Are the UK Tories in even worse position then they were in early 1996

[CumbrianLefty]

Even now I am too superstitious to write the Tories off utterly, but its not looking good for sure.

And if, as seems quite possible, the conclusion they draw from these byelections is "we need to move even further to the right to pick up those Reform UK voters" then a complete wipeout cannot be totally ruled out. It would be like late period Corbynism on steroids.

[CumbrianLefty]

No, they recovered from the low point of Truss very quickly. Leads of 25+ for Labour are now only about 10+ instead, which is about where they were in 2012.

This is.......impressively wrong in almost all respects. Quite a feat in such a short post.

[CumbrianLefty]

No, they recovered from the low point of Truss very quickly. Leads of 25+ for Labour are now only about 10+ instead, which is about where they were in 2012.

This is.......impressively wrong in almost all respects. Quite a feat in such a short post.

^^^

It was Truss that caused a 'break' in the electorate that then put Labour in a pre 1997 position which is holding onto over a year later.

By this point in Major's timeline the Tories were recovering, as were his ratings, the government's ratings on economic competency etc.

Indeed the 1997 shellacking was under one of the best set of economic conditions any government going to the polls had faced.

Yes, which is why Blair being Labour leader at the time likely *did* make a real difference (don't get me wrong, Labour still wins without him - but had John Smith lived it could have been a majority of around 60 rather than 180) but also why Starmer not being Mr Tony might not matter so much now.

[CumbrianLefty]

But as has been said - the tories were far more divided in ‘96, the third party (thus tactical voting) was far stronger and they were facing one of the most formidable political titans in British history.

This is wrong. LD polling in the run up to 1997 was not particularly high - they recovered a bit in the short campaign, but still lost vote share relative to 1992. More pertinently, by-elections have shown incredibly high levels of tactical voting - Mid Bedfordshire is about the only case this Parliament where the LDs haven't either won or lost their deposit.

There are just two - Mid Beds and City of Chester.

[CumbrianLefty]

No, they recovered from the low point of Truss very quickly. Leads of 25+ for Labour are now only about 10+ instead, which is about where they were in 2012.

This is.......impressively wrong in almost all respects. Quite a feat in such a short post.

It looks like I accidently hit the lead sort ascending button without realizing it. Disregard that post.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election

Ah well, that's commendably honest. And most of us have messed up similarly at some point