Of all the constituency polls Lord Ashcroft has published in recent months (May2015 has collected them all here), today’s is the most fascinating. In addition to polling 11 Lib Dem-Tory marginals, Ashcroft looked at the state of play in three noteworthy seats: Ed Miliband’s Doncaster North, Nick Clegg’s Sheffield Hallam and Nigel Farage’s target of Thanet South.
He found Miliband 12 points ahead in his seat (compared to 26 in 2010) with Ukip in second on 28 per cent and the Tories in third on 23 per cent. As Farage’s party have been quick to point out, this means that they could defeat the Labour leader if Conservative supporters vote tactically for them. Cameron is fond of warning “Vote Farage, get Miliband” but in Doncaster at least, Ukip can warn “Vote Tory, get Miliband”.
But while the Labour leader has little reason to fear losing his seat (12 points is a comfortable lead), the same cannot be said of Clegg. Ashcroft’s poll found him just three points ahead of Labour in Sheffield, a margin too close for comfort. Clegg’s seat, in which he had a lead of 19,096 over Miliband’s party in 2010, is not one of the 106 seats targeted by the opposition at the election, but with the race this tight, plenty of MPs will be offering their help. Tom Watson tweeted: “Clearing my diary and heading to Sheffield”. Defeating Clegg in Sheffield would, after all, be the easiest way for Labour to avoid having to mark with him in the likely event of another hung parliament. This said, given that he’s ahead even before any swing-back effect, Clegg will almost certainly retain his seat.
Unusually, Ashcroft also has some grim news for Ukip. The party is five points behind the Tories in Thanet South (34-29), where Farage is standing, with Labour just three behind. The Ukip leader is likely to devote more attention to the seat next year (which he has been charged with neglecting) but that he’s behind at this stage, before any late swing-back, suggests he may fail to join Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless on the Commons’ benches.
More broadly, the poll shows the Lib Dem vote holding up well against the Tories, with the Conservatives on course to win just two of the 11 seats surveyed. As Harry recently noted on May 2015, and as I’ve written before, this suggests that existing Lib Dem MPs are benefiting from an incumbency effect and that Labour are likely to gain most from the collapse of the party’s national vote. Given that the Tories need to make significant gains from the Lib Dems (they are in second place in 37 of the party’s 56 seats) to compensate for their likely losses to Labour, it is Ed Miliband who has most reason to smile today.
Content from our partners
Related
