It would seem the polls are narrowing, with yougov reporting a Labour lead. I held off commenting because sometimes a single poll is rogue. The politco poll tracker reports the Tories on 38% and Labour up to 35%. The Tories have lost 5% (percentage points) since May and Labour are up 2%. Is this real and sustainable. Maybe!
The Tories have adopted three policies that affect their base. Now that age is the key determinant of how people vote, it seems to be on par with hitting yourself in the nuts.
The Tories are planning to introduce their social care death tax and postpone the pension triple lock which means that an expected 8% rise will not be made. Their “Red Wall” working voters will not be happy with funding this through national insurance. The blue wall voters will be unhappy at the £100,000 cap on assets to get social care help and every house owner is going to be unhappy. This issue is subsurface dynamite, I remember that Cameron overtook Brown after opposing a Brown reform on inheritance tax.
The conservative coalition may be fracturing, between the northern MPs and their voters who need to level up, the Brexit libertarian loons who have a strong presence in parliament, and the middle class/pro-business vote in the south for whom tax and house prices are key economic drivers together with business viability. Here’s hoping that Johson’s “Fuck business” will come to haunt him. Furthermore, I am not sure that the Brexit fuckups have landed yet, but it ain’t getting better. If interest rates rise, there will be a mighty noise from the Tory voter base.
This is what the voting intention looks like.
And this is what the seats would look like according to Electoral Calculus, and because it cheers me up I have included the Electoral Calculus seat predictions from the yougov numbers.
There’s a way to go, but its more than one poll and the political cause is there to see!