However, they had some very interesting detail in the depths of the poll. They asked people, Which one of these definitions, if any, comes closest to your own political views (Question 14, table 27):
New Labour 14%
Old Labour 17%
Liberal 13%
One Nation Tory 11%
Thatcherite Tory 14%
Social Democrat 6%
Nationalist 5%
Other 2%
None of these 8%
Don't know 11%
New Labour + Old Labour = 31%
Liberal + Social Democrat = 17%
One Nation Tory + Thatcherite Tory = 25%
None of These + Don't Know = 19%
So how did this translate into a huge Tory lead in the voting intention survey? You get an idea when you look at how the voting intention figures panned out:
Identification Total% Con Lab LibDem
New Labour 14% 3% 38% 5%
Old Labour 17% 5% 39% 6%
Liberal 13% 4% 8% 56%
One Nation Tory 11% 26% - 4%
Thatcherite Tory 14% 37% 1% 2%
Social Democrat 6% 2% 5% 15%
Nationalist 5% 3% 3% 1%
Other 2% 2% * 5%
None of these 8% 9% * 3%
Don't know 11% 10% 5% 3%
It is the self-confessed non-identifiers - the None of these/don't knows, who are giving the Conservatives their current lead. Are they shy Tories (can there still be any left?) Or are they people who simply hate politicians and want to give the government a kicking by opting for their main opposition?
When it came to breakdown by age and gender it was as follows:
Identification Total% Male Female 18-34 35-54 55+
New Labour 14% 13% 14% 16% 13% 13%
Old Labour 17% 15% 19% 16% 18% 18%
Liberal 13% 14% 12% 17% 11% 12%
One Nation Tory 11% 10% 11% 9% 9% 14%
Thatcherite Tory 14% 16% 12% 7% 12% 20%
Social Democrat 6% 7% 5% 3% 7% 7%
Nationalist 5% 7% 2% 3% 7% 4%
Other 2% 3% 2% 3% 3% 1%
None of these 8% 9% 7% 8% 10% 7%
Don't know 11% 5% 16% 20% 10% 4%
Amongst the under 35's, the most popular category was "don't know" followed by Liberal and then New labour and Old Labour. Thatcherisim by contrast is most popular with the over 55's.
Given that Cameron's lead is based on the None of These/Don't Knows, it appears he is benefitting from simply being very vague indeed and deliberately not defining his policies. His chief danger is the evidence from the Telegraph that "The majority of new Conservative candidates selected to fight the next election are unabashed supporters of Margaret Thatcher's ideals".
If anything is guaranteed to frighten away the non-identifiers, it is the hard-line narrow Thatcherite vision of Tory party candidates. Therefore local Labour parties should be scrutinising the Tory candidates closely and outing their Thatcherite tendencies to the voters in their area.
8 comments:
Most of those people who define their political views as other, moderate or apathetic on facebook are really Tories. Believe me. :-)
Some of the other details are interesting as well, even if the subsamples are tiny and thus only of extremely limited use.
It's hard not to notice that while about two-thirds of people who said that they'd vote Tory or LibDem would be "certain" to vote in a General Election tomorrow, that only applies to about half of those who answered Labour...
PragueTory - Hmm.... Not sure there are any shy Tories anymore. More likely that they don't find any Tory ideology (either One Nation or Thatcherite) appealing, but are happy to say they'll vote Conservative as long as Cameron does his "Heir to Blair" routine.
Anyone can be in the lead while being all things to all men (and women) - in fact Blair did it so much better in the lead to '97 - but it's not so easy when you have to actually put forward a manifesto.
Alun - I agree. A big task for Labour will be getting out the vote, and it will be down to the local constituency parties to make it happen.
So you're arguing that the politically uncommitted vote Tory because we don't stand for much.
This unaligned group are voting Tory because of the incompetence and incoherence they see before their eyes. I'd have thought that there's little comfort in the fact that your support from probably the most objective part of the electorate is negligible.
PragueTory - there is no proof that the unaligned are "more objective" than the other groups (Neew Labour/Old Labour/Liberal/Thattcheries etc). Indeed they may simply be people who haven't spent much time thinking about politics and governance at all and are "vague".
And yes, they go for Cameron simply because he too is "vague" and is a blank screen that they can project all sorts of contradictory wishes onto. But at some point Cameron will have to produce a manifesto and his PPCs and MP's are all rabid Thatcherites - a group that repels most of the electorate - especially the non-committed.
Snowflake- why on earth are you bothering with that idiot Praguetory? No one else does, he just trawls through Labour blogs because no one is interested in his own lame blog . The 'uncommited' are NOT voting Tory because we have not had a general election yet. Voting intention isn't the same as actually voting, bye election wins are not the same as general elections.Just ask any Labour candidate who won a bye election from the Tories between 1985 and 1992.
The core support for the two main parties are more or less the same.Elections are won by the party that convinces the non aligned voters to back it. During government mid terms this block of voters usually move away from the government in voting intention polls. The only reason spotty Tories like PT are getting over excited is because the Tories have been so wretched they've not even enjoyed the usual false dawns of mid term government unpopularity until now.
Anon - I've already proven my ability to be popular when I was voted Best New Conservative blog in 2007. These days, I don't attempt to attract a readership - I just keep an online presence.
I suspect you both a point here - a lot of people who say they're "not political" actually turn out to have pretty right-wing views. But I'm also sure that the Cameron generic detail-lite niceness works to attract a good number of people who are genuninely unideological.
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