by It was a significant setback for the Conservative Party ahead of the next general election.
In April 2020, the Tories had a 21 point lead over Labor in a YouGov poll. Fast forward to today and Labor has completely flipped the script with a 22 point lead over the Tories.
With Rishi Sunak saying that he plans to call the next general election in the second half of this year, everything is pointing towards Sir Keir Starmer’s Labor who will be the next government of the United Kingdom.
Here, Yahoo News UK looks at how the polls have changed, what’s behind this and the latest picks.
What do the polls say?
YouGov’s voting intention tracker (see the chart, below), which regularly surveys voters since January 2020, shows the extent to which support for the Tories has fallen – and support for Labor has increased.
In the latest poll, released today, Labour’s poll lead continues – and it makes grim reading for Rishi Sunak.
The latest figures – covering 2-3 January – show the Conservatives on 22%, Labor on 46%, the Lib Dems on 10%, the SNP on 3%, Plaid Cymru on 1%, Reform UK on 9% and the Greens. at 7%.
While Reform UK’s performance (currently polling almost as high as the Lib Dems, and sometimes polling higher) is impressive, the contrasting success of Labor and the Tories has characterized the past four years.
What are the latest options?
As of January 8, Oddschecker – a website that compares the odds between different bookmakers – had Labor at 2/17 to win the most seats. This means that a £10 pound would fetch just £11.18.
The Conservatives are 13/2 to win the most seats. Bookmakers consider this unlikely to be as likely as a £10 bet winning £75.
What went wrong for the Tories?
So why did the polls change so much? It is worth looking back at four very eventful years in UK politics.
Tory support peaked at 53% (and Labor on 32%) in April 2020, months after the party’s stunning success in the 2019 general election and Boris Johnson delivering on his promise to “deliver Brexit”.
This was also during the COVID pandemic and the spirit of national unity amid the onset of the deadly virus that almost killed Johnson himself. The then Prime Minister was released from hospital five days before this particular survey was conducted.
Over the rest of the year, support declined amid chaos over the COVID rules, with the Tories falling to as low as 35% in November 2020, compared to Labor on 40%.
However, the UK’s successful COVID vaccination program provided a way out of the lockdown and, with it, improved poll ratings. Tory support peaked at 41% in June 2021, while Labor was at 30%. In October of that year, there was the impression that Johnson was untouchable. At the Tory party conference, the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg said the Prime Minister was “absolutely in command of his party, and politically dominant in the country”.
But this quickly fell apart with the Partygate scandal, which broke out in November of that year. Repeatedly, reports emerged that government and Tory staff – including Johnson – had taken part in social gatherings since the lockdown when their own COVID rules prevented them. By January 2022, Tory support had fallen to 28%, and Labor 38%. Johnson struggled on, but never recovered and a wave of ministerial resignations forced him to resign in July of that year.
His successor, Liz Truss, then began arguably the most disastrous prime ministerial reign in history, characterized by the disastrous “mini-budget” of £45bn of unfunded tax cuts, which triggered a crisis economic. Like Johnson, she lost the trust of Tory MPs – and voters – and had to resign. Her 49-day spell as PM was the shortest in history, with Tory support falling to 19% (Labour 56%) the day after she announced she was standing down in October 2022 .
Rishi Sunak, who had lost to Truss in the Tory leadership election the previous month, took the lead. However, as the YouGov chart above shows, it has failed to resonate with voters. Tory support was at 23% two days after he took office, and the latest survey – taken last month – showed it has fallen to 22%.
In short, the polls, not to mention other factors such as last year’s significant by-election victories for Starmer’s Labour, are pointing towards a Labor government.
