Vagaries Of Perception

I don’t believe for one moment that at the next General Election the Conservatives would take 49% of the vote while Labour only 23%.

It just is not going to happen. People can say whatever they want when answering opinion polls but when it actually counts many would still vote Labour having previously said otherwise.

The problem is that the Conservatives are still unpopular; perhaps less unpopular than Labour are currently, but nonetheless still unpopular. The opinion polls and statistics highlighted in the newspapers rarely tell the full story – that of declining turnouts and a fall in the number of people saying they are certain or likely to vote.

While the Conservatives may supposedly be set to take a higher percentage of the vote than Labour, the actual number of votes set to be cast at the next election will probably decline meaning that each party will receive fewer votes in total. Turnout may only increase slightly if the result appears to be particularly close, similar to the increased turnout in the recent Mayoral elections.

There is of course also the fact that opinion polls are based upon uniform swings and General Elections do not produce exact uniform swings from constituency to constituency. For example, the Conservatives poll very well in the South East but very poorly in Scotland. Overall polling figures often do not reflect such regional differences.

The upcoming Crewe and Nantwich by-election will almost undoubtedly represent another wake-up call for the party hierarchy and the small number of Cameron-fanatical members who seem to increasingly frequent ConservativeHome.

If the Conservatives fail to win the seat, then not only will it have been over twenty years since the party won a parliamentary by-election from any opposition, but stark proof that the much discussed opinion polls of bubble politics are almost worthless.