Cameron’s Achilles heel: why are Tories not advancing?

With barely 100 days to go to the general election (104 to be precise) there’s a little number that ought to worry David Cameron. The number is minus 0.5 per cent - but it captures in a nutshell what all his campaigning and all those encouraging growth and unemployment figures have achieved over the past 12 months.

Ian Jones, on his invaluable website UK General Election 2015, has tracked the poll averages for the Conservatives, Labour, the Lib Dems and Ukip from January last year. And what’s most interesting is that the Tories have barely moved.

“The Conservatives are more or less exactly where they were this time last year,” writes Jones. “The whole of the past 12 months have had next to no impact on the Tories’ poll rating. By contrast, all of the other parties have moved. Labour’s down around five points; Ukip is up around five points. The Lib Dems are still polling their worst rating of the entire parliament.”

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The Tory average has dropped by 0.5 per cent from 32.3 per cent in January 2014 to 31.8 per cent now. In the same period, Labour’s average has fallen from 38 per cent to 33.2 per cent, the Lib Dems have dropped from 9.9 per cent to 7.6 per cent and Ukip have climbed from 9.9 per cent to 14.9 per cent.

(And indeed today’s new YouGov poll has the three main parties bang on those averages: the Tories on 31, Labour on 33 and the Lib Dems on seven. Only Ukip are “off-average” – on 17 per cent.)

Of course, Labour’s drop in fortunes over the year is encouraging for Team Cameron – but it’s not nearly enough. Remember, at the 2010 election a seven–point lead over Labour was not adequate to produce outright victory. Even level-pegging with Labour (allowing for a margin of error in the polling) would mean Ed Miliband gaining Tory seats on 7 May.

So, can Cameron achieve in the next 104 days when has eluded him in the last 365? Peter Kellner of YouGov says Yes – up to a point. He predicts that the Tories will advance to 35 per cent and Labour fall back to 31 per cent. That four-point lead would gave the Conservatives 293 seats to Labour’s 277.

Both Cameron and Miliband would fall well short of the 326 that produces a Commons majority – but Cameron, with the largest party, would get first chance to form a coalition. (This won’t be as easy as last time: the Lib Dems’ fall in popularity means they are unlikely to win more than 30 seats: Cameron will have to look beyond them to make up that 326 total.)

Kellner says his prediction takes account of recent YouGov polls and “the lessons of history about how public opinion moves in the final weeks before general elections.” He says when the Tories were in power in the 1980s and 90s the “final four months saw a two-three per cent swing back from Labour to the Tories”.

Don’t count on it, Lewis Baston tells Tory activists in a column on the Conservative Home website. He says that although governments usually do better that oppositions in the run-in to an election, “the best Conservative showings are from the 1979-92 period when the party was most dominant in campaign skills and funding, and polling was inaccurate”.

One of Cameron’s targets is to win back switchers to Ukip. But, says Baston, “people clearly do not abandon their flirtations with ‘minor’ parties and go back to the big two when the election draws near.”

Support for Ukip, the SNP and the Greens “will probably not subside much. It could even snowball if the electorate – which is ever more weakly aligned to the parties – feels in vindictive mood towards politics as usual.”

Another part of the case for Cameron optimism, according to Kellner, is that those Tory MPs elected for the first time in 2010 will enjoy a “first time incumbency effect… On average, the bonus is worth two per cent... this would allow the Tories to hold on to around 20 seats they would otherwise lose.“

Not so fast, says Lord Ashcroft, who specialises in polling marginal constituencies. His research suggests the incumbency effect isn’t automatic: “The MPs who enjoy the biggest boost from incumbency will be the ones who earn it.”

Ashcroft’s surveys ask voters two questions – what is their general party preference and how will vote in their own constituency?

Lib Dem MPs are the biggest beneficiaries, as Mike Smithson of Political Betting wrote after analysing Ashcroft’s findings. “The difference is enormous. The Lib Dems in the same poll move up from 22 to 36 per cent while all the other parties fall ... the approach highlights what appears to be quite a high level of tactical voting by Labour voters.”

The New Statesman’s Harry Lambert, who also has analysed Ashcroft’s marginal polls, goes further: “It appears that the 2010 crop of Tory MPs are not winning over voters in the way many incumbents have in the past.”

Indeed, further Ashcroft research shows that Labour MPs seeking reelection in seats they lost in 2010 could be rewarded by voters – what might be termed a ‘loyalty effect’ rather than an ‘incumbency effect’.

Ashcroft has polled the seats of Mike O'Brien, Warwickshire North; Andrew Dismore, Hendon; Nick Palmer, Broxtowe; Bob Blizzard, Waveney; Rob Marris, Wolverhampton SW; David Drew, Stroud; Patrick Hall, Bedford; Joan Ryan, Enfield North; and Sally Keeble, Northampton North.

On the second Ashcroft question, eight out of the nine saw their lead over the sitting Tory MP widen by between one and five per cent.

In Northampton, Sally Keeble sees her lead extend from two to four per cent on Ashcroft’s second question. The seat is number 40 on Labour’s target list and, if she wins it, Labour will almost certainly be the biggest party in the House of Commons, giving Miliband - not Cameron - the chance to form a coalition government.