Lee Anderson, the polls and the mundane reality

Welcome to the 99th edition of The Week in Polls, which is being written on the train back from Liberal Democrat conference at which my speechmaking amended the party’s rulebook / moved the polls (delete as appropriate after tomorrow’s polls come out). This edition takes a look at polling on Lee Anderson, whose latest switch of party has been grabbing the political headlines in recent days. But has the public noticed and will the public be swayed?

Then it’s a look at the latest voting intention polls followed by, for paid-for subscribers, 10 insights¹ from the last week’s polling and analysis. (If you’re a free subscriber, sign up for a free trial here to see what you’re missing.)

But first, a mention for the excellent Newsletter of Not Quite Everything which is even more excellent this week as it includes an extract from by polling book, all about the 1970 polling disaster. Take a read and subscribe here.

As ever, if you have any feedback or questions prompted by what follows, or spotted other recent polling you’d like to see covered, just hit reply. I personally read every response.

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What does the public think of Lee Anderson?

His switch of party has put him into the news headlines, but as ever the polls are useful to tell us the difference between stories that fill the headlines and stories which grab the public’s interest.

Handily, we have a new Ipsos poll to guide us.

First though, a quick question: what do Justin Timberlake, Manchester United and peri peri chicken have in common?

Answer: I know they all exist but I wouldn't tell a pollster I'm familiar with any of them.

So asking if someone is familiar with something is a test with a relatively high bar. Even so, it’s striking that it’s only three in ten people who say they are familiar with Lee Anderson. The combined reach of GB News, multiple social media threads and repeated appearances in the political news hasn’t made the bulk of the public familiar with him:

The relatively low familiarity figure matches the high number of don’t knows in earlier (pre-defection) polling:

YouGov research shows that Britons are almost three times as likely to have a negative view of Anderson (36%) as a positive one (13%). Half, however, don’t appear to know the former Tory deputy chair (51%).

What about whether his switch will hurt the Conservatives or boost Reform? Possibly a bit for both - that is the public’s view so far:

Overall, a third of Britons (33%) think Lee Anderson’s defection to Reform UK will have a negative impact on the Conservative Party. 12% say it will have a positive impact and 42% say it will make no difference.

Meanwhile, 31% think Mr Anderson’s defection will have a positive impact on Reform UK, 15% say negative and 39% say it will make no difference. Almost half of 2019 Conservative voters (46%) think it will have a positive impact on Reform UK.

I’d be cautious about reading much into even this as polling of the public’s expectations or predictions for the political impact of an event tend to produce rather exaggerated impacts, with reality turning out to be more mundane. That’s because a poll question focusing people’s attention on just one issue artificially pushes out of people’s minds while they are responding all the other issues that might matter.

It’s worth noting though that 2019 Conservatives - who should be the bedrock for the government, answering polling questions more positively than the public overall - give Reform more positive answers than the public overall and give the Conservatives essentially the same answers as the public overall (only a 2 point net difference, within the poll’s margin of error). That’s not a loyal and happy base.

So far, the impact on national voting intention polls has been minimal. (The New Statesman has a good piece on what may happen in his constituency.)

The bigger impact anyway, if it happens, is likely to be an indirect, longer-term one. The impact on morale and loyalty in the Conservatives, and the possible greater media attention secured for Reform by Lee Anderson rather than the party relying on Richard Tice (who polls only half Lee Anderson’s level of familiarity).

That may change politics in the months to come. If it does, the polls will be there to tell us. For the moment, the mundane polling reality after all the headlines is one of ‘not much to see here’.

Note: GB News, the Daily Telegraph and the Express have all run “polls” on Anderson’s switch but those were open access online polls of their readers, aka voodoo polls. The Express also managed to turn minor shivers of +1 here and -1 there in a single poll into a headline about the “Lee Anderson effect revealed”. All that was really revealed was the Express’s willingness to mangle a report of a legitimate poll into a bit of over-egged-audience-chasing-editorial-wish-fulfilment. Up one point in one poll is not a “surge”.

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National voting intention polls

A new statistic for you about a polling picture which isn’t changing that much, the rise of Reform aside:

Number of voting intention polls in a row
with the Conservatives on under 30%:
169

Here are the latest figures from each currently active pollster:

For more details and updates through the week, see my daily updated table here and for all the historic figures, including Parliamentary by-election polls, see PollBase.

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Last week’s edition

The myth of Budget poll bounces.

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Public wants Conservatives to return Frank Hester donation - and other polling news

The following 10 findings from the most recent polls and analysis are for paying subscribers only, but you can sign up for a free trial to read them straight away.