Confronted by the popularity of Ed Miliband’s proposed energy price freeze, the Tories have comforted themselves with polls showing little or no change in Labour’s lead. As Daniel Finkelstein wrote last week in the Times, “A graph of Labour’s lead over the Conservatives shows that it has been steadily, if slowly, declining since the beginning of the year and continues to decline. Mr Miliband’s intervention hasn’t altered this.” The Tories’ hope is that while the public overwhelmingly support the price freeze (with 80% of all respondents and 69% of Conservative voters backing it in today’s ComRes poll), few will actually change their vote as a result.
But five weeks on from Miliband’s speech, a period in which the policy has dominated debate, there is increasing evidence that Labour’s position has improved. After polls earlier this month showing the party as few as four points ahead, the five most recent YouGov surveys have put its lead at between six and nine points (today’s has Labour on 40% and the Tories on 31%), with its vote share also rising by several points.
As ever, one can never say for certain what lies behind voting intentions, but Labour’s success in shifting the debate away from the deficit and GDP (where it trails the Tories) and towards living standards (where it leads) is likely to be a factor. The Conservatives have been wary of trumpeting the rise in growth too loudly for fear of appearing indifferent to falling wages (the promised “blitzkrieg” against Labour’s economic record failed to materialise), while also remaining conscious of the need to avoid, in Nick Clegg’s words, playing on Miliband’s “side of the course“.
Some Tories will be consoled by the finding that while 80% support Miliband’s proposed price freeze, only 41% believe he will “deliver on his promise”. But as one Labour strategist pointed out to me, this is greater than the party’s vote share (which stands at 38% in ComRes) and in an age of great scepticism about politicians’ ability to deliver their policies, 41% is not to be sniffed at.
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