Tories have left it too late, Ashcroft warns Cameron

The former Tory party treasurer turned pollster Lord Ashcroft has a chilling message for David Cameron: nothing is going to change between now and 7 May to bring him the extra support he needs to stay in power.

Drawing on evidence from focus groups, he says parties can’t change in four weeks what they failed to fix over the past five years.

“My focus groups with undecided voters have shown little of substance is getting through to most people but what they do hear reinforces what they already think about the parties – good and bad,” he says.

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Grist to the Ashcroft argument are the latest polls. Team Cameron might have been encouraged to see the weekly Opinium poll in The Observer give them a three-point jump to put them ahead of Labour by two points (36 to 34) – possibly thanks to a Ukip fall of three points.

But then look at YouGov, who poll daily. In their Sunday Times poll, the Tories were neck and neck with Labour after gaining a point while Labour lost one.

Yet today, in their poll for The Sun, YouGov have Labour back in the lead by three points: Con 33 (down 1), Lab 36 (up 2), Lib Dems 7 (u/c), Ukip 13 (u/c), Greens 5 (down 1).

In short, it’s still neck-and-neck and Ashcroft’s point that nothing’s “getting through” appears well founded.

There’s support for Ashcroft’s view from academic Dr Stephen Fisher. He has looked at all 17 post-war general elections to see what happened in the last 25 days of each campaign. His verdict: “Governments are much more likely to lose ground” than increase their support in the final phase of the campaign.

Another dent in Tory optimism comes from YouGov’s Peter Kellner, one of the most steadfast believers in David Cameron’s survival.

He has been constantly predicting a Tory victory since 2013. But he has finally revised his forecast, saying for the first time that the Tory vote plus the Lib Dem vote won’t give the current coalition a majority on 7 May.

He says the Tories have failed to achieve “crossover” – a consistent lead in the polls “which they had hoped to secure by Easter week”.

Kellner also notes that Labour have made no progress in rolling back the Nationalist surge in Scotland. And Lord Ashcroft’s “no change” dictum applies equally to Labour: they too have longstanding strengths and weaknesses.

There are, however, two crucial differences between Labour and the Tories. Labour gather their votes more efficiently – doing better in key marginals and piling up fewer large majorities in safe seats. That means they are likely to win more seats if they are on level-pegging with the Tories.

Ed Miliband also has better prospects for support in a hung parliament - however uninviting he might find the prospect of having to rely on the Scottish Nationalists.

So it is Cameron not Miliband who needs the game-changer. And Lord Ashcroft says it won’t come.

He argues that in order to win, the Tories needed to get rid of factors that were putting people off voting for them. Yet they score no better now issues such as the NHS than they did at the last election.

“If too many voters see the Tories as the nasty party," he concludes, "they seem unlikely to win anybody over by ramping up the attacks on Miliband.”