Labour’s Scottish crisis is masking what could be even more significant – the Tory collapse in England
By my reckoning this is an 8.5% CON-LAB swing
A great feature of the weekly Ashcroft National Poll is that it shows a separate voting split for England where 533 of the 650 constituencies are including the vast bulk of the marginals.
This was “won” by Cameron’s Conservatives overwhelmingly in 2010 making net gains of more than 90 and forming the bedrock of their overall positive outcome. The party secured 39.2% of the English vote against Labour’s 28.1. The poll today has LAB with a 6% lead in England thus suggesting an 8.5% swing to it from the blues since the last general election.
This is far far larger than anything we have seen for quite some time in the full GB polls.
One factor is that it is in England where UKIP has prospered most and, indeed, Farage’s party has 22% in today’s survey.
What strikes me is that the inclusion of Wales and mostly Scotland in the GB figures mean that the UKIP surge has been understated in the part of the UK where 95% of the LAB-CON marginals are.
Whatever it is good to have a weekly source of England only voting shares.