Peter Hoskin

Is the Tory poll lead really all that soft?

One of the most frequent claims made about the Tory poll lead is that it’s “soft”; that it’s only due to protest votes against the Government.  Yet an intriguing survey by the essential Politics Home suggests that may not be the case after all.  They asked over a 1,000 people who they intend to vote for at the next election, and then followed it up with the question, “How enthusiastic are you about this prediction?”  Here are the results:

  Con

Lab Lib
Very enthusiastic 47%  34% 24%
Quite enthusiastic 32% 31% 42%
Not very enthusiastic 12% 23% 19%
Not enthusiastic 2% 6% 3%
Actively depressed but I cannot foresee a better option 5% 5% 11%

As you can see, the Tories come out well on top – with a surpisingly low amount of “very enthusiastic” support for the Lib Dems, whose supporters are usually regarded as pretty hardcore.  Will be fascinating to see more data like this in the months ahead.

Comments

Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.

Already a subscriber? Log in