By Lord Ashcroft
On 28 August Douglas Carswell announced he was leaving the Conservative Party and joining UKIP. Five days later I published a poll of the Clacton constituency that put his support in the resulting by-election at 56%, with the Tories on 25%, Labour on 16%, and the Lib Dems and Others on 2% each: a 32-point Carswell lead.
The results on by-election day six weeks later were remarkably similar to those in my survey. (more…)
By Lord Ashcroft
Labour are on course for a comfortable victory in this week’s Heywood & Middleton by-election. In a poll completed at the weekend I found the party on 47%, 19 points ahead of UKIP on 28%, with the Conservatives in third place on 16%. (more…)
By Lord Ashcroft
The Conservatives are ahead in this week’s Ashcroft National Poll, conducted over the past weekend. Though the Tories are unchanged since last week on 32%, Labour have fallen to 30%, with the Lib Dems down a point on 7% and UKIP static at 17%. (more…)
By Lord Ashcroft
On the first day of the Conservative conference I explained why David Cameron needed to build a coalition of the willing – a band of voters willing to accept further austerity because they believed the results would be worth waiting for. Too many of the people whose support the Tories needed in order to stay in office either thought that any economic recovery would pass them by, or wondered why austerity was still necessary. They needed to understand the end to which austerity was the means and, bluntly, what was in it for them. (more…)
By Lord Ashcroft
The Conservatives are level with Labour in this week’s Ashcroft National Poll, conducted over the past turbulent weekend. Other surveys published in recent days have shown no consistent pattern; Labour leads with other pollsters have been up, down and unchanged. In the ANP both main parties remain within the margin of error of their long term average: 30% for the Tories, 34% for Labour. (more…)
By Lord Ashcroft
Below is the text of my presentation at the Conservative Party Conference this afternoon setting out my latest research in marginal seats and the Tories’ challenge in building an election-winning coalition of voters. The slides from my presentation are here.
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Good afternoon and as the proud proprietor of Conservative Home let me add my welcome to this event which is intended to set the scene and explain the public opinion backdrop to our last party conference before the general election. (more…)
By Lord Ashcroft
In the latest round of constituency research I have returned to the Liberal Democrat battleground. My study of the most marginal seats the Lib Dems were defending against Labour and the Conservatives, published in June, found the party on course to lose most of its most vulnerable seats, with a few notable exceptions. Over the summer I have looked at seats in England where the Lib Dems are defending bigger majorities to see how vulnerable they are against either rival. (more…)
By Lord Ashcroft
In the eight months remaining before the general election many voters face a dilemma. They prefer Labour to the Conservatives, but would rather have David Cameron in Downing Street than Ed Miliband. They wonder whose side the Tories are on, but doubt that Labour can be trusted with the economy or have learned the right lessons from their last spell in office.
Starting today in Birmingham David Cameron must help them resolve their quandary in his party’s favour. My latest research, involving a poll of over 8,000 people and discussions with undecided voters around the country, helps to show how he can do it. (more…)
By Lord Ashcroft
Labour are back in the lead by six points in this week’s Ashcroft National poll, conducted over the past weekend. The party remain unchanged on 33%, with the Conservatives on 27%, UKIP up three points to 17%, the Liberal Democrats and Greens static on 9% and 6% respectively, and Others up two points to 8%. The margin is comparable to the five-point Labour advantage in yesterday’s YouGov’s poll, which also found the party’s advantage up on last week. (more…)
By Lord Ashcroft
In my post-referendum poll in Scotland last Thursday I asked those who had voted No to independence which of three overarching reasons was the most important to their decision. Only just over a quarter named “a strong attachment to the UK and its shared history, culture and traditions”. Even fewer (25%) said it was that a No vote “would still mean extra powers for the Scottish Parliament together with the security of remaining part of the UK, giving the best of both worlds”.
By far the most important reason was that “the risks of becoming independent looked too great when it came to things like the currency, EU membership, the economy, jobs and prices”. (more…)