The trends carry on trending
Welcome to the 207th edition of The Week in Polls (TWIP), which will try to bore you by presenting new data showing… that things are not changing. But it is worth checking in periodically on previously reported trends to see if they are continuing, as that itself can be significant. Especially as ‘things continuing as before’ tends not to catch media headlines or feed social media algorithms, so it can be easy to miss what’s really happening. Unless, of course, you read on.
This is followed by a summary of the latest national voting intention polls, seat projections from MRPs, and the most recent party leader ratings.
Subscribers who pay for the full edition can also read ten insights from the latest polling and analysis, including:
What the data says about a possible electoral pact between Reform and the Conservatives;
How public opinion on Net Zero is, and isn’t, changing; and
How the nature of support for the Greens has been changing.
If you are not yet a paid subscriber, you can read all ten by starting a free trial now:
For more polling news as it comes in before next week’s edition, you can also follow The Week in Polls on Bluesky.
A reminder too that my page of local council election predictions is being regularly updated.
My eyebrows were raised by The Independent’s recent headline, drawn to my attention by reader Janey, stating that “Britons more concerned about violence against women and girls than immigration, poll shows.” The story went on to claim that “Britons are more concerned about violence against women and girls (VAWG) than they are about immigration.”
That seemed… surprising, given that polls asking people what their top issues are, either for them or for the country, and using either closed or open-ended questions, repeatedly find that immigration comes out high up in the answers, while violence against women and girls does not.
But the piece also named the pollster, GGF Insights, which is a member of the British Polling Council. The firm responded quickly to my request to see the data tables, given the poll had now entered public circulation. What those data tables reveal is that people were not asked to rate the importance of immigration versus that of violence against women and girls.
Instead of the head-to-head comparison claimed by the story, people were asked separately whether they think immigration is a concern and also whether they think that violence against women and girls is a concern. More said yes to the latter, but that tells us something different from what the story claimed. It may be that many of those who said both were important would also have said that immigration was more important than violence against women and girls.
So the poll’s figures are quite compatible with the opposite of the story’s claim being true instead. It may be that when put head-to-head, more people pick immigration than violence against women and girls. We don’t know - the poll doesn’t tell us - but that didn’t stop the newspaper from making such a definitive claim.
I contacted The Independent several days ago suggesting that they correct the piece, but I have not so far heard back (and the piece has not been altered).
One other preliminary note: I have switched to using the online Keeper password manager, which makes it easy to create secure, unique passwords for all your logins, while also making them easy to use. You can get a free trial and then 30% off your first year with this affiliate link.
And with that, on with the show.
Quarterly council by-elections round-up
With another quarter completed, it’s time for the latest of my quarterly round-ups of how the parties are doing in council by-elections:
Trends update: things continue as they were for Farage, Polanski and Starmer
Ipsos has some new polling out with its customary long-term trends graphs. That gives us a handy chance to check in on some of the polling trends I’ve reported on before.
Nigel Farage’s ratings
First, I’ve reported before how Reform’s support in the polls peaked and then fell for the last few months, as has been the case with Nigel Farage’s own ratings in the polls.
Here is that trend continuing for Farage:
It’s the same picture too for views of his party, with things improving to a peak around September or October last year and then falling back:
Zack Polanski’s ratings
Turning to the leader of the Green Party in England and Wales, I pointed out last time how his net poll ratings have slipped, with rising numbers of people holding a negative view of him and so his net scores also having deteriorated.
Again, Ipsos shows the same picture - his positive ratings holding steady, with his negative ratings rising, and so his net score slipping:
Once again, it is a similar picture for his party:
Keir Starmer’s ray of hope
Finally, a bright spot among all the polling gloom for Labour and Keir Starmer has been that, when forced to choose, people prefer a government led by him to one led by Nigel Farage. Or at least when they don’t, the margin is small, still giving a much better picture than leader ratings or voting intention figures do.
Again, the latest figures from Ipsos show this remains the case, with this set of figures in fact rather better for him:
No change is still sometimes news
Nothing new, then, from what I’ve previously reported, but all three of those factors once again holding up is significant for where the polls and our politics might be going in the months to come. Or the combination of Iran and the May local elections may sweep away these trends. Keep reading in future weeks to find out.
Elsewhere from me…
The latest episode of my podcast Political Fictions is out, taking a look at Malcolm Tucker and his colleagues in a TV show that in no way bears any relation to any of my own political experiences or memories:
Mark and Cory talk about political TV for the first time, and there’s nowhere better to start than The Thick of It. After rewatching the first series, they talk about which fictional policy proposals ended up becoming reality, why it’s important that focus groups thought Keir Starmer was an eagle, and given that Malcolm Tucker keeps screwing everything up perhaps the secret genius behind the British Government is actually Terri Coverley?
As well as listening here, you can also listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or in your favourite podcast app.
If you spot a factual error…
Borrowing an idea from Stuart Ritchie and others, if you spot a factual error in an edition of this newsletter, I will give you a free 12-month subscription to the paid-for version (or an extra 12 months on your existing one). Factual errors qualify rather than grammatical errors or disagreements over interpretation, with my decision being final. Messages about both of those are always very welcome, though.
Voting intention and leadership ratings
Here are the latest voting intention polls from different pollsters. Although the polling figures continue to look grim for Labour, it would not be mad for a Labour supporter to focus on the fact that their party would not have to recover by very much to be back seriously challenging for first place.
The table is also online here, along with explanations about what is included. It is updated regularly through the week with new polls.
Next, the seat projections from MRPs and similar models, also sorted by fieldwork dates. We have not yet had any this year, but I am keeping the table going in the hope that changes.
Finally, a summary of the latest leadership ratings, sorted by pollster name. As pointed out in the main piece, previous trends have continued.
The table is also online here with additional details and is updated regularly through the week as new data comes out.
For the historic figures for both voting intention and leader approval, including Parliamentary by-election polls, see PollBase.
Catch up on the previous two editions
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Problems for any pact on the right, and 9 other polling insights you shouldn’t miss
The following 10 findings from the most recent polls and analysis are only for subscribers who pay for the full edition, but you can sign up for a free trial to read them straight away.
Sky News has a great piece of analysis, drawing on number crunching from two experts who regularly feature here, Rob Ford and Will Jennings. It takes a look at the battle on the right between the Conservatives and Reform, and finds that
