General Election poll tracker: Will Labour or the Conservatives win?

Published

1 month ago

May 22, 2024

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The live poll tracker from Sky News collates the results of opinion surveys carried out by all the main polling organisations – and allows you to see how the political parties are performing in the run-up to a general election.

If you can’t see the latest polls, tap here for the full version of this story

By charting changing voting intentions from January 2020 to now, the tracker allows you to monitor the evolving picture as we head towards the next general election.

Below you can learn more about the methodology, and how to read the data.

The tool you need as the election looms

Sam Coates

Deputy political editor

@SamCoatesSky

Bookmark this page, remember this tool. Sky News has launched its own, authoritative version of one of the most important indicators available ahead of a general election next year.

Almost every day between now and the election, there will be new opinion polls by a clutch of different pollsters – each using different methodologies and all asking who voters will support on polling day.

Which pollster will be closest, which method is the right one, who should you look at? Those questions will always be unanswerable until the morning after election day, with the past only a broad guide to the future.

There is a tendency for political professionals to seize on every one of the polls, magnify every percentage point of movement, and draw dramatic headline conclusions. No doubt I will at times be guilty of this, but it will also put you at risk of over interpreting a single outlier poll.

Every poll has a margin of error of two or three percentage points either side. This isn’t just ignorable small print, it’s a big challenge for all of us – and a warning for all of us not to impatiently rewrite political narratives based on a single number change.

So the best way to use opinion polling reliably requires patience – and a lot more data. That is where this tool comes in.

How does one pollster, with its (usually) consistent methodology, move over weeks and months? Is there a discernible pattern from several different pollsters over a matter of days? Those of us with our noses pressed firmly up against the glass don’t want to wait for this.

This sort of analysis is only available through a “poll of polls”, which takes data from every single pollster that is asking voting intention questions and signed up to the industry standards body, the British Polling Council.

It is drawn up by Sky election analyst Will Jennings and Sky data and elections editor Isla Glaister – and supported by a team of Sky data scientists and designers. It’s an important piece of work for us, and a lot of thought has gone into it.

The poll of polls seeks to give an answer to the most important question of all – the direction of travel of public opinion over time. Are the closing months of this parliament, the declining state of the economy and the emergence of Labour’s policy platform making any difference? Keep coming back to this page.

There are limits. Crude attempts to turn the polling averages for the main parties into a number of seats for each party will always be just that: rough and ready and probably ultimately unhelpful (not that people will stop trying). This is a GB poll so the level of support for the SNP necessarily reflects how they fare comparatively across Great Britain, not just in Scotland.

Likewise, there is nothing here about Northern Ireland. Liberal Democrats might say they perform better in target seats where they focus resources, rather than nationally where they rely on air war alone.

Nevertheless, this is the page – and a tool – which will tell you the biggest picture story about the main parties and their comparative level of support as we hurl towards a general election where anything could happen. See you back here soon.

How does the tracker work?

The main line

The main line travelling from left to right shows the average support that each party was recording on a given date. The average is a simple mean of each of the most recent polls from all pollsters recognised by the British Polling Council.

Pollsters have slightly different methodologies in how they interpret raw results from the sample of people they ask. Our average uses a maximum of one poll per pollster, which means it is not skewed by pollsters who happen to publish surveys more regularly than others.

If the most recent poll by a given pollster was more than 28 days ago, we exclude it from the average.

The dots

The dots on the chart represent results from individual polls. If you click on a dot you can see the details of that particular poll for each party, including the name of the pollster who carried it out and the date they finished asking people.

The pollsters

The polls we include are all those by pollsters recognised by the British Polling Council (BPC).

The BPC is an association of polling organisations that publish polls, with a commitment to promoting transparency.

It is concerned only with polls and surveys that set out to measure the opinions of representative samples – such as the views of all adults, or all voters.

Membership is limited to organisations who can show to the satisfaction of the BPC that the sampling methods and weighting procedures used are designed to accurately represent the views of all people within designated target groups.

How are polls carried out?

Most polls these days are carried out online. Pollsters use a panel of people whom they know demographic information about – such as age, gender, education and where they live – so they can pick a sample that best represents the whole UK.

If polls are carried out over the phone, they will ask people this information at the time so that they can factor it into calculations.

Over the course of a few days, they ask these people their political preference and then take into account how many people of different demographics they’ve asked – and adjust the results according to what each pollster thinks is the best way to make the sample most representative of the country as a whole.

In general, pollsters should ask at least 1,000 people to get a reliable result. Statistical theory indicates that you are unlikely to get much more reliable results by asking any more than a couple of thousand people – even in a country of almost 70 million – but too many fewer than 1,000 could make the poll less likely to accurately reflect the views of the population.

More detail from the BPC.

Credits

Chart design and implementation:
Dr Will Jennings, Sky News election analyst
Daniel Dunford, senior data journalist
Yetunde Adeleye and Jenai Edwards, designers

Production:
Przemyslaw Pluta, lead data engineer

The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

Why data journalism matters to Sky News

Politics

Unite union boss Sharon Graham says Labour should ‘give Britain a break’ and borrow more to help ‘hurting’ workers

Published

14 mins ago

June 23, 2024

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Unite union boss Sharon Graham says Labour should 'give Britain a break' and borrow more to help 'hurting' workers

Union boss Sharon Graham has said she does not agree with Labour’s fiscal rules and the party should borrow more to invest.

Speaking to Sky News’ Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips in an interview that will be broadcast in full today, the Unite general secretary said other countries with growing economies have a larger debt-to-GDP ratio than the UK, “so there is wiggle room”.

Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, has promised to retain the Tories’ commitment that debt as a proportion of GDP must be on track to fall in five years if Labour win the election on 4 July.

She has ruled out borrowing to fund day-to-day spending, saying her focus will be on reforms to grow the economy.

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But Ms Graham said: “I don’t agree with Rachel Reeves in terms of what has been said about the plans on growth.

“If you look at other countries – in France, their debt to GDP is 112%. In America, where the economy’s growing, it’s 130% debt to GDP. Ours is around about 99%. We have wiggle room. Give Britain a break.”

The union leader said that workers “are literally hurting beyond anything that you could comprehend” due to the cost of living crisis.

She added: “We need the straitjacket off a little bit, get some wiggle room there.

“Borrowing to invest is not the same as other borrowing. It’s borrowing to invest.”

Unite is Labour’s largest union donor but it has refused to endorse the party’s general election manifesto.

Ms Graham has been an outspoken critic of Sir Keir Starmer in the past, previously warning him not to “limp into Number 10” and calling on him to be bolder with his pledges, by nationalising energy, for example.

There has also been a row about his plans to phase out oil and gas licenses in the transition to clean energy, which Unite has called a “ban without a plan” and said threatens job losses.

And more recently Unite accused Labour of watering down its package of workers’ rights, saying the plans had “more holes than Swiss cheese”.

Ms Graham’s concerns echo those of thinktanks which have said public services need far more investment than what any of the major parties have pledged during the election campaign.

Sir Keir has rejected that argument, insisting there will be no return to austerity despite his party’s commitment to “iron discipline” with the country’s finances.

He has previously defended his U-turn on big spending commitments, like nationalising utilities, by saying the policy became too expensive after the Tories damaged the economy.

In response to other criticisms from Ms Graham, he has insisted he is “not turning off the taps” on oil and gas while arguing his package of workers’ rights will boost wages and raise living standards.

With less than two weeks to go until polling day, Labour is projected to win a historic landslide after 14 years out of power.

Ms Graham has said she still wants to see a Labour government in Number 10 but thinks the party’s proposals for the country don’t go far enough “after years of Tory neglect”.

The Labour Party has been contacted for comment.

You can watch the full interview with Sharon Graham on Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips from 8.30am on Sky News.

Politics

Bench Across Britain: Farming community calls for ‘more support’ and quashes subsidies ‘misperception’

Published

14 mins ago

June 23, 2024

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Bench Across Britain: Farming community calls for 'more support' and quashes subsidies 'misperception'

The Cheshire Show is a world away from Westminster – but amid the agriculture machinery displays, the pony club races and pens with the best of British livestock, we have smuggled our unwieldy parliamentary bench to an industry at the mercy of changing weather and politics.

On the seat of power in a sheep pen in a far corner of the show, Ruth Howard, a ruminant nutritionist, laments the rising price of animal food. “Over the last two years in particular we’ve seen massive increases,” she says.

“I would say about two or three years ago our price for a compound feed would be about £200 a tonne. Last winter we saw them rocket to £400.

“Our motto is that we feed the animals that feed the nation, and we need support to be able to do that.

“The subsidies that are out there have helped soften the blow to the housewife in your shopping basket. Without that and without the support behind agriculture, the cost of living crisis will only get worse.”

The agricultural budget is a common theme of conversation. Sheep farmer Richard Gate says: “Subsidies are given to us and there’s a misperception that it’s to the farmer and it is not. It is to help the farmers produce cheaper food for the general public.”

Responding to the launch of party manifestos, the National Farmers Union (NFU) has expressed concern that while the Conservative Party has committed to increasing the farming budget by £1bn over the course of the next parliament, the Labour Party is yet to give a clear commitment to a budget.

Rachel Hallos, vice president of the NFU, told Sky News: “That does concern us. We need to know what sort of budget is going to be allocated to farming.

“It’s as simple as that. I think the devil is in the detail and there doesn’t seem to be overly amounts of detail.”

Labour do say in their manifesto that “food security is national security” and promise to “champion British farming”, with a target for half of all food purchased across the public sector to be sourced locally.

At the Cheshire Show, we meet dairy farmer Ray Brown who has recently spoken to both Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer. He was impressed with their understanding of the issues.

“We’re very, very reliant on imported food,” he said. “And we only need to look at the recent events around the world. It’s made us surely think about food security.”

He warns that some environmental schemes linked to government payments to farmers are forcing them to stop using good farming land.

Mr Brown says: “The main problem is the government thinking through the policies they’re bringing out, making sure that we can firstly feed everybody and bring environmental schemes out that make sense, use areas which we can’t grow food on, rather than letting land go, which is prime land for producing food.”

Andrew Dutton, from Cheshire Farm Machinery, says his sales are down this year due to the wet spring that has dulled crop and produce yields. He says farmers are lacking confidence to invest.

“We need more support for our farmers. We need to back British farming. We need to buy locally, buy British. The farmers need some confidence going forward that they’re going to receive the funding that they need.”

Held in Tatton, the Cheshire Show sits in a safe Conservative constituency once held by chancellor George Osborne. The red rosettes on the prize bulls are unlikely to be worn by winners in this constituency on election night, but there’s uncertainty.

Mr Dutton says: “I’m still on the bench really?”

He taps the green cushions on our House of Commons chair. “Personally, I voted Conservative my whole life. But no one’s offering what I want at the moment.”

A passing woman in jodhpurs says “I’m voting Reform, and a lot of my friends are voting Reform”, but she decides not to take a seat to tell us more.

We do, however, manage to speak to two horsemen fresh from jousting, dressed as knights, in the main arena. Both come from rural, Conservative-held seats in the Midlands. Clutching an axe, Sam Conway from Knights of Nottingham says he traditionally votes Conservative but wants “clarity and honesty”.

He adds: “I don’t feel like I’ve had any of that so far. I don’t feel like anyone’s come out with some clear policies. We see a lot of political jousting.”

Sam’s fellow knight Mark Lacey leans forward on his broadsword and adds: “It’s just time for a change, and let’s see what happens. And I’m happy for it to change.

“I’ve lived in a blue area my whole life, but let’s have a change. Let’s see what somebody else does.”

On our journey across Britain – to Cornwall, Gloucester, Luton, Southall, Kent, Leicester and now Cheshire – there is a lot of indecision. Shy Tories seem extremely shy while Labour voters question whether their vote will bring the changes they want.

The farming community certainly wants more assurances from Starmer, but it also feels like this area, which is not usually an election battleground for Labour, is open to some form of change. And if Labour can capture a seat like Tatton, it would be a killer blow to the heart of their rivals.