ICM finds Corbyn making ground against TMay across a range of key policy areas
Team CON should be most worried about the economy numbers and pensioners
During the election campaign in May ICM asked voters to rate May and Corbyn on a range of nine key policy areas as shown in the table above.
At the time, of course, all appeared to be going well for the incumbent PM who looked set for a huge victory. In its latest Guardian poll ICM has revisited the questioning and finds that the position is nothing like as good for the Tory leader as it was.
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The biggest change has been on “making Britain a fairer country” where in May the PM enjoyed a 19% lead. That’s now moved to a 15% deficit a turnaround of 34 points. So much for the aspirations she made in Downing Street after becoming PM in July last year.
For me the change in the managing the economy rating is the most significant and here TMay has moved from enjoying a 28% lead over JC to a 14% one. That’s starting to look worrying and isn’t helped by the apparent division between the PM and her Chancellor seen again following Hammond’s TV interviews on Sunday.
The May polling took place after the CON manifesto launch and I suppose it was surprising then that TMay still had a lead, albeit a small one, on protecting the interest of pensioners. That’s now gone into negative territory and exposes a vulnerability. The lower turnout level amongst the 65+ group was one of the reasons why TMay failed to retain her majority. It appears that pensioners are still solidly for the Tories but can they be relied on to turnout in the same way that helped give Cameron his majority at GE2015?
At the moment TMay continues to be ahead of Corbyn on Brexit but that is declining.