OPINION POLLING FOR MARCH 2023

 

Across MARCH there were 42 Westminster polls released during the month at various times by all the major polling agencies.  Polling average was (figures in brackets show movement from last month):-

Con 27.5% (+1.6)

Lab 46.0% (-1.3)
LDem 8.9% (-0.2)
Grn 5.2% (+0.1) 
Rfm 5.6% (-0.4)
Oth 6.8% (-nc)
Ave Lab lead over Con for October:- 18.55% (-2.84)

The Tories swung between 20-35%, Labour between 42-51% and the LDems between 7-11%.  Labour managed to breach the magic 40% in all 42 polls and breached 50% four times (however for the first time in a long time,  more than half the polls showed them on 45% or less) and on three occasions showed a 26% lead ( IpsosMORI, 22 Feb-01 Mar, Redfield & Wilton 05 Mar & YouGov 21-22 Mar).   Labour led in every poll with leads of between 11%-26%.

If a General Election were conducted on these MARCH figures and using the new boundaries, it would result in a Parliament of L444, C133, SNP 37, LD14, PC2, G1, NI18, Speaker 1 with Labour having a majority of 238 (refer to last month's figure to see how a shift of a couple of percent alters things considerably).

The period of 'polldrums' appears to be over with the Tories now starting to claw back some of Labour's lead, at a rate that accelerated as the month went by.  Although the monthly Tory/Lab figure was 27.5/46.0 in Labour's favour,  the figure purely for the second half of the month was 27.9/45.6, and for the final week 28.2/45.3.  This is undoubtedly a reflection of the public seeing things getting done regarding Northern Ireland and the 'boat crossers' etc.  In addition, Starmer's continued insistance that a women can have a penis is starting to grate with the electorate along with his very obvious hesitancy to commit to anything at all along with contradictions among his inner circle over key subjects and where the money is to come from. 

Interestingly,  the major 'bookies' use statistical analysts (some of the best paid in the country) to study these sorts of things so that they can work out the odds to open the 'book' based on mathmatical probability.    Although most people (myself included) assume the next election will take place around October 2024 with Labour achieving some sort of victory even if only a coalition,  the Bookies analysts believe that the probablity curve shows mid/late Jan 2025 as the most likely time - and even go so far as to say a Tory majority of between 5 & 15.

Comparisons

General Election 12 Dec 2019: 

UK TOTAL - Con 43.6%, Lab 32.2%, LDem 11.6%, Grn 2.7%, Oth 9.9%

GB ONLY - Con 44.7%, Lab 33.0%, LDem 11.8%, Grn 2.8%, Oth 7.7%

UK lead Con over Lab: 11.4%

GB lead Con over Lab: 11.7%

Polling figures for 2021 (256 polls)

Con 40.3%, Lab 35.2%, LDem 8.4%, Grn 5.7%, Rfm 5.7%, Oth 4.7%
Con lead over Lab 2021: 5.1%

Polling figures for 2022 (330 polls)

Con 30.9%, Lab 42.4%, LDem 10.4%, Grn 5.4%, Rfm 3.7%, Oth 7.2%

Lab lead over Con 2022: 11.38%

Polling figures for 2023 (102 polls)

Con 26.5%, Lab 46.8%, LDem 8.9%, Grn 5.2%, Rfm 5.8%, Oth 6.7%

Lab lead over Con 2023: 21.23%

Polling figures for Mar (42 polls)

Con 27.5%, Lab 46.0%, LDem 8.9%, Grn 5.2%, Rfm 5.6%, Oth 6.8%

Lab lead over Con: 21.39%

Inflation continues to be a problem across the western word and OPEC+ cutting production yet again in order to try and force a 20% rise in the price of oil is not going to help efforts to dampen it.    During March, the latest food inflation figures were released and the UK is roughly in the middle across europe as a whole bearing in mind most of europe uses CPIH to measure it as opposed to our CPI which is around 2% higher, so in actual fact we are performing better than the figures portray. 

Food inflation rates, Feb 2023 (published in March):-

Lithuania 30.2%

Slovakia 27.8%

Spain 26.6%

Latvia 25.3%

Estonia 25.2%

Poland 24.0%

Czech Republic 23.9%

Romania 22.4%

Germany 21.8%

Sweden 21.0%

European Union (as a whole) 19.1%

United Kingdom 18.0% ⬅️

Netherlands 17.9%
Rest of Europe.

(Source: Trading Economics February 2023)

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SCOTLAND

The new SNP leader and Scotland's new First Minister is Humza Yousaf, a mulsim scottish-born Glaswegian of Pakistani-Kenyan heritage. The runner-up Kate Forbes was widely tipped to become leader  however a combination of tactical voting (easy to do in a party with a membership base so small and using a first preference system) combined with reluctance of some Forbes supporters to vote for her following the Scottish Greens threat to leave the ruling group and cause a Scottish election, saw Yousaf sneak past the post after second preference votes were tallied.     It does not augur well that he received less than half the vote on first preference despite there only being three candidates and only narrowly squeaked it on second preference.  Following his outbursts in the Scottish Parliament last week,  I personally do not expect him to remain in post as either head of the SNP or Scottish First Minister for very long before he faces a coup of some sort.

Despite this being the easiest leadership election of any mainstream political party in the UK ever to vote in (voting was almost exclusively electronic),  the turn-out of 70% - a seemingly respectable figure,  was actually the lowest of any mainstream UK party leadership race ever. The results of the leadership election were as follows:-

First Round:-

 

Humza Yousaf 48.2%

Kate Forbes 40.7%

Ash Regan 11.1%
(Regan eliminated and her supporters second preference votes tallied to the two remaining)

 

Second Round:-

 

Humza Yousaf 52.1%

Kate Forbes 47.9%

 

Yousaf wins, 52% to 48%.

 

A total of 50,494 ballot papers containing a valid vote were received – 48,645 cast electronically, and 1,849 by post(*) There were 3 rejected postal ballot papers.

 

Turn-out 70%.

 

(* Some very very restricted postal voting was allowed to accommodate people in areas with no internet access - such as some of the outlying islands etc.)

Ecstatic SNP Members Celebrate As Yousaf Victory Announced

There were five Westminster polls released during the month (figures in brackets show movement from last polling):-

SNP: 39.4% (-1.2)
SCon: 18.2% (+0.8)
SLab: 31.2% (+0.2)
SLD: 6.0% (nc)
Oth: 5.2% (+.02)

There were five Holyrood polls released during the month (figures in brackets show movement from last polling):-

SNP: 39.6/32.0% (-2.4/-1.6)
SCon: 17.0/18.2% (-0.2/+1.0)
SLab: 30.2/27.0% (+1.4/+0.2)
SLD: 7.6/8.0% (-0.2/+0.4)
SGP: 4.3/10.6% (+0.7/-0.2)
Oth: 1.3/4.2% (+0.6/+0.2)

There were seven IndyRef polls released during the month (figures in brackets show movement from last polling):-

Yes: 43.7% (+2.3),  No: 48.1% (+0.8) DK: 8.2% (-3.1)

(Yes: 47.6%, No: 52.4%)

(General Election 2019)
SNP: 45.0%
SCon: 25.1%
SLab: 18.6%
SLDem: 9.5%
Oth: 1.8%).

(Holyrood Election 2022)
SNP: 47.7/40.3%
SCon: 21.9/23.5%
SLab: 21.6/17.9%
SLD: 6.9/5.1%
SGP: 1.3/8.1%
Oth: 0.6/3.4%).

(IndyRef 2014)
Yes: 44.7%
No: 55.3% 

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WALES

There were no Westminster polls released during the month.

There were no Senedd opinion polls released during the month.

There were no IndyRef polls released during the month.

(General Election 2019)
Lab: 40.9%
Con: 36.1%
PC: 9.9%
LDem: 6.0%
Grn: 1.0%
BXP: 5.4%
Oth: 0.7%

(Senedd Election 2021)
Lab: 39.9/36.2%

Con: 26.1/25.1%

Plaid: 20.3/20.7%

LDem: 4.9/4.3%

Grn: 1.6/3.6%

Ref: 1.5/1.1%

AWA*: 1.5/3.7%

UKIP: 0.8/1.6%

Propel: 0.6/0.9%

(*AWA - Abolish Welsh Assembly)

(The Senedd voting system will change for the next Senedd election in 2026.  Currently it uses a hybrid system of first past the post Constituencies and PR-based regional top-up lists.   The proposal is that this is scrapped, the Senedd enlarged from the current 60 seats to 96 and the voting system replaced by a  PR-based party closed list system, centred on 16 'super-constituencies' each consisting of 6 seats.  Voters will only be allowed to vote for a party - not a named candidate and a D'Hondt-type method used to allocate seats within each super-constituency, with the parties then allocating people to the seats they win. Party appointed delegates as opposed to people appointed representatives.  The slow death of democracy and directly elected accountable representatives.)

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NORTHERN IRELAND

The Northern Ireland Assembly remains in deadlock,  with DUP's now steadfast opposition to the new Windsor Framework replacing their previous steadfast opposition to the Protocol. The DUP will not accept the Framework and will not allow the Assembly to sit until AFTER it is scrapped and while the DUP is the largest Unionist party that is all there is to it unless No 10 bites the bullet and dissolves the Assembly.  Paralysis in the Assembly is nothing new though.  For example from 2017 it didn't sit for over 1,000 days when Sinn Fein boycotted it and only resumed just as Covid was about to hit, closing it again.   

There were no Westmister polls released during Mar.

There was one Assembly poll released during Mar (figures in brackets show movement from last polling):-

SF: 30.6% (-0.4)
DUP: 23.9% (-1.1)
APNI: 15.4% (+0.4)
UUP: 11.3% (+1.3)
SDLP: 6.7% (-0.3)
TUV: 4.8% (-2.2)
S-PBP: 2.2% (1.2)
Oth: 5.9% (+0.9)

(Unionist 40.0%, Nationalist 37.3%)

(General Election 2019)
SF: 22.8%
DUP: 30.6%
APNI: 16.8%
UUP: 11.7%
SDLP: 14.9%
Oth: 3.2%
(Unionist 42.3%, Nationalist 37.7%)

(Assembly Election 2022)
SF: 29.0%
DUP: 21.3%
APNI: 13.5%
UUP: 11.2%
SDLP: 9.1%, 
TUV: 7.6%
S-PBP: 1.2%
Oth 7.1%

(Unionist 40.1%, Nationalist 38.1%)

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REPUBLIC OF IRELAND

I include the Republic because they are the only foreign country with a common land border with the UK and also share a common heritage and language. In addition, what goes on in Dublin also has an effect in Belfast and in London and vice-versa all round.

There were three polls released during the month. (figures in brackets show movement from last polling):-

SF: 30.7% (-1.3)

FF: 18.0% (-1.3)

FG: 22.0% (nc)

GP: 4.0% (-0.3)

LP: 4.0% (-0.3)

SD: 6.3% (+3.3)

S-PBP: 2.3% (nc) 

AÚ: 2.5% (-0.5)

Oth/Ind: 10.2% (-0.4)

(General Election 2020)

SF: 24.5%

FF: 22.2%

FG: 20.9%

GP: 7.1%

LP: 4.4%

SD: 2.9%

S-PBP: 2.6%

AÚ: 1.9%

Oth/Ind: 13.5%

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