Labour holding up better in London where there are fewer UKIP voters for CON to squeeze
YouGov: LAB vote holding up in London poll. LDs up 6.
(Changes on GE2015)
LAB 42% -2
CON 36% +2
LD 14% +6
UKIP 6%-2
GRN 3% -2— Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 10, 2017
LDs hoping for gains in the capital
There’s a new London poll from YouGov out in the Evening Standard which tells the story of GE2017 in a very different way from what we’d been getting used to.
The big national voter movement, as has been widely observed, has been from UKIP to CON. That means that the CON performance is very much linked to how many UKIP votes there were last time.
In London, of course, UKIP has always struggled and at GE2015 secured just 8% of the vote which was the same as the LDs. So although we see the Tories rise in this latest poll the picture is nothing like elsewhere.
The big movement has been to the LDs who are hoping to pick up some of the seats lost at GE2015. Their CON targets are Twickenham, Kingston and, of course, holding on to Richmond Park won in December’s by-election. They are also hoping that Simon Hughes can win back Bermondsey and Southward from LAB and they are putting a big effort to unseat Labour’s ultra-Leaver, Kate Hoey in Vauxhall.
Labour could be in trouble in the east of London in constituencies where UKIP had higher GE2015 shares offering the prospect for the CON advance. Eltham and Dagenham & Rainham look like possibles. The big question for the blues is whether their gains can offset possible losses to the LDs.