Until now, the only sliver of a suggestion that Rishi Sunak might have gained some meaningful traction since becoming leader came from a single poll conducted by Opinium, which stuck out like a sore thumb as an outlier, because it was flatly contradicted by several other polls from multiple firms. But now Redfield & Wilton Strategies have published a poll with very similar numbers to Opinium, and indeed it’s the first poll from any firm for over a month to have the Tories as high as 30%.
GB-wide voting intentions for the next general election (Redfield & Wilton Strategies, 2nd-3rd November 2022):
Labour 47% (-3)
Conservative 30% (+3)
Liberal Democrats 12% (+3)
Reform UK 4% (+1)
SNP 3% (-1)
Greens 3% (-2)
Scottish subsample: Labour 40%, SNP 30%, Conservatives 15%, Liberal Democrats 11%
I’ve included the Scottish subsample for information, but don’t be overly alarmed by it – the sample is a tiny 77 respondents and is almost certainly not correctly weighted. That said, it’s unusual to see Labour ahead in any Scottish subsample, and this is therefore another timely warning of the dangers of playing silly buggers by even thinking of splitting the pro-independence vote in first-past-the-post Westminster elections.
This is actually the third Redfield & Wilton poll since Liz Truss departed, so the percentage changes listed above underestimate the scale of the swing back to the Tories, who have gained a full eleven percentage points since 19th October. But what will alarm Labour far more is Keir Starmer’s personal ratings. Although his net satisfaction rating as an individual is slightly higher than Sunak’s, he actually trails Sunak by 43%-37% on the head-to-head measure of who would make the best Prime Minister. That question has in the past often proved a better predictor of election results than headline voting intentions.
There was a piece on Stormfront Lite the other day pointing out that the betting markets still give the Tories a remarkably decent percentage chance of winning the general election, at a time when the conventional wisdom is that a Labour government is near-inevitable. When the betting markets are more favourable for the Tories than the conventional wisdom, I would normally say conventional wisdom is more likely to be right, because there have been plenty of past examples of distorted odds on the markets due to wishful thinking on behalf of punters who are disproportionately Tory. But on this occasion, with Sunak leading Starmer as the favoured PM, and with Labour ‘only’ seventeen points ahead, and with up to two years still to go, I’m not sure anyone would be justified in saying with confidence that a Labour victory is certain or even close to certain. Likely, yes, but that’s a lesser word.
