The prospect of a Conservative recovery has been taken increasingly seriously since David Cameron became leader in December 2005. It has almost become an article of conventional wisdom that Cameron’s Tories are becoming fashionable, after a 15-year period in which being a Tory was considered a shameful secret. Comparisons have even been made with the emergence of Tony Blair and New Labour in 1994.
The parties enter the 2006 conference season with the Conservatives leading Labour in the opinion polls. The size of this lead varies between two and nine percentage points, with Conservative voting intention in the high 30s, or perhaps as high as 40 or 41 per cent. The majority of polls since Cameron’s accession have shown the Conservatives ahead.
The contrast with the position a year in to the previous two parliaments is clear. In 1998 and 2002, Labour had large voting intention leads and Conservative support was below what they polled at the previous general election. However, there is little historical connection between the state of opinion one year into a parliament and the outcome of the next general election.
In order to feel a bit more comfortable with the situation, the Conservatives need to see some larger poll leads over the next couple of years. Since 1950, all oppositions that have gone on to form the next government have enjoyed a poll lead of 15 percentage points (and if winning a working majority, 25 points) or more over the government. This is a necessary but not sufficient condition, it seems, as Labour led by over 20 per cent two years before the 1992 election and still lost.
One needs to consider the question of whether the present and future are comparable with the past. While voters seem not to be loyal to parties any more, mid-term swings in polls are now smaller than before. Perhaps volatility and cynicism are operating in competing directions, with rushes of opinion to the principal opposition party being dampened by a lack of faith that another party would be an improvement.
Cameron has attracted a good deal of favourable personal coverage in the media since December 2005, but his popularity with the public seems less than overwhelming given his positive start.
Cameron has avoided the fate of William Hague and Michael Foot of an instant adverse judgement from the electorate – but neither has he sustained a honeymoon period as Blair did in 1994. Cameron’s pattern so far seems more like Neil Kinnock or John Smith – an initial public welcome followed by a gradual decline in ratings.
We can look in a little more detail at where the new Conservative supporters are coming from, thanks to the pollsters Ipso-Mori. It is clear that the Conservative gain since 2005 is slightly greater among women than men according to these polls. They have made gains among young and middle-aged women while losing ground among young men. In terms of the class composition of Conservative progress, it has been scarcely noticeable except in social class AB, where it has been considerable.
Another way of looking at the contours of the Conservative recovery is in the results of the May 2006 local elections. Overall, the Conservative share of 39 per cent did not mark a breakthrough from past trends. Their vote share has been gradually drifting upwards since 1997, leaving aside an unusually high share of 38 per cent in 2000.
In general, the Conservatives scored significant gains in the south of England outside London but met a cooler response further north, with their vote share actually falling in the north east and Yorkshire and the Humber since 2002, and rising only weakly in the west Midlands and London.
The re-emergence of a north-south divide is indicative perhaps of the start of a post-Blair reversion to traditional electoral geography. However, one element of Conservative under-performance in the west Midlands and Yorkshire may have been competition from the far right in the form of the BNP.
The Conservatives tended to do well in the marginal seats in which there were local elections in 2006. The Conservatives ‘gained’ nearly every seat where they were less than 14 percentage points behind Labour, and very few where they were more than 16 percentage points behind.
There are of course many health warnings to this sort of calculation – ticket-splitting, personal votes, minor parties, local issues and so on. The cases where a large new popular vote lead has appeared, such as Crawley, Crewe or Portsmouth North, are more significant than places with histories of ticket-splitting, such as Battersea or Wirral. Even in poor regions for the Conservatives there were notable improvements since the 2004 elections in commuter-marginals such as Bury North, Tynemouth, Sefton Central (Crosby) and Halesowen and Rowley Regis. The Conservatives tended to fall back in the core cities, even in relatively affluent areas like Leeds North East.
However, only in a few cases – such as Winchester – did the Conservatives make big progress at the expense of the Liberal Democrats, and projections of them cutting deeply into the Lib Dems’ parliamentary presence are likely to be wide of the mark. Gains along the lines suggested in May 2006 would take the Conservatives to just a little short of an overall majority, despite a considerable lead in the popular vote.
In conclusion, the early verdict must be that Cameron has improved on his predecessors since 1997, but – at this stage – has not yet achieved what most opposition leaders have managed during the post-war period – a big poll lead or a local election triumph. It is also questionable how much of the Conservatives’ recovery is attributable to the ‘pull’ from David Cameron, and how much is simply ‘push’ of voters away from both the government and a troubled Liberal Democrat party.
As well as changes in Conservative support, there may also be an indirect Cameron effect. If he succeeds in making the Conservative party appear less objectionable to voters who wouldn’t ever vote for it, he can win seats because people will no longer vote tactically against the Conservatives. Cameron may be an attractive figure to disillusioned Blairites and centre-right liberals and his style of opposition has allowed divisions to open up in the government where a frontal assault would have rallied Labour forces together.
Most of the evidence suggests that while it is increasingly likely that Labour’s majority will vanish in the next election, it is unlikely to be replaced by a Conservative majority. Cameron can bring the Conservatives closer to government by closing the gap with the Liberal Democrats, making it more likely that they will tolerate a minority Conservative government in a hung parliament. It is perhaps these factors, rather than electoral appeal as such, that could take Cameron to Number 10.