Duncan Smith can raise a glass to cheer in 2003

The Times ^ | 30 December 2002 | William Rees-Mogg

[Tomalak]

The last general election was a disaster for the opinion polls. They were wildly wrong. They are now again being quoted as though they were broadly reliable, and some of the interpretation, particularly on the Today programme, is so naive as to suggest invincible ignorance.

These are the facts. The Labour Party won the 2001 election with a lead in the United Kingdom of 9.0 per cent over the Conservatives, a swing of 1.75 percentage points to the Conservatives. This swing was not reflected in seats because of increased tactical voting by Liberal Democrat supporters in Labour marginals.

The Times Guide to the House of Commons lists 25 polls published in the last month of the campaign by what were then the four leading conventional polling organisations. Every one of these 25 polls exaggerated the Labour lead in the actual result. The average Labour lead given by these opinion polls was 17.9 per cent, almost exactly double the actual outcome. ICM was the least inaccurate, with an average lead of 14.5 per cent, Gallop had 16.25, NOP had 18, and MORI 22.4 per cent. They all predicted a Conservative meltdown which did not happen. They may be doing so again.

As all 25 polls were wrong, and all exaggerated Labour’s position, there must have been something badly wrong with their methods. Two main reasons for this systematic error have been given. The first is the failure to predict the low turnout. There may have been more potential Labour voters, but they did not actually vote. The second is that Conservative voters may have been more reluctant to speak to pollsters.

Now again frequent polls are being published. Obviously the pollsters must be conscious of their catastrophic failure in 2001 and may be making unacknowledged adjustments to their methods. YouGov, which has emerged as a new force in polling, uses a substantial method which may, or may not, prove reliable over time.

Bob Worcester, the chairman of MORI, is a very experienced pollster, whose results in 2001 were particularly far out; he has taken a brave course, which I welcome. In last Friday’s Financial Times he published two polls; one is on the old basis, but the second tries to deal with the problem of voter turnout.

This poll includes only those who say they are “absolutely certain to vote”. These figures are much better for the Conservatives, just as the outcome in 2001 was dramatically better than the polls during the campaign. They give Labour 37 per cent, Conservatives 33 per cent, Liberal Democrats 24 per cent; a Labour lead of only 4 per cent.

This poll also suggests that there may be a further fall in turnout at the next election. Only 52 per cent of voters are now saying that they are absolutely certain to vote. It seems possible that the next election will see turnout fall to 50 per cent, or below.

If one takes the “certain to vote” poll as relatively reliable, it confirms a trend which is being shown in other opinion polls, some of which may still be as inaccurate as they were last time. The Conservative support is stable, somewhere in the low thirties, approximately a third of those likely to vote. Labour support is falling; it is now well below 2001 levels, let alone 1997 levels. Labour lost 2.75 million votes between 1997 and 2001. The Liberal Democrats are gaining strongly. What is happening is not a decline on the Right, but a realignment of support on the Left of British politics.

There is a 5 per cent swing from Labour to the Liberal Democrats in Great Britain. That would not, in itself, give the Lib Dems many seats. They would pick up some Conservative marginals, but there are only three Labour seats vulnerable to the Lib Dems on this swing, while there are 19 which could be won by the Tories. However, if the Lib Dems are ever to share power, it will be in coalition with a weakened Labour Party. They need Tory gains to reach a hung Parliament.

That is still a long way off. Labour has an overall majority of 165; that could be cut by ten redundant Scottish seats and by 20 or so English seats on the present swing. It would still stand at about 100. But Labour is getting dangerously close to the flip point, at which small reductions in the share of the votes cause a disproportionate loss of seats.

England is always the real battle ground, with more than 80 per cent of all seats. If the MORI poll is right, and if the swing is uniform, Labour is now only barely ahead in England. My calculations give these English figures: Labour 36.5 per cent, Conservatives 35.5 per cent, Lib Dems 24.5 per cent. A small further swing from Labour to the Lib Dems would push Labour down below 35 per cent in England; that could be dangerous to its overall majority. On these figures, Iain Duncan Smith probably has little to fear in the May local government elections.

At present the Lib Dems have the momentum. Do they have the leadership, the resources and the policies to take the swing further? On leadership, MORI may be reliable on the trends, which are unflattering to all three leaders. In 2002 Charles Kennedy has always been the most popular, but he has fallen from a positive 37 per cent to 23 per cent; Tony Blair from a positive 12 to a negative 16 per cent; Iain Duncan Smith from a negative 8 to a negative 30 per cent. When his party has been doing so well, Kennedy’s fall of 14 points is disappointing, but it compares favourably with Duncan Smith’s fall of 22 or Blair’s decline of 28 points. Kennedy is weakened by the widely held view that he is an engaging leader of a minority party, but not a potential Prime Minister.

The issue which is helping the Lib Dems most is the threat of war with Iraq. The Labour Party is badly split; the Lib Dems are united in criticism of Blair’s policies; some Conservatives are critical, but most of them basically support the American line. The probability is, however, that the Iraq war will be history long before a general election in 2005.

The overriding domestic issues at the next election may well be the economy and expenditure. Currently, public confidence in the economy is falling, but 2005 is too far away to know what the economy will then be like. A weak economy would help the Liberal Democrats, but might help the Conservatives still more. If voters lose confidence in Gordon Brown’s economic prudence, that would be very damaging to Labour; the Lib Dems would be a natural home for disillusioned Labour voters.

Yet the Lib Dems are even more of a tax-and-spend party than Labour, equally unwilling to broaden the funding base for the social services. By the next election, tax increases will have taken effect. The social services may still suffer from their present problems. The Tories will be able to campaign against the failures of tax and spend, and may make some headway. That is not a Lib Dem issue.

The biggest problem for the Liberal Democrats is Europe — not just the euro, but Valéry Giscard d’Estaing’s new constitution. That will be a central issue in the next two years. There are expected to be three stages: the publication of the proposed constitution in June or July of 2003, the inter-governmental conference in late 2003 or 2004, and then the ratification process. The proposed constitution will create a United States of Europe, though it will be far less democratic than the Constitution of the United States. The Conservatives are demanding a referendum. Obviously a constitution for a single European state is more important than the single currency, on which a referendum is already promised, or the London mayoralty, on which a referendum was held. Labour plans to refuse a referendum but to ratify on a whipped vote in Parliament.

Most of the leaders of the Lib Dems are keen Europeans, even if that means transferring economic policy, interest rates, foreign policy, defence, crime and law to a non-democratic European bureaucracy, even if it means a single European state. Their voters are not all so keen, but the leaders accept the line of Blair’s Cardiff speech, a United States of Europe in all but name. Yet they are liberals and they are democrats. Can they support Labour’s policy of transferring most of Parliament’s remaining powers to Europe without a referendum? They will have to choose between their European zeal and the principles of their party. Are they going to leave the ultimate defence of British democracy to their ancient enemy, the Tories?

[Tomalak]

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[Sparta]

Interesting.