Andy Burnham and Kemi Badenoch are both preparing for their party conferences (next week, and the following week, respectively), and this morning YouGov has released a new MRP poll with encouraging news for both of them. Polling is very good at revealing electoral trends, but a lot less good at predicting electoral outcomes, and wise politicians don’t treat them as gospel. But they also find polling impossible to ignore, not least because it shapes the landscape within which parties operate.
A leader expecting to win the next election acts differently from one expecting to lose it. And would Burnham win an election held now? Not exactly, according to the YouGov figures, but Labour would be the largest party.
Here is YouGov’s summary of its results. -Labour would be the largest party in a hung parliament, were an election held tomorrow, winning 241 seats in our model’s central estimates -Such a result would be a net loss of 170 seats for Labour on the 2024 election, but is up from our MRP this time last year, which projected the party would be reduced to just 144 seats and showed Reform UK within touching distance of a majority -Reform UK are now neck-and-neck with the Conservatives, with the parties respectively on 123 and 130 seats in our median projection -Our central projection shows the Lib Dems on 71 seats, the SNP on 40, Plaid Cymru on 15, and the Greens on nine -37% of constituencies are decided by margins of five points or less in our central estimate, with this rising to 67% of seats projected to be won by Reform UK This is not a terrific result for Labour, but the party is in a much better position under Burnham than it was under Keir Starmer. The YouGov figures suggest Badenoch has no chance of forming a government. But she may be even happier with these numbers than Burnham.
A year ago polling suggested Nigel Farage was on course to be the next prime minister, and there was serious talk about the Conservative party being totally eclipsed by Reform UK. Today’s figures have the Tories narrowly ahead of Reform on the central estimate (the best guess – YouGov also has highest and lowest estimates for seat numbers). More importantly, the poll confirms that Farage’s hopes of forming a government are – for now at least – fading.
YouGov surveyed almost 17,000 people for the poll, between 23 August to 18 September. I will post more on the poll as the day goes on. There will be other news too, although there is not a lot in the diary.
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