Taking a look at polls, it looks like the Conservatives will win the General Election on Thursday with a Tory lead varying from 42% to 47% and the Labour running up with a variance between 35% to 40%, bookmakers’ odds concur. Currently, the Conservatives have 330 seats in the House of Commons; Theresa May originally hoped for 375-400.
ICM pegs Tories at the higher end; ComRes shows Prime Minister Theresa May’s personal rating has turned negative for the first time since she became Prime Minister; Survation claim the Conservative lead over Labour has dropped 16 points in a month and only half of the public believe Theresa May would be the best PM. The Liberal Democrats are only enjoying between 6% and 9% voting intention and across the board, U.K. Independence Party (UKIP) are on a downward spiral of 5% to 3%.
National security is the big issue. YouGov, internet-based market research, discovered that 51% of Londoners trust Mayor of London Sadiq Khan to make the right decisions to keep London safe from terrorists. Since then, May has added to her pledges that she is prepared to change the laws on human rights to make it easier to deport foreign terror suspects. YouGov have estimated that the Conservatives will have 304 seats to Labour’s 266; Lord Ashcroft, public opinion analyst, has come up with a new concept of the “combined probabilistic estimate” Conservatives 357 to Labour’s 222 and Colin Bloom, Conservative optimist, predicts Conservatives with 380 to Labour’s 186. These are large variances, but maintain a Conservative majority; only social media, left wing press and folks under 30 years are thinking a hung parliament might be possible. For Brexit negotiations, UK needs a leader with a decent majority. Although much is made of a surge of support for Labour, the reality is that the Conservatives have had an uninterrupted lead since 2015.