Less drama, more consistency: the truth behind current polling trends

Welcome to the latest edition of The Week in Polls which is a return to my editorially self-defeating streak. Normal editions usually have an undertone of ‘but look at all the interesting things in the details’. Ones like this, however, have an undertone of ‘but look, things are much simpler and changing less than everyone is making out’.

So, prepare to be bored… (and I know you’re smart enough not to be put off by that).

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

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Less drama, more consistency: the truth behind polling trends

In many ways politics in the last few months has been exciting, volatile and unpredictable. The absurdity of Matt Hancock handing over a treasure trove of private messages to an ardent opponent of his signature policy, perhaps. Or the insouciance of a journalist once again failing to protect information given to them confidentially - and that’s just all in the one story.

But take a look at this boringly predictable graph from YouGov:

Data from YouGov

Massively unpopular government stays consistently massively unpopular.

There has been a bit more variation in Rishi Sunak’s ratings, but take a step back and again it’s a picture of unpopular government staying unpopular, even after the Windsor Agreement:

Keiran Pedley @keiranpedley

No meaningful Tory bounce following Windsor so far. Couple of points max but could be noise. Not surprising as I suspect only the most ardent Brexiter bothered - unless you live in Northern Ireland or course!! Budget is going to be much more important - cost of living key.

There has been a bit of a rise in Sunak’s own ratings, but:

PollingUnPacked @PollingUnPacked

Worth reading from @BNHWalker though worth recalling that Nick Clegg also got a significant bump from YouGov for starting to do his LBC show... and we know how the polls the played out after sotn.newstatesman.com/2023/03/rishi-…

Sunak is polling better than his party, but the gap between him and his party has narrowed due to him sinking towards his party rather than due to him raising up his party:

Data from Deltapoll

Drama in recent polling can only be found if you exuberantly over-interpret movements within the margins of error and flavour with a pinch of journalistic cliches:

Headline from the Daily Express

Movements within the margin of error that leave you behind by a landslide margin are not, in my book at least, a “huge poll boost”.

(The poll behind the story, it should be said, is a legit poll by a respectable pollster. The pollster’s own weekly email reported the poll in reasonable terms.)

One reason for the sedate boring predictability of the big polling picture is that even as important a story as the Windsor Agreement hasn’t really grabbed the attention of the public. A Redfield & Wilton Strategies poll for Politico found 48% of people have not heard or read about it “at all” with a further 16% only having done so slightly. YouGov found that 72% of people had either not heard of it or had heard of it but weren’t following the story closely. Or take Opinium’s findings:

Opinium @OpiniumResearch

The public do not yet have a clear understanding of the Windsor Agreement. A majority either haven't heard enough about it or simply don't know. Amongst those who gave us an opinion: > 19% think it is a good deal > 21% think it is a bad deal

But of course there are plenty of people with an incentive to try to make things sound more exciting and more volatile, whether for journalistic, political or social media algorithm reasons. (And it’s ok, I promise I’ll return to finding something that is exciting or volatile next week.)

One such person this week was Conservative strategist Isaac Levido, presenting polling to an awayday for his party’s MPs. Understandably, he wanted to give them some signs of hope in the polls.

And at first blush, his figures may sound convincing:

Alex Wickham @alexwickham

At the Tory away day, Isaac Levido told MPs: — Only 10-15% of 2019 Tory voters had decided to vote Labour — over 20% are undecided — 17% of people who are currently not planning to vote prefer Sunak to Starmer

bloomberg.comBloomberg - Are you a robot?

10-15% doesn’t sound that high, perhaps. But let’s apply some context.

“Only” 10% of Conservative voters in 1992 switched to Labour in 1997. Yet 1992 was (narrowly) a Conservative victory and 1997 was (not at all narrowly) an almighty Labour landslide.

(Those figures come from Explaining Labour’s Landslide by Worcester and Mortimore, using MORI data. Other calculations with other data come to similar, if slightly higher, figures.)

So that 10-15% that Levido was talking about was not so much “only” 10-15% but a “landslide-triggering, seat-losing, fear-inducing” 10-15%. It’s a figure that fits with what the public national voting intention polls tell us.

It’s possible that things may change, and there are good reasons to carry on giving that picture a sceptical doing-over to search for signs that they are.

But so far, the story isn’t one of poll boosts for Sunak or low levels of switching to Labour. It’s of a polling steady state, heading towards disaster for the Conservatives.

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National voting intention polls

Here’s the latest from each currently active pollster:

For more details and updates through the week, see my daily updated table here.

Last week’s edition

The long term liberalising of Britain.

Know other people interested in political polling?

First polling in the SNP leadership race and other insights from this week’s polling…