In Cornwall the Tories are so far ahead in the eastern three constituencies that there’s no point at all there in voting ‘tactically’. The battle is for second place, with an eye on the next election.
With a 10% lead in Camborne-Redruth, George Eustice also looks safely beyond the margin of polling error. Even if all those intending to vote Lib Dem switched to Labour’s Paul Farmer, he’ll still lose. So don’t bother voting ‘tactically’ there either.
The gap in St Ives has hardly shifted since the Tories’ Derek Thomas established a lead two or three weeks ago when the Brexit Party ran away. The polls are suggesting an easier win for the Tories than in 2017. Nonetheless, the Conservative lead is still within the margin of error so it’s worth considering a Lib Dem vote here.
A second place where tactical voting is arguably worth even more serious consideration is Truro and Falmouth. Although the Tory lead here is wider than in St Ives, according to the polls it’s narrowing, and relatively quickly. Moreover, there’s still a residual Lib Dem vote here for Labour’s Jenn Forbes to sweep up.
If Lib Dems want to stop the Tory in Truro and Falmouth they must call for a Labour vote. In return Labour could call for a Lib Dem vote in St Ives if they’re really serious about getting rid of Thomas. But are they?
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Last weekend’s polls shows the Labour ‘surge’, or more accurately ‘creep’, stalling, or even falling back a little. Meanwhile, the Johnson juggernaut continues to inch its way upwards. This close to the election it looks like curtains for Corbyn, who seems to have become strangely subdued over the past few days as his lieutenants begin to manoeuvre to avoid the oncoming blame.
based on an aggregate of seven polling companies
The rock-solid block of support for the Tories from the elderly and the uneducated, the complacent and the couldn’t care less looks immoveable. They’ve been promised the biggest illusion of all in this election of illusions – a post-brexit nirvana of everlasting prosperity amidst a return to the 1950s – and by God they’re determined to get it.
but only if coming a distant 3rd is defined as ‘winning here’
Labour has been unable to squeeze the Liberal Democrats to the same extent as they did in 2017 or as clinically as the Tories disposed with the threat of Farage’s Brexit party. Their only hope now is massive tactical voting. But this looks increasingly unlikely as Lib Dem and Labour tribalists run amok confusing voters for short-term party gain. The other is a dramatic, last-minute announcement by Jeremy that he’ll resign in the New Year if he wins the election. Come on, Jezza, your final act will be a heroic sacrifice for British socialism. Not too much to ask for, is it?
In 2017 the most accurate prediction for the election came from YouGov’s MRP (multilevel regression and post-stratification) model. This, based on a massive set of ongoing interviews, was updated daily in the week or ten days before polling day and indicated a gradually closing gap between Tories and Labour.
This time around YouGov produced its first estimate on November 27th, eleven days ago. This showed a very healthy Tory lead. Since then, they’ve chosen to remain silent, unlike last time. YouGov now says it will publish its second, and presumably final, prediction at 10pm on Tuesday.
Why is this of more than passing interest to psephological anoraks like myself? Because of tactical voting.
In Britain we have 450 seats that are safe and, outside by-elections, will very rarely change hands. In those places you could vote for Lord Buckethead, spoil your paper, let the dog eat your postal vote or not bother at all, knowing that you’ll still be lumbered with a Tory or Labour MP. The other 200 seats could potentially change hands. However, it’s not easy to predict which will switch.
This is what YouGov’s MRP polling provided in 2017, when it regularly updated its findings on a daily basis. Knowing which way the trends were moving helped us more easily make a sensible and measured decision on whether to vote tactically and who for.
Take the last election in Camborne-Redruth. Here’s what the YouGov poll was predicting, updated every other day and appearing on this website. In the final week of the campaign Labour was steadily closing the gap – by 7 points – and almost stole the seat.
But this time, YouGov’s decision not to update their poll means there’s no way of knowing whether voters are swinging to Labour in this constituency more or less than elsewhere and whether Labour’s Paul Farmer is in with a realistic shot of taking the seat. Therefore, potential tactical voters like myself are unable to make a proper decision. I shall therefore stick with my preferred choice and not waste it on a tactical vote.
We could of course rely on the regular snapshot polls. However, these are not at constituency level and it’s difficult to extrapolate trends from polls that all use slightly different methodologies. The absence of the YouGov data means that in this election we have much less reliable information on which to base our decision.
Polls can of course influence voting behaviour as much as reflect it. The absence of regular YouGov updates last week when it appears Labour was (slowly) closing the gap, operated to dampen any surge that may have been occurring under the radar.
But I cannot understand why YouGov has this time refused to release its data. Who does this benefit? Clearly, if information on trends is not out there, then any movement to Labour becomes less certain. People become confused on whether it’s best to vote tactically for Labour or for the Lib Dems or for others. Moreover, they are more likely to rely on the inaccurate and false findings peddled by the political parties. And the Tories therefore breath much more easily.
In addition, by 10pm on Tuesday at least one in five voters will have already voted by post, so news of any swing towards Labour that late will have absolutely no effect. Convenient, to say the least.
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The story of the polls over the last three weeks is as follows. The Brexit Party’s support has collapsed, Farage having been comprehensively out-bluffed by the Tories. Brexit Party voters have swung almost to a man or woman behind the Conservatives, giving them an extra 4-5% in the polls, most of this occurring in the first week of the campaign.
After a stable start, Labour’s share of the poll has been creeping upwards, by 2% in the second week and 3% in the third. This has been enough to narrow the Tory poll lead over the past fortnight by 4-5%. But that lead – at around 10-11% – still guarantees them a clear majority.
Given the idiosyncracies of our absurd voting system, Labour doesn’t actually need to be that close but just 6-7% behind in order to be in hung-Parliament territory. Yet unless it can continue its rise in the polls at the same or higher rate in the week left, or the Tory share starts to fall by a few points, which doesn’t look likely, Labour is not quite going to make up the deficit by Thursday week. Although it may well be closer than the media would like us to believe. Cue panic-stricken attacks on Corbyn as the real picture gradually dawns.
The Lib Dem vote hovered around 14-16% in the first two weeks of the campaign before, last week, there were unmistakable signs of a slide, by around 2%. There are still plenty of Lib Dem votes out there for Labour to squeeze, therefore. And more than existed in 2017. Meanwhile the Green vote has been stable at just over 3%, with the SNP vote holding up and together with Plaid and others accounting for around 5%.
On the other hand, there are imponderables. What will the turnout be and will it vary from one part of the UK to another? How many (if any) seats will the Tories lose in Scotland? Will tactical voting work? However, the latter is made less likely in many seats by deliberate misinformation, mainly from the Liberal Democrats, on who the best candidate is to vote for. And of course, the polls, as in 2017, could be wrong!
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This past weekend’s headline polls are largely a story of ‘as you were’. The Brexit party continues to nosedive, the Tories hold steady, Labour and the Lib Dems oscillate slightly, with Labour a little up on a week before and the Lib Dems a bit down. But these changes are well within the margin of error so may mean nothing.
There’s no sign yet of another Labour surge on the lines of
2017. More critically, there’s not much sign of the gap narrowing between Tories
and Labour, although it seems to be stable. Time is now beginning to run out.
The nightmare haunting Labour must be the election of 1983. In that one, Labour, with a radical manifesto, were squeezed between the SDP/Liberal Alliance on the one hand and a Thatcher-led Tory Party that capitalised on the post-Falklands outburst of English nationalism. This time around Labour is squeezed by Lib Dem appeals to remainers on the brexit distraction on one side and an aggressive English nationalism triggered by that same brexit obsession. English nationalists are now flocking straight for the Tories, Farage having cooked his Christmas goose early.
In the meantime, we’re still waiting for credible multilevel regression polling, which would allow us to get a better feel for what’s happening at constituency level. At present the best guides are the bookies. If we look at the change in the odds, North Cornwall has now shifted from marginal to safe for the Tories, leaving only St Ives to prevent a Conservative clean sweep in Cornwall.
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Any qualms the Conservatives may have had in their first days of election campaigning were calmed this week by the mass retirement of Brexit Party candidates and the depressing, if entirely predictable, failure of the anti-Tory parties to make any meaningful deals along the lines of the Farage/Johnson/Trump pact.
The headline changes on last week, collating YouGov,
Opinium, DRG and Com Res polls, are
Conservatives and Labour up
Brexit Party, Lib Dems and Greens down
The good news for Labour is that its poll share again grew.
The bad news is that the Tories’ share grew more than twice as fast as it
gobbled up the Brexit Party turkeys in an early Christmas treat.
Tories’ support among the over-65s continues to give them a
solid base. Around 65% of the elderly intend to vote Conservative. Such loyal
gratitude for the lowest state pension in Europe and having to wait 10 hours in
a hospital corridor the next time they fall down the stairs. So touching. This
is the generation that will nostalgically remember the war they didn’t fight in
but forget they were the first beneficiaries of the NHS. Roll over, Nye Bevan.
But this isn’t the end of the story yet by a long chalk. The
growth in the Tory lead this past week is to a large degree a one-off following
the Brexit Party implosion. Furthermore, more tactical voting this time may
make the overall polls even dodgier than in 2017. We need to wait for the
multiple regression polls to get an idea of what’s happening in the constituencies.
If Cornwall is anything to go by the answer is not much.
And can the unexpected happen twice? At the same point in
the last campaign Labour was even further behind in the polls. On the other
hand, this time we have the Great Brexit Distraction. By next weekend however,
we need to begin to see some narrowing in that Tory lead. Otherwise it looks as
if it may be joy for Johnson and curtains for Corbyn.
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Current opinion polling is still giving them a healthy lead. Electoral Calculus is predicting a Tory majority with a 60% probability. Over the last week or so, despite a number of gaffes, they’ve remained rock steady in the polls, hovering around 40% and retain a 12% lead over Labour.
On the other hand that’s less than the 17% lead they enjoyed
at the same stage of the 2017 campaign. Moreover, three weeks before that election
Electoral Calculus was even more confidently predicting a Conservative
majority, with a 76% probability. And we all know what happened then.
Labour can be cheerful.
Even though they’re well behind, the gap is actually less
than at the same point in 2017 and the Labour vote has not fallen as far as the
Tories. In addition this week has seen a small but consistent upward creep in
Labour’s polling figures. Of all the parties Labour has (a little) momentum.
[Groan]
On the other hand, in order to convert this into a majority they will need to repeat the surge that occurred in 2017. Most of that took place in the last two or three weeks of the campaign. Will it happen again? Twice in a row is a big ask.
The Lib Dems can be cheerful.
They’re polling far higher than they were at the same point
in the 2017 election, 7% up on an admittedly very low 9% then. If this can be
focused onto their target seats gains look inevitable.
On the other hand their support in the polls has slipped
from its peak in mid-October, although over the past week it seems to have stabilised.
The SNP can be cheerful.
Their polling in Scotland is holding up in the 40-50% range
and well ahead of the Tories. In fact YouGov put their lead a week ago at 20%
over the Tories and 30% over Labour, as compared with 8% and 10% respectively
at the 2017 election.
Two parties might be less cheerful this weekend. The Brexit Party
vote is generally sliding while the Green Party’s is stagnant at best or perhaps
also slipping. Which is all a bit strange, given that this is supposed to be
THE Brexit election or THE climate change election, depending on your viewpoint.
But things are likely to change. This Thursday nominations close, we get a better picture of exactly who is standing where and the polls start to become more meaningful.
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As the election runners and riders wait nervously at the starting post, it’s a convenient time to look at what the pollsters are saying. Electoral Calculus is a respected site which bases its predictions on the previous few weeks of opinion polls.
At present it’s suggesting there will be two Lib Dem gains in Cornwall – at St Ives and North Cornwall – although its own figures actually suggest Scott Mann will narrowly squeak back in North Cornwall. It also predicts that in three of the four seats where Labour pushed the Lib Dems into third place in 2017, the Lib Dems will recover second place. The prediction is that Labour’s vote will halve in Camborne-Redruth, Truro, St Austell and South East Cornwall to restore the situation of 2015.
Chances of winning
Con
Labr
Lib Dem
St Ives
31%
0%
68%
Camborne-Redruth
69%
14%
13%
Truro-Falmouth
59%
10%
29%
St Austell-Newquay
67%
4%
26%
North Cornwall
50%
0%
49%
South East Cornwall
74%
2%
22%
But what’s the track record of Electoral Calculus? Martin Baxter,
its founder, is honest enough to admit it hasn’t been great, although it did
accurately predict the Tory clean sweep in Cornwall in 2017. Over the entire
political landscape of the UK, in the last three elections it got between 64
and 80 seats wrong out of a total of 650. As about 400 seats are safe and
rarely change hands, this isn’t that much better than relying on Granny’s tea
leaves.
In each of those three elections, the polls overestimated
the Lib Dem vote, whereas Labour’s was underestimated in both 2010 and 2017.
The Tory vote was slightly overestimated in 2010 and 2017 but greatly underestimated
in 2015.
Interestingly, 2015 was the year when Ukip (remember them?) did
well, winning 13% of the vote overall. This time around Electoral Calculus is
predicting 11% for the Brexit Party. The presence of this party clearly adds
more uncertainty to the outcome.
Allowing for the inherent biases in the polling, St Ives still looks a good prospect for the Lib Dems at present, but we should probably move north Cornwall into the Tory camp. Ladbrokes are making the Tories clear odds-on favourites in North Cornwall and this looks the better bet. Meanwhile, Labour and the Lib Dems are neatly splitting the non-Tory vote in Truro and St Austell, making them comfortable for the Tories. Moreover, the Lib Dems are stealing back enough votes in Camborne-Redruth to make George Eustice sleep more soundly at night. At least for the present.
(Or maybe he won’t as the Electoral Calculus predictions also show an across the board drop in the Conservative vote of around 8-10%. The Tories’ apparent strength in the polls is largely a function of a dysfunctional and disproportional electoral system.)
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An unexpected source, but is this more evidence for a historic surge towards Labour in Cornwall? The West Briton group of local papers is complementing the YouGov prediction of a clean sweep for the Tories with the results of its own survey. Recently, the newspaper group has been considerably less supportive of the Tories than usual. This is partly because Theresa’s May’s handlers wouldn’t allow their reporters to film her or ask certain questions when she visited Helston earlier in the month.
The paper launched a Cornwall Survey 2017 on their website a month ago. In addition to a rather eclectic set of questions, including one asking people which illegal drugs they’d taken recently, they asked them for their voting intentions (presumably when not under the influence of those drugs). The findings, for what they’re worth, back up the YouGov prediction of a sharp rise in the numbers of those intending to vote Labour next week.
Having got over 3,000 responses, Cornwall Live is reporting that Labour is in the lead not only in Camborne & Redruth but also at St Austell & Newquay, which, like Truro & Falmouth, sees a close three-way split between Tory, Labour and Lib Dem. Sheryll Murray remains way ahead in South East Cornwall, which looks increasingly rock-solid for the Tories.
Boris considers jumping on hearing latest polling results
There’s even some good news in this survey for Cornwall’s Lib Dems. In North Cornwall Cornwall Live reports that the Tories’ Scott Mann and the Lib Dems’ Dan Rogerson are neck and neck. Meanwhile, at the other end of Cornwall in St Ives, contradicting the YouGov prediction, Andrew George and Derek Thomas are also too close to call, although an earlier report from Cornwall Live showed Andrew well ahead.
But what are these findings worth? Cornwall Live’s ‘Survey’ may be worth precisely nothing and merely reflect the social media presence of party supporters. Unlike the bona-fide polling outfits, they don’t give us the detailed tables of raw results to check for ourselves. It’s totally unscientific, with a self-selected sample, which is neither random nor properly stratified. As it’s online it’s likely to be skewed towards younger and/or computer-savvy voters, a group that is less likely to be Tory than the inert lump of pensioners who will (famous last words) keep them in power.
Yet, taken together with the YouGov model, one clear message comes through. This is that tactical voting only makes sense in North Cornwall and St Ives (for the Lib Dems) and possibly Camborne-Redruth (for Labour). In the other three seats forget it. There, you can safely vote for what you believe in.
As of today YouGov is predicting four likely Conservative wins in Cornwall and two safe Tory constituencies. In every seat, the Tories are comfortably ahead by more than ten points. There is however a wide margin of error in YouGov’s estimates, as they admit. Thus on a good day, they’re suggesting that the Lib Dem vote in St Ives could be as high as 41% (an increase of 8% on 2015). But on a bad day for the Lib Dems it could slump as low as 25%. And, given that Derek Thomas’s equivalent range at the 95% confidence level is 38-51% Andrew George needs a very good day to sneak past him.
Here are the current details of YouGov’s predictions for Cornwall (estimated % of support and change on 2015).
The big surprise has to be the rise in the Labour vote, which is very bad news indeed for Lib Dem strategists hoping to squeeze that vote. In fact, in Truro & Falmouth and St Austell & Newquay YouGov is suggesting that Labour will come second and even in South East Cornwall, it’s a very close thing, with Lib Dems and Labour tied on around 20% each. Is this really likely? It’s perhaps possible in Truro & Falmouth, where Labour are well organised in Falmouth and Penryn. It’s difficult to imagine an improvement of 17% in the Labour vote in St Austell & Newquay. And it would be a historic first and a symbolic end to Cornish Liberalism if Labour were to edge out the Lib Dems in the South East.
Nonetheless, however sceptical we might remain and however much weight we might give to the ‘local factors’ that YouGov ignore, there are implications here for those being swayed by the calls to vote ‘tactically’. Keep an eye on YouGov’s model, which they tell us will be updated daily. Things may yet change radically in the week left before the election. If you’re considering your postal vote I should hold off until the last moment possible.
Moreover, there’s another far less scientific ‘poll’ that might give a little more credibility to YouGov’s predictions for Cornwall. More on that tomorrow.
Kernowpolitico: notes from the periphery 