Yahoo News Campaign catchup: Farage crossover, Swinney knee-shower, Curtice rhubarb-grower
Good morning. It’s only one poll, it’s within the margin of error, it definitely doesn’t mean the Conservative party is extinct … and it’s all anyone can talk about. The campaign today has been totally dominated by the YouGov poll which came out last night, showing the figures that Tories have been braced for ever since Nigel Farage got back in the race: the fabled “crossover”, where Reform overtakes the Conservatives in second place.
More on what this does and doesn’t mean, and the full range of fruits John Curtice uses to make jam, after the headlines.
What happened today
Conservatives | Labour would be handed a “blank cheque” if current polling were replicated at the election, Rishi Sunak has said after Nigel Farage’s party overtook the Conservatives for the first time. A YouGov poll on Thursday put Labour on 37%, Reform on 19% and the Conservatives on 18%, though the pollster said its findings were within the margin of error.
Women in politics | Abuse of female election candidates is becoming worse, say candidates, activists and charities. With research showing that gender was the most significant factor increasing risk for online abuse, prospective MPs told the Guardian they have faced “horrendous” comments online more frequently than male colleagues.
Northern Ireland | Sinn Féin held an event launching its candidates for election, with Stormont first minister Michelle O’Neill saying she expected to retain all seven seats that are currently held. Party president Mary Lou McDonald said a vote for Sinn Féin was a vote “to reject years of Tory cuts”.
Analysis: Five things the ‘crossover’ poll does and doesn’t mean
If a Reform/Conservative crossover event conjures horrifying images of Richard Tice and Suella Braverman in the same action sequel, the visions of what’s coming next at Conservative headquarters today are likely to be even more apocalyptic. There is no doubt that this is a massive symbolic moment, and the rough questioning for the Tories in the media today – as well as an exultant press conference from Farage and Tice – suggests how the momentum it generates will likely mean more than the particulars of the poll itself.
For a sense of the man profiting from this shift, read Daniel Boffey’s profile of Farage. And here are some starting points on the limits of the poll’s significance, and what it might portend.
It doesn’t mean that the Conservative party has been ‘overtaken’
A single poll showing a single point lead for Reform over the Tories, which – as YouGov point out prominently – is within the margin of error, does not constitute an overtaking. Even the word seems wrong: cars, horses, and distance runners who manage to overtake their opponent are suddenly able to accelerate into the open track up ahead. Public opinion obviously doesn’t work like that.
Political scientists will always tell you never to look at a single poll in isolation, and as Paula Surridge (who wrote an excellent piece for the Guardian about all this today) points out, “statistically Conservative 18 Reform 17 is no different to Conservative 18 Reform 19”. As our state of the race polling tracker below shows, the averages are still in the Tories favour. But there’s no doubt the gap is closing, and that it looks to be doing so pretty remorselessly.
It doesn’t mean that Farage is, as he claims, the ‘leader of the opposition’
He has been talking big, obviously: “This is the inflection point,” he said. “The only wasted vote now is a Conservative vote. We are the challengers to Labour. We are on our way.” And this seems like the right tactic, because it sounds persuasive and is likely to get a few potential Tory-Reform switchers off the fence.
But as he also admitted, the way the UK’s first past the post system works counts against Reform – it would take a very large further swing towards them before they start to rack up significant numbers of MPs. On the other hand, as he did not admit, it just isn’t true to say that a Conservative vote is a wasted vote. It is hard to find a seat where voting Conservative will give Labour a win over Reform, but it is very easy to find seats where voting Reform will give Labour victory over the Conservative. The polls would have to move a lot more for that to change.
It doesn’t mean that the Tories are too leftwing
Nor does the size of Labour’s lead automatically mean that the Tories are too rightwing. The main thing is that they have been too bad at government for years. Matt Singh, of Number Cruncher Politics, points out a telling detail from a recent poll by Lord Ashcroft: the top six reasons given by 2019 Tory voters who have defected are all things like “they have not delivered what they promised” and “they have been in government too long and have run out of steam”. Just 28% said they were not Conservative enough, and 11% that they were too right wing.
It does mean more airtime for Reform
You can now expect Farage to relentlessly make the case that he should be given more prominence in the (incredibly numerous!) election TV debates. Today he said that he should be included in the BBC debate next week currently featuring the Tories, Labour, Lib Dems and SNP – which seems entirely fair; and that he should get a one-on-one debate with Keir Starmer, which does not, but is quite funny and depressing for the Tories. Some of this might actually succeed – but just as importantly, demanding it will garner more slots on news bulletins, and Farage will become even more inescapable.
It does hint at the possibility of a chaotic realignment
The point that comes through most strongly from Surridge’s piece is that the right is now potentially facing the same kind of election-losing division that has long been a subject of complaint on the broad left. As she also says:
This is perhaps a portent of what is to come in electoral competition over the course of the next parliament, a result of fragmentation in the electorate and the party system over the past decade. It should be a warning to Labour not to take any part of its coalition of voters for granted.
What’s also striking is that there is nothing about the Tory collapse that has yet persuaded voters to return to them: as ever more outlandish polls are released, nobody seems to mind if they shrivel away.
They’ll still probably hang on to second spot in parliament. As William Gibson once said of the future, realignment is already here – it’s just not very evenly distributed. The rise of tactical voting, an ever-more volatile electorate and the vagaries of first past the post make for a very strange brew: it is also possible, if unlikely, that we will have a scenario where Reform outpoll the Tories and the Lib Dems by several percentage points, but still only have a couple of seats, and PMQs is Keir Starmer v Ed Davey. It’s pretty hard to work out exactly all this is going in the long-term. But there will be more of it. And if the YouGov poll is still an outlier, it may soon look like an omen.
State of the race
Voting intention over time: Latest average of all polls over a moving 10-day period, showing Great Britain voting intention
Guardian graphic. Source: Polling companies listed by the British Polling Council. Polls exclude “don’t knows”. Last updated 14 Jun 2024.
Winner of the day
Sir John Curtice, who further cements his national treasure status in this fine Libby Brooks interview, in which he hits the lampshade overhead as he gesticulates; reveals that he grows raspberry, redcurrants, strawberries and rhubarb in his allotment, and makes jam; remembers being allowed to stay up late to watch the election results at the age of 10; and says he will be “shitting bricks” on election night.
Losers of the day
Politicians with beards, after the Beard Liberation Front launched its 10-point manifesto and noted that “it is deeply disappointing that the main parties have largely conformed to the clean shaven man in a suit stereotype”. Key demands include “a statue of the last hirsute Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, to be erected in Parliament Square” and “a luxury tax on the shaving industry”.
Unsubtle dig at the prime minister of the day
That came from Boris Johnson, who made his first intervention of the campaign by endorsing former levelling up secretary and veteran of the brief Liz Truss premiership Simon Clarke. Quite by chance, Johnson found himself mentioning the 2019 election and “one of the biggest majorities our party has seen for a very long time”. Clarke most recently made news when he called for Rishi Sunak to stand down in January.
Quote of the day
Look, we are only halfway through, right, things can change. We’ve all seen things change in elections, but the poll is a stark warning … I’m not going to underplay it”
Chief secretary to the Treasury Laura Trott on the YouGov poll showing Reform ahead of the Conservatives for the first time
Number of the day
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24%
The proportion of men intending to vote for Reform UK, against 17% for the Tories, according to that YouGov poll.
Dubious photo opportunity of the day
SNP leader John Swinney, who headed to Munich for the opening match of Euro 2024, Germany v Scotland. Lovely knees.
What’s at stake
The climate crisis has barely featured as an issue in this election – but the four environmental experts who assess the main parties’ platforms for the Guardian find that the choices are nonetheless stark. “Don’t be fooled,” writes Simon Evans of CarbonBrief. “Short of breaking the UK’s fabled cross-party consensus on climate change, the gap between the two biggest parties could hardly be any wider.”
James Murray, editor of BusinessGreen, sets out how, in lieu of a meaningful Tory climate programme, pressure on Labour is likely to come from the left:
Labour may have faced criticism for a safety-first approach, but the party’s manifesto is a reminder its climate policy programme is genuinely ambitious, even radical in places.
The proposed GB Energy venture, the National Wealth Fund, the doubling of funding for energy efficiency programmes, the commitment to sweeping planning reform and the pledge to end new oil and gas drilling licences all suggest Labour is serious about engineering a step-change in the pace of the UK’s net zero transition …
But the Lib Dem and Green manifestos underscore how a Labour government would face significant pressure from its left flank to deliver even more ambitious climate policies. The Lib Dems’ energy and climate policies are broadly similar to Labour’s plans, but they propose pulling the net zero target forward to 2045 – a move plenty of climate scientists would endorse.
And while the Greens’ plans for new wealth and carbon taxes are unlikely to curry favour with Rachel Reeves, the multibillion pound investment plans they would enable are arguably the only package truly commensurate with the scale of the climate crisis.
Read more
Watch this
This Labour city backed Brexit and went Tory. What did it get in return? – Anywhere but Westminster
In the first video of a new series of Anywhere but Westminster, John Harris and John Domokos revisit Stoke-on-Trent, the once-loyal Labour city that went totally Tory in 2019. Has “levelling up” money made up for swingeing local cuts? Will Labour win again? And what do people working hard to turn the place around think about the future?
What’s on the grid
Today, 6.30pm | Rishi Sunak gives press conference at conclusion of G7.
Today, 7.30pm | Keir Starmer interview with Nick Robinson for Panorama on BBC One.
Monday, 1pm | Nigel Farage launches Reform’s manifesto.
