Lord Ashcroft Polls

By Lord Ashcroft

The Liberal Democrats have suffered a slump in the polls since their decision to enter a coalition government with the Conservatives. Some have argued that the Lib Dems are finished as an independent party capable of winning significant support at elections, but I suspected things might not be as straightforward as that. I have conducted research among those who voted Lib Dem in 2010, and those who thought about doing so but decided not to, to find some clues about the party’s future.

(more…)

By Lord Ashcroft

As Ed Miliband returns to work this week after the birth of his son, Conservatives will be wishing his family well – while considering what can be done to ensure the Labour leader’s political fortunes do not prosper. Two schools of thought are apparently emerging: one, that the Tories should subject Mr Miliband to relentless assault in much the same way as Labour treated William Hague and Iain Duncan Smith; the other, that he is proving so uninspiring that we should leave him alone in the hope that he remains in post indefinitely. Both these arguments make the mistake of assuming that Mr Miliband’s success or failure, and how he is seen by the voters, will be determined by what the Tories choose to say about him.

(more…)

By Lord Ashcroft

Anyone listening to the BBC’s coverage of the Government’s Comprehensive Spending Review could be forgiven for thinking that all civilised life was about to come to an end. One after another, lobby groups and special interests dependent on the state’s borrowed money are wheeled out to explain why they should be exempt from the squeeze. They sometimes admit that spending has to be cut – just cut from somewhere else. Undoubtedly some decisions will be painful and important services will have to find difficult savings. But the evidence is that beyond Westminster and the broadcasting studios, people are rather more stoical and realistic about the cuts than most news reports would lead you to believe.

(more…)

By Lord Ashcroft

Though the Liberal Democrats achieved 24% of the vote in Great Britain at the general election, no poll since late June has put Nick Clegg’s party above 18%. Some have put them at less than half of their 6 May vote share. In July I published research conducted in marginal constituencies showing that 30 of the Lib Dems’ 57 seats were vulnerable to the Conservatives. More recently I have looked into whether the apparent meltdown would have the same effect on senior Liberal Democrats in the coalition. The answer is that their prominence has not made them immune from the decline in support for their party.

(more…)

By Lord Ashcroft

Ed Miliband’s election as Labour leader prompted some Conservatives, and even some seasoned political columnists, to declare that the next election was now in the bag for the Tories, despite the difficult cuts that have dominated discussion at last week’s conference. Many assume that, while his brother was ready to appeal to the moderate voters who deserted Labour in May, Ed’s Left-leaning instincts and union ties will inevitably lead him further from the voters he needs to connect with. I don’t think it will be as simple as that.

(more…)

By Lord Ashcroft

For many years after its 1997 defeat the Conservative Party failed to understand what had happened to it. Too many Conservatives believed not only that the voters had made a terrible mistake, but that the voters themselves would come to realise this and flood back in remorse. Meanwhile, the Tories just needed to stick to their guns. History records the success of this theory in the results of the 2001 and 2005 general elections.

I thought it would be interesting to find out whether the Labour Party is about to make the same mistake. Why does the Labour movement think it lost, and what does it think it needs to do to win again? And how does its view compare with that of swing voters, who supported Labour in previous elections but did not vote for Gordon Brown?

(more…)

By Lord Ashcroft

The result of the 2010 general election was closer than many people expected. Certainly it was closer than Conservatives hoped it would be. With 306 seats in the House of Commons, the Conservative Party was 20 seats short of the overall majority that looked all but assured only weeks before polling day. Minority Verdict: The Conservative Party, The Voters And The 2010 General Election attempts to explain why the Tories did as well as they did in May, and why they did no better. The book also gives an account of my involvement in the party’s target seats campaign, and my view of David Cameron’s decision to form a coalition government.

(more…)

By Lord Ashcroft

A referendum on the Alternative Vote is currently planned for 5 May 2011. The pollsters have turned their attention to the likely ramifications should the public decide to adopt such a system for general elections. There has been a widespread assumption that the Conservatives have nothing to gain from electoral reform, and the work that has been done so far – such as the YouGov poll for the Spectator earlier this month – has indeed suggested that the Tories would be the biggest net losers when comparing A.V. with First Past The Post (FPTP). As ever, though, national polls can only tell us so much – it would be in the marginal seats that A.V. would make a decisive difference.  Would voters in these seats behave differently under the two systems? And would the effect be different depending which parties were in contention?

(more…)