ANALYSIS:Next year's British election will be fought in 650 constituencies but it will be decided in just a few dozen marginal seats, writes MARK HENNESSY
DAVID CAMERON has spent a lot of time over the last couple of years in places such as Telford, 30 miles north of Birmingham and one of the new towns created in the 1960s planning boom. His future will depend on whether the Tories can oust the local Labour MP, David Wright, and more than 100 other Labour MPs, along with a decent clutch of Liberal Democrats in key marginal seats.
Cameron needs the biggest swing – 11 per cent – in 60 years just to win by one seat, and a veritable avalanche to win by enough to be able to govern during the tough times facing a heavily indebted UK.
The majority of opinion polls still gauge that Cameron is ahead by up to 13 points, though for the Tories a disturbing minority offers signals that the gap is less, and narrowing. However, a Daily Telegraph poll this weekend brought him good news.
In 32 key marginal seats held by Labour, the Conservatives lead by 42 per cent to 36 per cent – compared with the 44/34 result in Labour’s favour in such seats in 2005. Indeed, the YouGov poll suggests that voters in such places flock to the Conservatives all the more when they realise that their ballots could decide who holds power.
However, a caveat must be entered about this poll and others, since the majority of seats in England and Wales – but not Scotland – will be fought on new boundaries. An analysis of “issue” questions put in a variety of polls holds some extra worries for the Conservatives, since it is clear that the public – however unhappy with Brown – has not definitively decided in favour of Cameron. Two-thirds believe the Tories’ plans to cut inheritance tax, which would cost £1 billion and benefit few, show that they “mainly want to help the rich”– a reaction that scares Tories witless.
Just a quarter think education would improve under Cameron; and a little more than one-fifth believe that he can improve the NHS. Even fewer believe he can do much about crime.
For Labour, however, the news is grim, since its woes are no longer directly linked to voters’ despair about the economy, according to a Mori tracking poll. In January, this index stood at minus 40. Today it is plus 23 – the biggest turnaround in optimism since it began in 1979.
Cameron is regarded by voters as more trustworthy than Brown, the more likely to have “a really good idea”, the more likely to get the State’s finances back in shape and best able to lead the UK out of recession. Two-thirds see him as being the person best equipped to be the leader of his party. Just a quarter think the same about Brown.
So far so good for Cameron, but the issue is not settled. Nearly half of those polled in October by the Independent on Sunday said that they “don’t really know what [he] stands for”; 56 per cent agreed he was “best of a bad lot”.
A Times/Populus survey cast doubts on the belief that the Tories are doing well because they have changed under Cameron, rather than because Labour is simply doing badly: just 28 per cent think they have “really changed”. Over two-thirds put the Tories’ popularity down to Labour’s unpopularity.
Cameron’s popularity is ahead of his party’s, too. On six major issues – ranging from public service job losses to the protection of the vulnerable – he is more trusted than his party. For instance, 47 per cent believe he has “the best interests of ordinary people at heart”; 41 per cent say the same about his party.
Interestingly, Labour’s figures on four of those questions are significantly better than the Tories’. But so far little of the backing that Labour has on issues translates into support from voters who are undecided: and their decisions will be critical.
Mark Hennessy is London Editor