself at the moment. It’s so bad, I’m actually struggling to know where to begin talking about it. Let’s start at the very top level – the last four national polls from the big pollsters show Labour leads of 7, 8, 5 and 6%. The last national poll to show the Tories in the lead was published on December 6th and that was only 2%. This isn’t some passing storm. Labour have established a solid poll lead now, something that will require a shift of some description to change.
Worse in some senses, the Conservative polling figures in those last four polls mentioned are: 32, 32, 32, 30. So, it’s not just that Labour have developed a solid lead, the Tories are consistently polling in the low 30s now, which is scary for them in and of itself. Particularly as they are doing so without there being a solid contender from the right taking a large portion of the vote off them in these polls, a la UKIP pre-2015. Reform’s numbers remain paltry; the Tories are losing voters to Labour and the Lib Dems, and mostly the former.
If there had just been a recent bad run of polls, some might be able to describe this as a passing phase. Governments always have problems mid-term, right? Miliband’s Labour had 10-point leads and look what happened to them? Except, there are three factors here to consider that cancel that argument out, in my opinion.
- Boris Johnson’s personal polling figures, both at large and within the Conservative membership.
- The issue of how and if the Tories could realistically improve their numbers, even if they deposed Johnson.
- How the polling numbers at the moment are even worse when you break them down further, particularly geographically. They are losing voters precisely where they need to keep them in order to have any chance of winning the next general election.
Let’s be clear about this – Boris Johnson’s polling numbers are absolutely brutal. Dire, Clegg-esque, beyond redemption, if history is anything to judge by at least. Boris Johnson is really, really unpopular. The latest Opinium poll puts Labour on 39%, Tories on 32, a lead of seven for Starmer’s party. Except, when you add in the idea that Johnson will still be PM at the next election, this number changes in an interesting way. It becomes Labour 42%, Tories 30%, a twelve point lead. This is getting us close to 1997 territory in terms of figures; even on an electoral map that is much harder for Labour now, the Tories on 30% with Labour on 40+ gets Starmer a majority, even without recovering any of Scotland.
Worse than even that, however, is what that latter figure says in a larger way. A lot of voters are already pricing in the idea that Johnson won’t be there come the next election. Once that starts to happen, history suggests you are politically finished. I know, I know, Johnson is supposedly different and all of that, but he still can’t ignore political gravity of this magnitude.
In addition, a new poll has come out mapping how Tory members view the cabinet. Truss is ahead, as usual, with a +73% approval rating. Sunak is rising though, now on +49. Meanwhile, Johnson’s approval rating amongst members is -34, making him the most unpopular member of his own cabinet by a large stretch (only three of them have negative ratings, and one of them just, with Patel on -1.5%). Johnson’s personal rating with the wider public? -48%, which gets him into the sort of territory pretty much no one comes back from. He’s doing badly in the north, in the Midlands, everywhere.
Coming onto the second issue, the problem goes deeper than just Johnson. While Sunak is very popular and polling numbers suggest he would instantly improve Tory numbers, and Truss it could be argued (not by me, but plausibly by others) hasn’t had enough public exposure to be fully judged yet, that isn’t taking into account the huge elephant in the room. Both Sunak and Truss would presumably run their leadership campaigns on the basis of being economically orthodox Thatcherites. They would promise to steer the Tory ship back into the waters of fiscal tightness, eschewing all of this Boris-era rubbish about levelling up. This is what the Tory members want and one of the big reasons they have so turned against Boris Johnson of late.
Yet that would destroy the coalition that Johnson created completely. Why would red wall voters stick with the party if they went full on Thatcher? Particularly when ‘get Brexit done’ won’t work next time? Basically what I’m saying is, the Tories have huge problems with or without Johnson at the helm.
Finally, the Tories have massive issues specifically with constituencies they need to win in order to maintain a majority. Rural voters are turning off them in alarming numbers – a Farmer’s Weekly poll that has consistently showed support for the Tories above 70% now sees the Conservatives support in the 50s, having lost support to the Lib Dems. This would be a lot less scary for Johnson and co had the Tories not just been defeated in a by-election in a formerly safe, mainly rural seat by the Liberal Democrats in North Shropshire, and by a large margin as well.
What do recent polls that show declines for the Tories tell us about which voters are specifically turning off from the party and deciding to vote elsewhere? The elderly and Labour to Tory switchers in red wall seats look remarkably shaky for the Conservatives now. In other words, the Tories are losing farmers, pensioners and red wall voters, in both polling and in real life, as the by-election result tells us. In other words, massive cornerstones of the Tory vote are heavily wobbling at the very least.
The counterargument to all of this seems to be some combination of the following. Boris always bounces back, it’s in his nature. The rules don’t apply to him in the same way. Besides, Starmer has no charisma, so Labour can’t win with him in charge. Whatever is happening now with the sleaze scandals, the health crisis, you name it, come the next election, the people will vote for the Tories and give them another majority. The public haven’t forgiven Labour for Corbyn yet, that will take a few more elections at the very least.
To which I say, look again at the polling I’ve cited above, then look at the North Shropshire by-election result, then tell me what Boris Johnson is going to do to turn things around. Yes, I suppose he could suddenly become a great prime minister, but his own personal history suggests that’s well beyond him (and even his biggest supporters would privately agree). And Starmer may be a little wooden but crucially, he’s not scary in the way Corbyn was nor is he actively off-putting in the way Miliband was. Most people think he’s fine, if nothing else. Should the Tories inflict a very unpopular Boris Johnson on the electorate again – or make a massive turn to the right, fiscally speaking at least, under Truss or Sunak – the polling is already telling us that Starmer could well become the prime minister and in fact, should be thought of as the favourite to do so.
To close, I’m not saying Starmer is a lock to be in Number 10 the day after we all go the polls at the next general election or anything like that. I’m simply saying that a lot of pundits appear to be taking the current situation very lightly, still mostly banking on the Tories to turn things around, when the polls are suggesting the governing party are in a lot more trouble than that. Who knows what will happen at the next general election, but the idea that the Conservative party are the clear favourites seems muddled to me at the very least.
The charisma thing is over. We’ve done charismatic politicians, what the country wants – I suggest – is competence and integrity.
Whether Starmer has competence, time will tell, but it sure looks like he has more than Johnson.
However, it’s clear he has integrity, and that will be a winning characteristic.
I suspect Labour will go into the election with the question “Do you want to elect a campaigner who can’t govern, or someone who can run the country, even if he’s not the worlds best campaigner ?”
Starmer does not have integrity! He has broken every commitment he made in order to be elected leader of the Labour Party.
Thank Christ for that. He had to finesse things a little given how insane the Labour membership have shown themselves to be.
I agree with much that you say. I think that Brexit has changed everything. That the Conservatives are no longer the party it was – captured by English nationalists – and the result is that Conservative voters who are liberal and Remainy have been completely alienated by Johnson.
We also have the coming nemesis of the impact of Brexit in the next two years. In 2019 voters had been more afraid of Corbyn than Johnson’s Brexit and now they have become deeply aware/disillusioned that the prospectus of this project has been based on smoke and mirrors.
Voters, I suspect, are so over the chaos of the last five years and want someone who will steer us out of this dreadful period in our history.
I suggest that people voted for this charlatan because he was a laugh and entertaining.
But when people are dying and cannot attend loved ones funerals while he parties with wine.
Even hardened Brexit voters are sickened.
This goes far beyond party politics to a matter of human decency and suffering of the masses while those in charge really are having a laugh with the rules they make.
Yes. We do live in bonkers times.
Up until any opposition party is prepared to define what a ‘Woman’ is, then they have no right representing half the electorate.
But what if Sinal or Truss lie in their campaign, indicating they’d be less fiscally conservative?
I suppose this is the fundamental problem the Tories have at the moment. They need to keep Johnson’s 2019 coalition together in order to win the next election, but they can’t do so without lying. In 2019, Brexit, Johnson’s personal ‘outsider’ appeal, and Corbyn’s unpopularity all combined to form the necessary glue to hold together that voter coalition, but it was *always* built on the backs of several groups with opposing interests.
Northern Tory voters want a regional economic rebalance. Southern Tory voters don’t want that, because it comes down to them subsidizing the rest of the country even more than they already do. You can’t lie to both groups indefinitely.
Johnson managed it. But he had the moonshot policy of Brexit to help (which, being an ill-defined utopian project, could be all things to all people).
So yes, they could lie. But without a Brexit-like policy to ground the lie in, and without an ‘outsider’ status to galvanized non-traditional support behind them, the question becomes “who would believe them?”
I mostly agree. But 2 things you don’t mention:
1. Most of the voters the Tories have lost have gone to don’t know rather than to Labour. Much easier to win back.
2. Truss/Sunak are surely smart enough to tack back to the “new centre” no matter what they tell Tory members to win?
yea this is the important point. I do agree with the point of the article that pundits are over estimating Boris. Things looks bad for the Tories but the direct to labour switchers aren’t happening yet at a big scale like pre 1997. They are still there right wing voters and they aren’t enthused by Labour just yet, and Labours polling is boosted by Lib Dem voters who most likely will go back to Lib Dem (just like what happened in North Shropshire). And your right, Sunak is not going to campaign on “more cuts”, he’s more canny than that.
Though if Truss wins I would make Starmer the heavy favourite, she is duller than Starmer
Truss is all things to all wo/men and hence appeals to the Tory base.
However, her emptiness means she is as lacking in core supporters as Johnson, and without Brexit and Corbyn to mask this.
When Johnson’s downfall comes, he will be abandoned by all as unlike Thatcher, he will not have diehard followers who believe in what he stands for, given that he stands for nothing.
Truss would, thus, not be able to define herself as Johnson II or as moving on from Johnson.
Sunak is also a fraud who, in trying to appeal to red wallers and Thatcherites alike, has failed to define who he is. After his Lady Bountiful act comes to an end, he will be seen for what he is.
As for Patel, she is so widely loathed that she is going down with Johnson.
I agree that Starmer could become prime minister. Let’s hope he is a good one, because we certainly need it.
“Truss is all things to all wo/men and hence appeals to the Tory base”
I mean she appeals to them now, but it won’t last.
Corbyn was not “unpopular”. Young people especially were enthusiastic about his obvious integrity, his willingness to listen, and his party’s policies.
Then rich people got scared & teamed up with media barons & Zionists in an orchestrated character assassination based on lies & smears.
Starmer’s tactic of pandering to them means he has got rid of many party supporters, local campaigners & potentially superb parliamentary candidates. That will mean millions of lost votes. In constituencies where support is strong for Lib Dens or another party, that won’t matter, but it does make it extremely hard to guess what the outcome will be.
This is complete drivel and the mantra of denial that Continuity Corbynism trots out with numbing regularity. Corbyn wasn’t just unpopular with the electorate, he was repellent on an historic scale. It doesn’t matter a damn how many students sang “oh Jeremy Corbyn” at Glastonbury, voters loathed him. He couldn’t even win against the most incompetent Tory campaign in history, 2017, and when he came up against a halfway coherent campaign in 2019 he and the party were obliterated. It is time to give up the excuses and the magical thinking and recognise that Corbynism is the most catastrophic mistake in Labour history (at least Michael Foot was a patriot). Otherwise the party will never again deserve the electorate’s trust.
Good article.
And you’ve not even factored in the dire economic mess the incompetent rudderless government face in the coming year.
With so many examples of poor judgement and lies now on display from the first 2 years of Johnson’s government, it is inconceivable that there are not more to be uncovered and, who knows, some may be even more unpopular with the country than Contracts for Cronies, Barnard Castle, One rule for them, Downing Street symposiums etc. So his popularity is only likely to get even worse from here.
Empty vessels may make the most noise, but once broken they can never be put back together.
Throughout the entire pandemic Conservative VI has gone up & down in line with the number Covid cases. It is at a parliamentary low now as Covid cases are at record highs. When Covid cases were very low, they led by double digits
You’ve neglected the one thing that we know for certain that the Tories are going to do, with or without Johnson – gerrymander the results:
Voter IDs, extremely favourable boundary changes, etc, etc that will all make it far harder for the Tories to lose outright no matter who is leader.
They may not win the next election, but that doesn’t mean they won’t still be forming the next government.
I think that you haven’t factored in, the time issue, the Tory have not much left to play with, especially if they keep kicking the can into touch and not making decisions
I think if Starmer portrays himself as an unashamed Clement Atlee type, ‘a sheep in sheeps clothing ‘ but with strong fair policies to tidy up the mess not of his creating (Atlee had to tidy up post churchillian WWII) then he stands a real chance.
Spot on Edward. I happen to know him and he has loads of charisma. Its not coming over as well as it could. But you are right, it is not the be all and end all and he (as you say) has Integrity
The fact is, the polling is brutal for both the Conservatives as well as Boris Johnson himself at the moment
True.
But.
The issue for Labour is that when the general election comes close, that’s when the Conservative party machine will wheel out its big guns — and Starmer hs already given them plenty of ammunition.
I can tell you already what the attack line will be. It will be on trust. It will be: sure Starmer is trying to look like he is patriotic, like he loves his country, like he is in touch with people like you. But can you really trust him?
Every time does a broadcast he sits in front of a big Union Jack. Doesn’t that seems a bit like he’s… trying to hard? If he really loved Britain, would he need to keep shoving it down your throat so hard?
Plus, doesn’t he look uncomfortable in front of that flag [this is easy to make stick because Starmer always looks uncomfortable, the man could make a top-of-the-line reclining armchair look like an iron maiden]? Like he’s just forcing himself to be there? Like he’d rather not be standing in front of a flag? Like he’s… a bit ashamed of it?
And even if he’s not… look at how every time he does appear in front of a flag, there’s howls of anger and derision from his party activists. He’s been doing it for years now and they still scream blue murder
is he strong enough to stand up to the anti-British elements in his party? You know he’s not, don’t you? Look:
Here’s a picture of him doing the ‘black lives matter’ kneel with Angela Rayner.
Here’s some footage of him being unable to say that only women have cervixes.
Here’s some footage of him being unable to answer any questions on immigration at all because he knows that he can’t have a policy on it as any policy will totally alienate either his own party activists, or the majority of the country.
And, sure, he says he won’t give in to the Scottish Nationalists. But he knows and you know the polls say it’s impossible for him to form a government without them, even if Labour does end up the largest party. Are you sure that he doesn’t want power so much that he’ll give them not only another referendum, but one on such favourable terms that it tilts the playing field way towards the break-up of the United Kingdom, just to get his feet under the cabinet table?
If he says he won’t, can you trust a word he says? Remember how he said he’d accepted the result of the EU referendum… and then he immediately tried to hold a second referendum to stop it? [lots of clips of him doing just that]
Is this a man you trust to be in charge of the country? Sure, Boris might be a bit chaotic. He might not be a details person. But he at least loves Britain, and being British, doesn’t he? He’s not ashamed of his country. And he knows what a woman is. And you can trust Boris… to be Boris. What you see is what you get. So he’s a little bit woah, a little bit weah, a geezer. You knew that before you elected him last time, you knew what you were getting and you got it. Boris is Boris. A known quantity. But who knows what might be lurking behind Keir’s grey suit — if it’s even Keir there, and not just a puppet being worked by the woke social media lefties who want to abolish sex.
These are strong attack lines. And they’re all (except the SNP one, but that’ll still stick because it did last time and the time before that) ones that Starmer has himself gifted to the Conservatives rather than ones they’ve had to make up.
So what it will come down to — and this is what no one can predict — is whether people are feeling optimistic, whenever the next election comes around. If the economy bounces back once restrictions are lifted, if the energy price spikes and inflationary pressures in general prove to be temporary, if things seem to be getting better, then Boris and the Conservatives will remain in power.
If, on the other hand, Inflation is spiralling ever upwards with no end in sight, interest rates have shot up but seemingly to no avail, everyone’s struggling to pay cripplingly high energy bills… then Labour will walk it, easy.
(And the real reason all those attack lines are so powerful, and every one of them will land, is that at least two-thirds of the people who read this website are right now going ‘But but but those aren’t attacks, those are good things! It’s good to be ashamed of British jingoism! It’s good to say not only women can have cervixes! It’s good to kneel to show you think black black lives matter! And the referendum should have been overturned because the stupid hoi polloi obviously didn’t have a clue what they were voting for and had been hoodwinked by tac dodgers — the ones who aren’t massive racists, anyway.’)
Brevity mate.