Elections UK

Qql mot a 2 semaines sur les elections legislatives de vos voisins Britaniques ?

Le Parti de Blair est credite de 37 a 40% contre 31 a 32 % pr les Conservateur selon les derniers sondages. Troisieme bataille electoral pr Blair qui surf sur une meilleur vague que son adversaire Michael Howard, le chef de file des Tories, qui lui mene une campagne tres agressive centree principalement sur l'immigration en esperant seduire l'electorat travailliste desabuse par 8 ans de Blair.

State of the parties - Guardian/ICM poll
Labour 39% (-)
Conservatives 33% (-)
Liberal Democrats 22% (+1)
Others 7% (-)

Labour lead: 6%

Don't believe the polls that show a huge Labour lead

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the main parties are still neck and neck

Polly Toynbee
Wednesday April 20, 2005
The Guardian

A wise commentator does not buck the polls. And the polls say pretty conclusively that Labour is well ahead by as much as 10 points with the wind in its sails. If momentum is everything, this looks like that crucial tipping point. And yet, and yet ... it doesn't feel that way.
This is not the impression you get in snapshot canvassing, nor what most MPs and ministers feel is happening in their patches. They don't quite know what's going on, but landslide is not the mood of the moment. Maybe YouGov, the maverick poll that puts the two main parties neck and neck in popular vote, is sailing closest to the wind of public mood. Its weighted email method may prove to probe voters' more honest thoughts. Maybe when people are asked by pollsters on the telephone which party they will vote for, many respond with a strong anti-Tory sentiment. What, Tory? Not me! But does that mean they really will go out and vote for Tony Blair on the day? After all, no one is suggesting there will be many more Tory voters, only that there may be many fewer Labour ones.


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Wherever you go it's all too easy to find people who say they voted Labour last time but certainly won't this time, not on their lives (though they could well be lying on either count: they may never have voted Labour or they may decide on the day to hold their noses all the way to the polls after all). Some of the "not-on-your-lifers" talk about Iraq, the Blair smirk or Blair lies. Others have some personal grudge for which they blame the government. Another lot of the "certainly-not-this-timers", prodded for the reasons why, will admit almost in a whisper that it is immigration and asylum that stops them voting Labour now. This feels uncomfortably like a pincer movement moving in from both left and right on Labour's previous vote.
So if the polls are right then where are all the many people who will be voting Labour now who didn't vote Labour before? Where are all the people who are supposed to be counterbalancing this anti-Blair grudge? To the casual, non-scientific observer they are so rare as to be invisible on the street. That's why, by an unscientific pricking of the thumbs, canvassing along the streets raises natural doubts about the state of the polls; I shall be glad to be proved absurdly wrong on the night for doubting the overwhelming polling evidence, but I am not alone in this hunch.

Enfield is a good place to observe, because the Guardian's prolonged study - since the last election - of everything that moves and breathes in the borough has been our unique test-bed for Labour's second term. Has Labour delivered? The assessment by our specialist correspondents is mostly good - and mostly mirrors a story of steady national improvement. This is a poorish place at one end, richer at the other, which makes Enfield Southgate marginal. It has a highly mobile population with many newly arrived immigrants coming and going, hindering accurate planning in school and health. Nevertheless, Ofsted has been impressed with rapid school improvements, giving a "highly satisfactory" rating; despite English not being the first language for many children, they are doing better. Though still missing some goals, GCSE results outstripped their targets. MRSA has been a problem locally, but a weak local hospital has pulled itself up and has delivered on waiting times. Train delays are as bad as ever in this commuter suburb, but the new Enfield Tory council has cleaned up dirty streets, abandoned cars and fly-tipping. People admit it's cleaner - but say the quality of life is still lower. Crime has fallen but no one believes it and people feel more unsafe than they did. One great Labour improvement has been the arrival of universal nursery education for all three- and four-year-olds and rapid growth in childcare places - more than 2,000 extra here. But new parents may not know this is new.

So we know more about the objective facts in Enfield than in most places. There ought to be some general sense that things are slowly getting better, the government is competent, jobs are plentiful and life is improving. But that is not what people say. As every where else, perception and reality are poles apart. The Tories and their press may not win, but how well they poison opinion with their "nothing works" public pessimism. (In a curious circularity, Tory posters now use torn-out Daily Mail headlines with the date to "prove" the Tory alarms the Mail is parroting.)

In Enfield Southgate Stephen Twigg, the schools minister, has one of those rare political faces that people warm to when they see them - and most people seem to know him. But will enough of them vote for him? He doesn't know. Old friends and party loyalists greet him warmly, but so do defectors: "I really like that guy, but no, not even Stephen can make me vote for Blair. I can't!" says a man in his 30s, screwing up his face. "No, I can't!" For many of widely varied ages and occupations it's Iraq and all Iraq has come to represent. But the attack also comes from another flank: a woman Twigg has helped in the past says she likes him but won't be voting for him either; her daughter has moved to Newcastle to get a council house with a garden, "because the immigrants are getting all the good homes round here", and he can't persuade her it's not so.

Even quite a few people working in the health service and schools say they won't vote for him, which might make some politicians want to give public servants a good shaking - or even wish them the future under a Howard government that they richly deserve. No, swears a nurse, she hasn't seen any improvement in her hospital or in her wages (which is simply not true). But then one model Labour voter says the New Deal for Lone Parents has given her back her life: she now has a job, tax credits and childcare credits to pay for the after-school and holiday care she needs. But where are the switchers to Labour who might match the defectors? Not even one.

Well, in all probability my anecdotage is as worthless as personal witness usually is in any serious assessment of social phenomena. It may be that Labour MPs are just rattled - no bad thing since elections are supposed to rattle incumbents. They are perplexed by finding voters so deeply disgruntled, unmoved by tangible improvements. In all the last three elections the Labour vote was grossly exaggerated by the polls. In 2001 Labour won by 9%, but the predictions ranged from a Labour win of 11% to a walloping 28% by Mori. The same happened in 1997 and notoriously in 1992. Since last time all the pollsters have taken note and adapted their methods. But have they got it right this time? Don't count on it.