YouGov predicts a Tory wipe-out

The latest YouGov poll on voting intention has shown Labour to be 33 points ahead of the Conservative party in the wake of the mini-budget announcement last week. The lead is the highest ever recorded by a political party in a published poll since the late 1990s.

Credit: trendradars.com

By: Sam Feierabend.

If an election was held tomorrow, the forecast would be 54% of vote share for Labour and just 21% for Conservative. Even more damning for the Tories, is that of those who voted for the party in 2019, less than two fifths would now vote the same way. 17% would swing to Labour which in historical comparison, is far higher than the 5% swing that was seen the last time Labour were leading the polls. One estimate shows that the Conservatives would lose a whopping 304 seats in an imminent election, leaving them with just 61, their lowest ever. Labour would win an extra 296 seats, putting them in control of 498 constituencies, another new record.

While it is always naïve to take the results of polls as facts, certainly considering it could be up to two years before another election, the latest YouGov offering will have those who are sceptical of new Prime Minister Liz Truss feeling smug. The decline in Tory support has been put down to the mini budget announced by Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, amid fears that new policy will send interest rates soaring and knock-on effect on mortgages.

However, this motion is not a full budget, and can be voted down in Commons, so the constitutional convention that if a budget fails, then the Government falls does not apply. This may save Kwarteng and Truss.

That being said the British public are now seemingly jumping a sinking Tory ship, even more so after Keir Starmer’s rousing speech at the Labour Conference outlining his plan to save the economy. The Prime Minister’s appearances on regional radio on the 29 September did nothing to help her cause, except to prove how she is showing Thatcherist character – this lady is not for U-turning…just yet.

Anything less than some form of recovery after the Conservative conference in Birmingham next week will spell trouble for Liz Truss. For her to cling on to power, she needs to act decisively and fast to change her doomed premiership.