10 things that Labour supporters should bear in mind today

Yesterday’s two opinion polls showing Labour 5% ahead (and one showing a 4 point lead) – from Lord Ashcroft and Populus – provided a much-needed shot-in-the-arm for party activists and have put the pressure back on David Cameron, who after all is a leader who has just lost two by-elections to UKIP. Labour has not had two consecutive 5% leads like this since the very start of October.

The headline figures are:

• Ashcroft – Lab 32% (+2), Con 27% (-2), UKIP 18% (+2), LD 7% (-2), Green 7% (-), Others 8% (-)
• Populus – Lab 36% (-), Con 31% (-2), UKIP 15% (+1), LD 9% (-), Green 5%, Others 4%.
• YouGov – Lab 34% (+1), Con 30% (-3), UKIP 18% (+2) LD 6% (-1), Green 6%, Others 6%

We shouldn’t get over-excited, as this might not be the start of a trend, and even if it is these are not stunning vote share figures (32%, 36% and 34%), but it is good to see that the direction of travel is positive after a week when the media did its best to drive Labour back into crisis off the back of the self-inflicted wound of Emily Thornberry’s Rochester white van man tweet. All these polls were conducted entirely after the by-election and the Thornberry incident.

Some things that Labour supporters should take away from the current situation:

1. We are very much still in the game. Despite everything that has happened in the last month we are still capable on the current polls, even factoring in massive losses to the SNP in Scotland, of assembling either a narrow majority or being within touching distance of one.

2. The result in Rochester & Strood – UKIP gaining a second Tory seat – seems to have had more impact on voters than the Thornberry kerfuffle. Perhaps Ed’s decisiveness in asking Emily to resign actually impressed voters.

3. Lucy Powell’s appointment to the General Election team seems to have made a real impact – as Tom Watson tweeted she has brought “focus and message”.

4. The tougher policy stances set out last week by Yvette Cooper and Rachel Reeves on immigration and benefits may have also made a positive impact – they certainly haven’t hurt us.

5. Labour’s position in Scotland remains appalling. Populus has us trailing the SNP 44% to 31% and Ashcroft by 49% to 21%. The Populus figures would see Labour losing a net 24 Scottish MPs to have only 17; the Ashcroft ones would see us only having one Scottish MP. The current ballot for Scottish Labour Leader is of huge importance to whether we win the General Election, not just future Holyrood elections.

6. The corollary of these awful Scottish numbers is that we are doing disproportionately well in England where 533 MPs are elected. Ashcroft’s figures for England are Lab 34%, Con 28%, UKIP 22%, Green 8%, LD 6%. Mike Smithson of PoliticalBetting.com has pointed out that Labour won 92 more seats than the Tories in England when it was actually behind them on votes. A 6% Labour lead in England is nearer to the 2001 result, which was a Labour landslide. Smithson describes the Ashcroft England-only results as “absolutely devastating for the Tories and show the damage UKIP is doing”.

7. The Greens are continuing to poll well. Their new vote is coming disproportionately from 2010 Lib Dem voters (they have taken 19% of the 2010 Lib Dem vote but only 3% of Labour’s 2010 voters according to Ashcroft), particularly those who bolstered Labour’s poll lead in the mid-term period. The primary impact of this is that the united centre-left vote we hoped to create after the Lib Dems joined the coalition is again fractured. My doubts about the Greens’ ability to translate this into any more seats have been reinforced anecdotally where I live in Oxford – they claim Oxford East is one of their dozen parliamentary targets but have been invisible in the three council by-elections taking place here this Thursday.

8. UKIP is now taking votes from a wide range of sources – according to the Ashcroft poll they have snatched 21% of the 2010 Tory vote, 12% of the 2010 Labour vote and 15% of the 2010 Lib Dem vote (many of whom would be people said they were voting Labour during our mid-term polling peak), and people who didn’t vote at all in 2010 outnumbering all of them (presumably this cohort includes many who last voted for Labour in the 1997 landslide before turnout collapsed in 2001).

9. The UKIP vote is also soft, Ashcroft says only 56% of them will definitely stick with UKIP, whilst Labour’s current vote is the firmest of any of the three parties. This has some pointers for us about how many UKIP voters we should be trying to win over.

10. In this most unpredictable and volatile electoral situation, much is going to come down to the kind of margins of victory in individual seats that are determined by local campaigning. In this context Labour General Secretary Iain McNicol’s heavy investment in field organisers (with a whole batch of additional posts just advertised) and the spring in Labour activists’ steps, evidenced online at  #labourdoorstep even at the worst points in the last few weeks, could prove decisive.