YouGov Poll Gives the Conservatives an 11 Point Lead

In the aftermath of the appointment of Theresa May as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the formation of her cabinet, a YouGov poll on voting intentions has been released.

YouGov Poll 17th/18th July 2016

CON 40% (+10)
LAB 29% (-4)
UKIP 12% (-8)
LD 9% (+3)
GRN 3% (-).

Uniform Swing

On a uniform swing, the Conservatives would gain 16 seats, Labour would lose 17 seats, UKIP would retain Clacton, the Liberal Democrats would gain Cambridge and Plaid Cymru would gain Ynys Mon. The Conservatives would have a majority of 42.

Here are the current general election polling averages.

Analysis

Clearly there has been a lot of change since the last YouGov poll. I will list the changes party by party below, but be aware of the margin of error.

1. Conservatives. The Conservatives are on 40%, up a whopping 10 points since the last YouGov poll and up 2.3 points since Election 2015. You would expect that. New Prime Ministers usually get a "honeymoon" period where both they and their parties enjoy increased support. The last time such a surge in support did not happen was in the aftermath of Margaret Thatcher's victory in the general election of 1979.

2. Labour. Labour are on 29%, down 4 points since the last YouGov poll and down 2.2 point since Election 2015. For comparison, when they were led by Gordon Brown they got 29.7% and when they were led by Ed Miliband they got 31.2%. Most of this is probably down to their leadership troubles, although I would suspect some of their support has gone to the Conservatives.

3. UKIP. UKIP are on 12% which is down 8 points since the last YouGov poll. In Election 2015 they got 12.9% so while the drop is disappointing for them it is only undoing the last year or so. They remain ahead of the Liberal Democrats, but at this rate we could see a crossover soon.

4. Liberal Democrats. The Liberal Democrats are on 9%, up 3 points since the last YouGov poll and up 0.9 points since Election 2015. I suspect this increase is due to them continuing to campaign for the United Kingdom to remain a member of the European Union. Unfortunately for them this brings them only 1 point higher than in Election 2015 meaning that unless their support is localised, they will struggle to pick up any new seats. Boundary changes will compound this problem for them.