Fundamentally Screwed

Plus reflections on the Farage announcement

I’m sending today’s election briefing to the full mailing list because the bulk of it is a post by Dylan that sets the Conservatives’ position in historical context more clearly than anything else I’ve read.

Other recent election briefing emails have covered the “odd seats” than no model can capture, and how voters have shifted between parites since 2019. Seat-by-seat previews start on Friday. If you want to get these briefings every day during the campaign, and you are a paying subscriber, then you need to turn notifications on for “election briefings” on your “manage subscriptions” page. You can become a paid subscriber here.

Oh and also the publication of my book “Failed State: Why Nothing Works And How To Fix It” has been bought forward to 11th July, in the hope it can provide some holiday reading for new ministers. Our readers can get 25% if you order via Waterstones using the code FAILED25. Also available at Amazon and via independent bookshops.

Sam

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Before we get to the main post a couple of reflections from me on campaign news from yesterday:

• Nigel Farage deciding to run and take back the leadership of Reform is potentially the most significant moment of the campaign so far. He is likely to win in Clacton. A Survation poll from earlier this year that named him as candidate showed a win. It’s not definite, but if there was any seat/candiate combination that would succeed for Reform it would be this one.

• We will need to wait to see if there is broader impact on the polls. My guess is there will be some improvement in Reform’s position but that it won’t be large. If this does happen it will primarily come from Conservative voters. You may see a little Labour switching too, but today’s Labour party is very different to 2015’s, when UKIP took a lot of votes off them. The vast majority of the Labour vote either voted Remain or now thinks Leaving was a mistake.

• Given, though, how bad the Conservatives position is, even a small move is dangerous for them. Yesterday’s YouGov MRP had them on 140 seats but winning 50 of those by less than 5pts. They’re on the edge of a precipice.

• We’ve now had three MRPs. With three quite different results. More in Common put the Conservatives on 180 seats, YouGov on 140, and Electoral Calculus on just 66. This is partly driven by methodology and we’ll have a longer explanatory post at the weekend. But it’s also driven by the underlying voting intention data. More in Common assumes a Labour lead of 14 points; YouGov 18 points; and Electoral Calculus 22 points. These drive big differences at seat level because so many seats are close.

• One final thought on Farage. If he does, finally, become an MP it changes the possibilities for the future of the Conservatives, making a split in the parliamentary party more plausible. I will be writing later in the campaign about the likely balance of a post-election Conservative party and how this could play out.

Now over to Dylan for a explanation of why the Conservatives are in such a terrible position.