Why I’m now a seller of LAB seats on the Spreads.
YouGov English regional polling has LAB in 3rd place in the Eastern region the South East and South West
We haven’t yet looked at the series of English regional polls that YouGov carried out last month and has only just published them. This is the first time I can recall this form of polling being carried out across England and the results help us to see where parties are doing well.
The South West has always been a key battleground and where the LDs got almost wiped out at GE2015. Swinson’s team will be encouraged by the numbers that have an 8% CON to LD swing. The Tories are down 10 on GE17 while the LDs are up six. LAB, down 13%, seems to be most hurt by the Brexit Party’s 13% which is 12% up on what UKIP did there last time.
In the South East, which excludes London, the Tories are down 13%, LDs up 12% with LAB down 16%. Those are big changes and it is another indicator how unpredictable December 12th is going to be.
The East of England has CON down 10% with the LDs up 10% and LAB down 16%. That could lead to a fair number of seat changes.
In the West Midlands there are some awful numbers for LAB which is down 20% on GE17 with the Tories down 6%. The LDs are up 10%.
Changes on GE2017 in the East Midlands see CON down 6%, LAB down 19% with the LDs up 11%.
There’s a similar pattern in Yorkshire & Humber with CON down 7% compared with LAB down 20%. The LDs are up 11%.
In the North West the Tories are down just 3% with LAB down a whopping 25% and the LDs up 12%. In the North East it is as bad for Corbyn’s party down 23% with CON down 8% and the LDs up 10%.
Of course things can change over the next four and a half weeks as we saw with LAB’s recovery at GE17.
My bet on SportingIndex was to sell LAB at 210 seats – that’s now down to 207.