Goose is Cooked

Dan Hodges make a persuasive case in his Telegraph blog that when you drill down into the polling evidence Labour's goose is already cooked when it comes to the 2015 general election. 

Lots can still happen of course, but on the basic arithmetic I have to say that Dan Hodges is right because, as he says, the level of support for Labour is bound to fall between now and May 2015, the Lib Dems vote is bound to strengthen even a little and by next year UKIP will have long passed its high water mark.  

You can't ignore the evidence: Labour will still lose the next election

By Dan Hodges - The Telegraph

Picture: UPPA

Panic over. Last week it was the Juncker bounce. This week it’s the Ashcroft bounce. Labour’s vanishing poll lead has soared to seven points in three successive polls – Lord Ashcroft, YouGov and Populous.

Or it did for 48 hours. This morning’s YouGov poll has the lead back down to three points, which is roughly where it’s been for the past few months.

Labour aides have seized on this as evidence of the resilience of their embattled leader. "We can lead, and lead healthily, after six weeks of buckets of s––– being poured over Ed", one Miiband adviser defiantly told the New Statesman.

But here’s the problem: Labour’s poll lead isn’t healthy.

Earlier in the week I was at a reception, and within an hour three separate people had asked me the same question. “What makes you so certain Labour’s going to lose when they’re still doing OK in the polls? At which point I embarked on my Juror Number Four routine.

Juror Number Four is the character played by E.G. Marshall in the film 12 Angry Men. As the film unfolds Henry Fonda systematically destroys the evidence against the young man accused of murder. Slowly, but surely, the other members of the jury fall into line behind him, until there are only two men left who remain convinced of the boy’s guilt. One, Lee J Cob, is consumed by personal bitterness. But Marshall is primarily relying on the evidence in front of him. “You’ve made some excellent points”, he tells Fonda, “But there is one thing you can’t explain. An eye witness said she actually saw the boy kill his father. She looked out of the window and saw him plunge the knife into him. That, to me, is unshakable testimony.”

I understand the arguments made in support of Labour. Their lead has been maintained. We don’t live in a presidential system. The Tory brand remains toxic. Parties rarely increase their share of the vote in government. The electoral system is weighted heavily in Labour’s favour.

The people who have set out these arguments have made some excellent points. But there are still three pieces of unshakable evidence that, if you look at the polls, simply cannot be ignored.

The first is that Labour’s lead is averaging around 3-4 per cent, with ten months to go until the election. The level of support for the party of opposition always fall in the last year. Always.

The second is the poll rating for the Liberal Democrats. They are currently averaging 8-9 per cent. At the last general election they secured 23 per cent. Nick Clegg may be public enemy number one. The Lib Dems brand may be more contaminated than the Tories. But they are not getting 8 per cent in 2015. Everyone I have spoken to – be they Lib Dem, Labour or Tory – accepts that the Lib Dems will not poll that low in a general election. The consensus is that they will probably be somewhere in the range 13 to 16 per cent. And the vast bulk of that additional support will be transferring across from the Labour Party.

The third piece of evidence is the level of support for Ukip. Still basking in the glow of their European election “surge”, they are currently averaging 14 per cent. At the last election they got 4 per cent. Nigel Farage could emerge from the heavens on a chariot born by angels. Ukip will not poll 14 per cent in 2015, or anything close.

What Ukip will actually poll is one of the great political imponderables. I think 6 per cent. The Westminster consensus is 8-9 per cent. Either way, the effect is the same. The polls indicate that Ukip switchers will prefer the Tories to Labour by a margin of 2:1. Once their vote share drops below 12 points, that margin increases to 3:1, 4:1 even 6:1.

If Labour was averaging double digit poll leads, they may be in with a chance. But Labour isn’t. The lead is simply too narrow. The organic erosion of support all opposition parties experience as polling day approaches, the inevitable recovery of the Lib Dems and the decline of Ukip means there is no way – on the current figures – that Labour can win. The only question is whether David Cameron will secure an overall majority or will be forced into a second coalition.

Yes, Labour is clinging to a slender lead. Why wouldn’t it? Why would a Ukip supporter who trudged to the polling stations in May to register a protest against David Cameron tell a pollster a few weeks later: “Actually, I was just having a laugh. I’ll be holding my nose and voting Tory next year.”

Ukip supporters are going to break late. They have no incentive not to. They are not shy Tories; they are fed-up-to-the-back-teeth Tories. And it will only be when the prospect of an Ed Miliband government is actually hanging over them, and the prize of a European referendum is finally within touching distance, that they will reluctantly return to the fold. But return they will.

Of course, the evidence may change. Labour’s Ashcroft spike may become an Ashcroft surge. The 3-4 per cent poll average may become the double digit lead that Ed Miliband needs.

But this morning the testimony of the polls is clear. And it is plunging a knife into Labour’s election chances.