Does Labour always recover quickly from defeat?
| Election/Poll | TORIES | LABOUR | LIBERAL |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tories come to power 1951 | 48 | 48.8 | 2.5 |
| Gallup after 6 months | 41 | 48 | 9 |
| Tories come to power 1970 | 46.4 | 43 | 7.5 |
| Gallup after 6 months | 42 | 47 | 8 |
| Tories come to power 1979 | 43.9 | 36.9 | 13.8 |
| Gallup after 6 months | 39 | 43 | 15 |
| Coalition comes to power 2010 | 37 | 29.7 | 23.6 |
| MORI after five months | 37 | 37 | 15 |
Is too much being read into the latest polls?
Thanks to Professor Phil Cowley of Nottingham University for highlighting this on LeftFootForward – that Labour has a history of making fast recoveries in the polls following election defeats.
His conclusion: “..What’s happened in the polls is what you’d expect: Government Making Cuts is Unpopular Shocker. Its only significance will come if too many Labour people think it’s significant.”
There is a tendency to compare everything with when Labour returned to power in 1997 – but as he points out “the trouble is that the experience after 1997 is atypical”.
After 1951 Labour was out of power for thirteen years – after 1979 the gap was eighteen years.