Tories will find it 'very, very difficult' to win next election

Tories will find it ‘very, very difficult’ to win the next general election and Rishi Sunak faces ‘massive repair job’ to revive party’s fortunes, warns polling guru Sir John Curtice

• Polling guru John Curtice hints that Conservatives could suffer 1997-style defeat 
• Sir John suggests public has decided Tories ‘can’t be trusted to run the country’
• But while he admits Labour are now ‘favourites’ at the next election, he still believes they only have a ‘half-decent chance’ of winning an overall majority

The Tories will find it ‘very, very difficult’ to win the next general election with Rishi Sunak facing a ‘massive repair job’ among voters, according to a leading polling expert.

Professor Sir John Curtice, the president of the British Polling Council, warned the new Prime Minister and his party could be on course for a 1997-style defeat.

With Labour holding huge leads in a swathe of recent polls, Sir John suggested the general public had decided the Tories ‘cannot be trusted to run the country’.

This has seen the Conservatives’ popularity fall ‘across the whole of the electorate’, he told a briefing for Westminster journalists.

It is now ‘pretty clear’ that Labour are ‘favourites’ to win the next election, with Sir Keir Starmer’s party having a ‘half-decent chance’ of winning an overall majority in the House of Commons.

‘That is a fundamental change in the political outlook,’ Sir John added.

New PM Rishi Sunak is facing a ‘massive repair job’ among voters, according to a leading polling expert

It is now ‘pretty clear’ that Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour are ‘favourites’ to win the next election, said Sir John Curtice

Sir John , the president of the British Polling Council, suggested Mr Sunak and the Tories could be on course for a 1997-style defeat

The Strathclyde University academic suggested the fall-out from Liz Truss’s mini-Budget disaster could cause lasting damage to the Tories.

Asked about the Conservatives’ hopes of winning the next election, which isn’t due until January 2025, Sir John said: ‘History suggests that it’s going to be extremely difficult.

‘No Government that has presided over a financial crisis has eventually survived at the ballot box.’

He suggested the political outcomes from financial crises in 1948, 1967, 1976, 1992 and 2008 did not offer ‘a happy litany of precedence’ for the Tories.

‘Voters don’t forget governments being forced to do a U-turn by the financial markets,’ Sir John said.

‘And particularly when it involves overseas investors telling us that we’ve got it wrong.

‘This doesn’t go down terribly well for governments. It’s going to be very, very difficult.’

Sir John cautioned there was ‘a lot of water to pass under the bridge’ with two years to go until the next election.

But, based on current polling, he warned the Tories could be facing a defeat similar to their thumping at the hands of New Labour in 1997, when they won just 165 seats.

‘The Conservative Party has lost ground across the whole of the electorate,’ Sir John said.

‘They have lost ground because the public in general have decided they cannot be trusted to run the country.’

He added: ‘They’ve lost ground in all sections of society and in all parts of the country.

‘At the moment, the Tories basically have just a massive repair job across the public as a whole.’

But Sir John did offer some hope for the Tories and Mr Sunak, as he begins his premiership after succeeding Ms Truss last week.

He pointed to the PM’s ‘personal popularity’ among voters who remembered him as the Chancellor who ‘saved the economy’ during the Covid pandemic.

Sir John suggested one of the questions ahead of the next election was: ‘To what extent is Sunak going to be able to square his personal popularity into popularity for his party?’

He added: ‘You can already see how there is an incredible gap between Sunak’s personal popularity and the proportion of people who are going to vote for his party.

‘The fact that Sunak is as popular as he is, is a remarkable testimony to his own reputation.’

But the polling expert acknowledged that Mr Sunak was still ‘not as popular as he was’ before the row over his wealthy wife’s non-dom tax status and his Partygate fine.

Sir John said Mr Sunak and the Tories’ fortunes would depend on what happens to the economy over the next two years.

He warned – in comparison with fiscal repair jobs after the 1992 and 2008 financial crises – that there ‘isn’t much fat in public expenditure’ as Mr Sunak considers spending cuts to balance the public finances.

Sir John also noted that public services were already under ‘very, very severe strain’ after the Covid crisis.

Source: Read Full Article