Making sense of the polls: where will the election be won?

What are we missing that could make all the difference when the country goes to the polls? As we rush to gauge the national sentiment, do some areas of the UK have more influence than others? Which are the oft-overlooked constituencies that we should keep our eyes on in the months ahead, and what’s the relationship between local campaigns and candidates and who ultimately leads Britain?

Be part of the conversation and see more of our unmissable ThinkIns at https://torto.se/3c5i5vm

Welcome thank you every so much for joining us and thanks to uh some latecomers just coming in thank you to the people watching from home I’m cat nean I’m the political editor here at toris and uh joining me today is Jess Phillips labor MP for Birmingham Yardley

Um she spent her career working with victims of Domes domestic violence and was until recently Shadow Minister for domestic violence and safeguarding um she recently told the time she is not a troublemaker but that depends on your definition of trouble um John Curtis So John Curtis is Professor of politics at

Strath Clyde University and chief commentator for what you what the UK thinks and what Scotland thinks he is also president of the British polling Council and in the words of Playbook the Gandalf of UK polling I’m told also I’m not allowed to call him a holster so uh and Matt

Warman it’s not my words Matt Warman is conservative MP for Boston and skes uh former formerly uh digital Innovation Minister and more recently fighting the good fight for the one nation Tory caucus um has refused to join mark francois’s five families or KY bad’s evil plotters WhatsApp group so is in

The minority of conservative MPS that’s actually backing his leader um so tonight’s uh session is talking about making sense of the polls and where we think the election will be won uh essentially are all constituencies made equal um so I want to start by talking about there was another poll released

Today uh showing a kind of continuation of a theme which is labor way ahead of the conservatives today’s was Labor on 47 theor is on 29 Points I thought quite interestingly both parties are up uh labor is up by more eight points to three respectively but the smaller

Parties the libdems greens reform and so on have all fallen so I kind of wanted to ask John why he thinks that might be the case if we could start there best guess is random the random variation to which all polls are potentially subject I me great great we’re starting with a

High rule rule number one with reading and polls is that you should look at the general Trend not get caught up by particularities but it happens to be true that one of the rules about the reporting of polls is that the exceptional polls get publicity and the unexceptional ones that are probably

Closer to the truth other ones you people tend to ignore um that’s just to do with the way journalistic news headlines are generated The crucial I mean there are two things essentially crucially to take away from the polls at the moment one is that uh the labor

Party are on 20 points ahead and that at 25 points the average level support for the conservative party is still as low as it was in the immediate wake of list trust being removed as prime minister in other words so far the long-term impact of Richi sunik on his party’s popularity

Is zero um the second thing however to be aware of is that there’s quite a lot of variation around that 20 point average figure so I can find you some polls that have you know labor around you know 27 points or so ahead and there

Are others who say no it’s not much more than around you know 14 15 16 and where the truth lies between those two things you know is much more debatable and we might want to get into this but maybe or maybe not that could make quite a difference to what the outcome election

Would would look like but you know the one thing that all the polls do tell us is that basically not I mean with one exception which is leaving aside today’s poll the rise of reform in the last couple of months really virtually nothing of long-term significance has

Happened in the last 15 16 months yeah okay and obviously when campaigns start uh often we see those those polls narrowing uh well it gave you know you have to be very very careful sometimes you do and sometimes you don’t right okay and I mean because people keep on

Saying this I actually went back now of course to to really look up where we are now as compared to the end you’ve got to look at those elections that took place towards the end of a term it’s no good looking at those elections where the prime minister to decide to go after

Five four years because he or she thought they were going to win that’s in every crates a bi a sample what you discover is that I mean for example if we take the 92 to 97 Parliament which is the one that everybody’s focused on because there seems to be some

Remarkable number of analogies to the current situation actually the uh conservative the labor lead over the conservatives 10 months out was exactly the same as it was when John Major eventually called the election the lead did narrow during that campaign but not because there was any dramatic Revival

In conservative support it went up by one point in the 97 election campaign on average is because liberal Democrats took some votes off the labor party and therefore the labor lead came down um um but you know I know you can you can go the other ones you know sometimes it

Narrows a bit but frankly other times it doesn’t there is no guarantee either in terms of what’s going to happen between now when the election is called or between what happens during the election campaign it frankly some of it will depend on the ability of the of this

Gentleman and this lady and their respective colleagues to campaign effectively okay all that one can say so far is that this gentleman’s colleagues have not been terribly effective at campaigning the last 16 months whereas Jess lot at least have quite graciously taken the the bonuses that the conservative party have offered them

During the course of this Parliament so one of the things that was uh asked in this poll um was was uh how many people think it’s time for change and seven in 10 people are now saying that it is time for change but that said there is still

A sort of lack of enthusiasm for it being specifically K starma they’re very clear on it not being the conservatives anymore what do you think labor can do to change that and and is it a problem for you if it isn’t if if labor is simply the anyone but conservatives

Party I think historically that is like I mean I was raised under the ma I mean I was raised by you know very very leftwing socialists um that means you’re feeling now uncomfortable about your party you’re in no because I am a pragmatist who likes yeah yeah oh yeah I’m like that

Um who held their noses and to be fair not in my my dad’s case and voted for Tony Blair to be the leader of the conservative the Tory party I mean been a long day I’ve been on committee talking about sexual exploitation all day excuse me um

Because they wanted to win and the the idea that you don’t I think most people in the country don’t necessarily vote for what they want they vote for what they don’t want and that’s certainly what I was raised with so I I don’t personally worry do I think that the

Nation is about to wake up tomorrow in a time when uh faith in politics although we keep saying this like faith in politics has never been lower like was it ever really high I don’t remember a time in my life where I’ve just been like whoa politics toally serves us all

All the time um I don’t I I don’t think that we are in a space where people are going out with m es of Hope for anything but change change is the hope that you can provide like the possibility of something different rather than the concrete of something different

Because yeah I just I I I I feel like there is all this like constant like people don’t like K sta like people think that you know oh they’re not voting for K sta they’re voting against the Tories I I think that was always the case people didn’t love Boris Johnson

They just really didn’t like Jeremy Corbin like that like Boris Johnson is the luckiest man and no doubt about it K stor is a lucky general I’m not saying he isn’t he’s a lucky lucky General but Boris Johnson’s all of his many many like electoral victories he was gifted with terrible

Opponents every single time and you know the lior part is currently opening that gift well I think it’s interesting and I I would’ like to come back to that point in a minute because I think it it’s probably more on a seat by seat basis as to whether you voted for Boris brexit

And against Corbin I think that’s probably a kind of sliding scale but except my seat was 62% brexit and voted for me in a massive increased majority both times after brexit okay but I’m an excellent EMP um so Matt time for change obviously vak has tried to position himself as a

Changed candidate and is now talking about sticking with the plan um is the plan as it was the 020 strategy as in you defend 80 seats and try to get 20 new seats um if that is still the strategy do you think it is a realistic one I think John’s reaction might um

Look I mean I cchq plans are are cchq ccq plans and I I honestly don’t know is the uh short answer but I think obviously as any campaign goes on you you adapt what that looks like and individual MPS will obviously take their own view there are people who would have

Been uh would would have been wanting to be in that 8020 because they wanted the additional support that comes with it um inevitably some people start to uh look closer to elections and start to think they want some of that help but look I think the the main point about all of

This is that there are broader factors around politics is to some extent cyclical right is is that it is it is not uh simply the case that you that you uh win elections or or lose them by virtue of the campaign or anything else some of it is about that time for change

Narrative and the Tories did remarkably well in ’92 to have turned that around um that I think is is clearly where we want to be in the cycle and the fear from some of the polls is that we we’re won election on from that but to be

Honest the the polling is not the interesting thing about this no one goes into politics because of polling they go into it because they want to tell stories and they want to change things and they want to fix things and you would hope that that narrative can shift

The poles and that’s what we should be doing I mean that’s certainly the argument being put forward by David I don’t John just do I think there is a sort of Hefty amount of skepticism about whether that’s possible I want to if it’s if it’s if it’s possible um obviously when we

Talk about polls in this kind of context we talk about it from a national perspective um but clearly what motivates a voter in say sorry Heath is different to what motivates a voter in say Stockport or you know whatever um so so what if any conclusions can be drawn

From this kind of wider sort of narrative of a 20ish point lead and do we need to sort of drill down more into the individual constituencies to kind of see what’s really going on John well the answer short answer your question is if when you’ve got a 20po lead and assuming that’s roughly

Accurate you don’t have to worry about the geography right uh we I mean indeed I would but coming back slly also to picking up to your previous question I would actually CH the ti change the title of this session I would suggest you the title should be not where will

The election be won but where will the election be lost um I mean come back slightly on what what Jess was saying that basically you can talk about Cycles but the truth is this has been a very peculiar parliament in which the Electoral position we currently find our

Seemingly is the product of Simply 12 weeks in the last four years those 12 weeks those 12 weeks come in two six we blocks block number one is the six weeks immediately after the the first revelation about party gate in the wake of which the conservative party lost six

Points in six weeks the every party went up and the second six we block yes you can probably guess it’s the list trust Premiership where again the conservative party lost six points in six weeks and basically apart from that nothing has happened and the truth is that those two

Fundamental mistakes are the primary reason why we are where we are again I mean sure Jess would not wouldn’t mind if I remind everyone that until December 2021 the government was never consistently behind the opposition in the polls for the first two years this was a remarkably electorally successful

Government but two absolutely fatal mistakes one is a more liberal interpretation of the co regulations that anybody else in the country understood and then seemingly not being honest about what happened and eventually indeed bis Johnson’s peers not once but twice decided he was not being H about that was fat fatal number

Once and then fa fatal thing number to was to crush the markets um over over a dash for growth and no government in the postwar period that has presided over a fiscal financial crash has survived at the ballet box so you can see why that

For now the reason why I talk about lost is this the I mean some people were surprised at a certain poll that appeared in the Daily Telegraph about 10 days ago saying the toys would only get 160 seats I have to tell you that my reaction was 160 struck me as rather generous

Yeah um but if you looked at the if you looked at the edits of that poll which I’ve I’ve done you can download the data you can see what’s going on you can see what’s going on and and it’s not the only poll to show this I can show you

Another 30,000 poll that was done last spring that shows the same thing you can look at the local election results last May and the really bad news for the conservative party is that its vote is going down most heavily in the places where it was previously strongest in

Other words the more Tores there were last time the more their votes going down this time and in part that’s just simply an arithmetical inevitability the conservative vot is at the moment 20 points down according to the average of the polls from where they were in 2019 there are around 70 constituencies

Where the conservative party did not get 20% of the vote even in 2019 and where therefore they cannot lose 20% this time and and therefore it’s bound to be the case they Los their votes more heavily places they were strongest it’s what happened to the Democrats when their

Vote crashed in 2050 it’s also by the way what happened to the conservative party in in 1997 and if you go through the ug poll you can see this is exactly what they are they are picking up and and again you we’ve also already had evidence in

The Ballot Box you may remember at around just almost year a year back from now the conservative party in front in in advance of last year’s local elections would say oh Rollings and Thrasher saying we’re going to lose a thousand seats oh no it’s not going to happen absolutely impossible it’s going

To happen you know we’re doing better in the polls than they were assuming the tourist lost a thousand seats even though the Labour party didn’t actually do that well why did they lose a th seats because actually while the conservative vot held up on what was a pretty poor Baseline in Spring 2019

Their vote went down in places they were trying to defend Ergo they lost a th seats so that’s the first reason why the conserv have a problem and then and this is what opinion polls will not pick up and which the ugv MRP poll does not pick

Up it’s the risk that voters will vote tactically against the conservatives in the places um according to who is who who was second now the truth is it won’t happen on the scale that’s it’s been happening in parliamentary byelections where it’s Mammoth because basically if if liberal Democrats look as though

They’re they’re going to be the Principal challenges labor don’t fight vice versa with the exception of midb for CH okay but in the local elections again you can see this is going on it’s not dramatic but it’s the order of around 3% of people who might otherwise vote labor voting liberal Democrat and

Vice versa yeah now if you add that if you add that to the pattern of the conservative party losing ground more heavily in seats that they’re in if the average of the polls is right and that’s a big if you could talk about the conservatives at around 120 130 seats it

Would be their biggest loss biggest loss ever that I’m not saying that’s what’s going to happen but that is the Spectre that at the moment potentially faces the conservative party if the polls are at least roughly right on average and if the geographical patterns that we are

Not only seeing in polls but we’ve already seen in local elections per follow through and again one has to say some have been doing this game too long in local elections before the 1997 general election you could see exact these patterns playing out in the local elections both the tourist losing ground

More heavy in the places they PR is strongest and also anti-conservative tactical voting and exactly then played out in 1997 which is why the toies ended up what was it 165 seats or whatever it was right that’s the problem that the conservative party now now now faces now

Which is why they really really badly badly need to achieve a recovery but so far they have failed to do so or more accurately they were beginning to recover until last summer it couldn’t succeed as a group voting for the Privileges committee report on Boris Johnson and

Whatever progress V sunak had made in the polls up to then disappeared in an instant because again one one of the things that the conservative party needs to understand is that if it’s going to avoid being the the the the instrument that is the butt of the the electorates

Wish for change one of the reasons why the electorate wants change is because they want to be led by a party in whom they think they can invest a certain amount of trust in terms of what they say and the problem is that Bor the word that is associated with

Boris Johnson in the Public’s mind is liar and the conservative party badly badly needs us to distance itself from that and it failed to take the opportunity last summer kick him out the T party that’s what they should do kick him out I mean out the T they thrown out

Jeremy Corbin so why can’t you throw out back on yeah I’d kick him out I mean you can’t do that cuz Mar Mark franois are literally like you know die crying um so and you know the five families I mean he doesn’t even arguably need to Chuck him

Out he could sort of make a more sort of fome statement kind of distancing himself from both Boris Johnson and but Richie sonak opted not to be in the House of Commons when the Privileges committee report was was was before the house and that in my view was a fatal mistake

I mean it seems like that’s kind of it we’ll just finish the session there and and let’s walk off but there’s got to be more to it than that I mean there is definitely more to it in constituencies but anybody who like basically any I mean I jokingly said my constituents

Vote for me much more because I’m a brilliant MP it’s absolutely not true um I mean I am a brilliant MP but um the you can rely most members of parliament can rely at the very most on like 500 people being part of your your uh push

It a thousand if you’re good and well known push it to a so I’m from Birmingham and Birmingham edgebaston is a really really good example of a seat that was classically Tory was kept labor When the tide was Labor and actually geiza Stewart then managed to on the

Basis of a margin in the margin it will matter if you’re a good MP or not like it all matter and actually you can win because you’ve got someone’s Nana count like you can’t like you can win on that basis it’s not corrupt like you were

Just helping them uh you didn’t get it over somebody else uh the um but any politician including Boris Johnson who thinks that they are like it’s for them is on an absolute hiding to nothing nothing I will do and what and the year before I decide I’m going to stand down

I have committed to standing an election where I do absolutely nothing I’m not going to knock a door I’m not going to put out a leaflet and I imagine the result will be the same um and bear in mind I didn’t I don’t don’t have a labor

Seat my seat in my lifetime has been Tory labor and liberal Democrat it’s been all of those things that’s what I like to call them uh they shop around and I and once you had a marginal seat you feel like you always have a marginal seat so I will campaign in my

Seat as if I don’t have a m of majority which I currently do um but I am under No Illusion that when the tide turns against my political party for whatever reason actually in my seat they hate the governing party my seat hates the people of government they hate the decisions

Being made um right so they voted libdem when there was a labor government they voted uh Tory actually they didn’t mind the Tory government under Thatcher they voted uh but demographically it’s like different now and also the boundaries are slightly different but they’re not keen they like the outlier they like the

Opposite of the reality um they like a rabble Riser so um but the idea that any of it is to do with the individual geography Johnny is absolutely right the tide is the tide and it do matter I me I I mean the truth is if we

Were looking at an election in which there might be quite a small swing away from the government those 5 those 500 votes can be crucial absolutely ke Battlegrounds it’s just that they will be of a much different order to the ones but but the key Battlegrounds will be places that we

Never thought of key Battlegrounds I mean I always Hastings I always remember the 1997 election campaign I well remember Channel 4 doing a a constituency profile going he he HOA well here’s scarra the polls tell us the labor party might win scarra he he ho ho this is absolutely impossible possible

This seat has never been labor the labor party won scarber in other words at the moment the battle lines are going to be in constituencies of Tory MPS who thought they had a job for life well you’re at the minute it’s got one of the safest seats in the country 25,000 uh

Majority are you nervous so I when I won it in 2015 it was the seat that Yip was supposed to win it was it was a it it was a surprising 4 and a half thousand majority um so my attitude to it has has always bit a bit like J has always being

Said look you’re an idiot if you take this stuff for granted you you you shouldn’t be doing this job if you take it for granted but that’s that’s almost a separate Point um and if I look at that vote then 44% of people in 2015

Voted for me 34% of people voted for you kid wine forward to 2019 at 79% voted conservative all that tells you is that the electorate is incredibly volatile and you can’t take anything for granted and and I think that’s the basis on which any sensible person would be fighting the election

Yeah so Frank luns um last summer warned some of your col well warned you and some of your colleagues that anyone that’s on a a seat of 15,000 or less should be worried um I mean you’re all right then you’re you’re okay but a lot of your colleagues aren’t what’s your

Percentage majority the majority is 62 the majority you’ve got 62% right well look you probably be all right I I think your colleagues who are have somewhat less safe seats might be looking to you to help them out so I think there is there is obviously always

A question of where do you do you do you stay at home and do you help yourself or do you go and help colleagues now obviously it’s only one individual or or one campaign team but I think you are seeing uh people like Franklin trying to scare people into action right he’s he’s

He’s not saying that gleefully he’s saying look come on guys you’ve got to make an effort in seats where you maybe thought that you didn’t and that that I think is is a noble cause right he’s saying that because he wants the conservatives to be the party of government and I think

There are all sorts of good reasons for that to be the case but he’s doing it because he wants to scare people into doing it and and that I think is a good thing and that does have an effect to be fair Morgan mwy in the Libor party does

That too he’s just constantly like we’re not going to win is it not complacent by any chance conference yeah I don’t know I mean I I come from a sort of slightly like da always be cynical Irish background and maybe Morgan mcweeny is just uh who works for the labor party um

In this area maybe he’s just living is living embodiment of my father he’s definitely not not the living embodiment of my father but I this idea that you should take it for granted and that you shouldn’t fight every seat like it’s a marginal seat even those even the ones

That you think are really really safe um is undoubtedly the Mantra of the labor party yeah but but I guess I to me the interesting question now about where the labor party at it partly comes back to the question you asked earlier about how much enthus enthusiasm has the labor party

Um to be honest the labor party for most of this Parliament has seemed to play basically a safety first strategy to say Rel little and there is no there is no doubt that on most of the criteria by which you can compare people’s evaluations the labor party now before

The 1997 Parliament the labor part is in nothing like as strong as a position Visa the enthusiasm of the electric but you are going to face I mean that’s for the purposes of argument I mean but it frankly doesn’t matter who’s form let’s sayos assume that your part is going to

Form the next government I mean in comparison with 1997 you are going to face an Dreadful situation we have maxed outed our credit card we have record levels of Taxation we have record levels of spending but the Public Public Services don’t work and the economy is flatlining all right um

And therefore the problem the potential the thing therefore I think if I were low at this stage I’d be going well actually is it worth beginning to try to bind the electri in a bit more perhaps being slightly riskier this side of election on the basis that if we don’t

Do that in 18 after 18 months unless his lot engage in fidal Warfare you are going to find yourself in in a very very difficult situation so in other words it’s it’s it’s now thinking about well actually do we now need to be a bit more

Upfront about what we’re going to do so that we are not in at risk of being in a situation where we end up seemingly breaking our promises or doing nothing or whatever that’s a big dilem I think facing your I totally agree with you but then that’s the kind of politician I am

I am crash bang Wallop um and I would uh I would definitely take more risks and K st’s approach to this is clearly the winning one at the moment um out of the two of us um so that like undoubtedly but I actually think that the electorate who like you know

Obviously I speak to all the time um not just in my own seat I was in tamest for what seemed like an interminable amount of time and everybody from touth is from Birmingham it seems um and uh I we didn’t have local elections where I was

So I spent my entire like the entire sort of four months in Stoke um um and they are not without realistic understanding that it’s going to take time for the staff that things are so broken that things are going to take time they are not without realis

Realism and or the desire for nuance but I agree you need to show a bit more leg but it doesn’t have to be like three-word slogans we’re going to deliver this overnight it needs to be the idea of change is we’re going to be honest about the idea that it’s going to

Take a long time and you’re going to have to take part in it whether that’s with Taxation and or but let’s take one let’s take one example the IMF today has said basically it would not be responsible for the government to cut tax further and if you read the OB

Report it kind its reaction to the ni cup was that is brave Minister now the risk you face if as so far you seem inclined to accept whatever tax cuts Jeremy Hunt comes up with with is that you will a find that the fiscal situation you’re in is not sustainable

And B you will end up reversing those tax increases and therefore you end up with the appr probium after the election of having broken your what I the that appr probium is one I cannot live with you know what I can live with is that nobody once ever in all my years and

I’ve been knocking doors since literally as long as I can remember I can the my main first memory was campaigning for the labor party I went to women’s Liberation play group to give you an idea of how long I’ve been campaigning for the labor party um no one has ever

Once on a doorstep ever said to me I want a tax cut yeah we were talking about this before we came upstairs there a couple of times they so you talk about different constituencies you go to so I I’ll routinely talk labor like no one ever

Says stop the boat is a thing when literally the only person who ever raised it with me was once in STO he said we need safe and legal roots and I thought I was being filmed I thought I was being filmed for Candid Camera I’m not even joking I was like where’s the

Camera m but this is the thing like like I like Jess like almost like you don’t believe but I can tell you 100% in skes in Boston people will raise spontaneously immigration they will raise spontaneously the what taxes their tax burden they think that they think

That they are being they are paying too much for public services oh they think that oh don’t get me wrong my constituents think they’re paying too much for a bag of yeah it’s the bag of that’s the problem mate not the taxes they’re paying but it’s both I I I

I simply don’t they’ll pay they’re like I don’t mind paying love but I ain’t getting you know I used to pay this am out and I could get a dentist appointment so so I think it’s an interesting thesis but it’s not what people say to you well you’re talking

About people say to but but let me give you a piece of you know slightly more substantial evidence all right and it is a fascinating question about where are as a society okay so British social attitudes has been tracking attitudes towards taxation versus spending for the

Last um 40 years I Will Remember by the way before the 1997 election the labor parties say these guys tell us that the public are more concerned about the Public Services in the ey about the level of Taxation we don’t believe them eventually two years into office the

Penny dropped and they increased public spending right okay so now um but of course the public are fickle and as they once labor had got the waiting times down in the Health Service it improved schools particularly in London people then said hang on you’re taxing us too

Much all right in other words until now when the state has been expanded and it’s taxed more and it’s spent more after while there’s been a reaction yeah the fascinating thing about what’s happened in the wake of the pandemic which of course has been the biggest increase in taxation and the biggest

Increase in spending since 1945 is that so far the public have not reacted right and there are two possible explanations one is we discovered that the state could actually be a rather useful thing the biggest state our wages or more narrowly but this is still important at

The moment that until and if the NHS is sorted out about which there is record levels of dissatisfaction they are not going to be worried about tax cuts that’s absolutely true and and so so so the truth is I mean I think the mistake your party has made and you saw it in

The election of L trust is that because you’ve had you found yourself presiding over a direction of public policy with which you’re uncomfortable you find yourself behind in the polls Therefore your colleagues have concluded the reason why we’re behind in the polls is not we’re being true to ourselves no the

Reason why you’re behind the polls is you’re not being true to the electorate and I would remind you I mean we have been here before we gain go back to the 92 to 97 Parliament the conser The Bu the conservative party having increased taxes after the 92 election having

Criticized labor mercilessly for it what he was saying about tax in both the 1995 and 1996 budgets reduced income tax by a penny of the pound did it have any impact no so know why therefore why therefore do you now think that tax differ just to keep on that is that an

Argument therefore to keep raising taxes you are you saying it would be politically successful to increase the tax what I’m saying what I’m saying to you can I just interrupt sorry sorry sorry rather than having a very long discuss about tax which I agree is important but it’s not actually the

Subject that we’re supposed to be discussing this evening um I really want to if I can just move on to this question about where the election will be fought and principally and it does kind of relate to some of these points that that certainly that Matt was

Raising which is that what is raised in his constituency May well be different to what is raised in Jess’s constituency so one of the questions I want to ask is does a slim and I appreciate that the the you know definition of slim is loose in this context but does a slim majority

In the red wall uh equate to the same siiz majority in the blue wall or is there a sort of Distinction to be made regarding the type of voter and therefore the sort of likely outcome of the the sort of final makeup of the of the

Commons well look I mean the first thing to say is all the redall constituencies the conservatives are extremely marginal and they’re all going to go right right I mean and is the same true of the of right lot a lot of the blue walled at 2019 they didn’t like bre I

Mean the other thing we have to realize again the clear to election is not just about geography it’s not just that the red I mean if you look at what’s happening in the polls that have been done in red wall seats they show exactly the same swing more or less exactly the

Same swing as is going on in the National polls right you shouldn’t be surprised because look this is give you an an indication of just how deep is the problem the conservative party face back in 2019 the conservative party won the support of 80% of those people who at

That point in time were in favor of brexit brexit was the thing that delivered success for the conservative party not because brexit was necessarily the most popular option but because lead voters United behind the conservative party whereas the remain vote was fragmented right level the current level of support for the conservative part

Party amongst current supporters of leave and they are now a smaller group than they were in 2019 is 40% in other words the conservative party has lost a half of the support that it had in 29 so don’t be surprised if I tell you the red War goes the blue war is more

Complicated because of course the liberal Democrats have basically decided to bet the farm on the conservative party doing badly um they are they they’ve decided to entirely ignore the fact that they’re not making much progress in the National poll they’ve certainly decided to ignore the

Fact that the a key reason why they are not doing tot one the polls is they’ve lost a whole shedload of votes to to labor party the lab part is standing in the poll this is a minor part of it but it isn’t just because of the success in

Taking votes of the conservatives the labor party has taken about one in three of the votes the liberal Democrats had back in 2019 most of them by the way very heavily uh Pro EU voters so they’ but they they they have decided that conservatives are going do badly that

They can concentrate their arguments in the so-called blue wall seats and they’re basically hoping well basically I mean part they’re just hoping the conservative vot’s going to collapse so they’ll pick them up anyway even if their vote doesn’t increase but if they can also persuade people to vote

Tactically for them in the seats where they’ve got a chance of winning that they can get you know 30 40 seats they can displace the Scottish national party is the third biggest party inside the House of Commons and will hope therefore to re regain a prominent position but it

Will be on the back at the moment moment of what is a very thin uh level of support across the country as a whole so that so the the Lial Democrats are definitely playing the geographical game they always do and they have to the lab party doesn’t have to play presumably in

Some of those they’re not going to get any tactical alliance with me I’m versus the liberal Democrats they are my main opponent in my seat and liberal Democrats in the north of England are completely different to Liberal Democrats in the South bear in mind my seat has mainly liberal Democrat

Counselors and voted brexit by 62% most of the liberal Democrat councilors where I live voted for brexit like don’t believe the hype about like them bardian ruding yogurt knitting uh like where I live people who vote liberal Democrat are Tories so I rely on yeah the Tory vote Staying High in workingclass areas

Liberal Democrat votes are like green votes in workingclass areas are uh like bombarded with with somebody with leaflets and just not you’re not the people in charge whether that’s on the council Andor in government they are just the the anti um the antiv vote which to be fair to them was actually

Where I live if you look in like police and crime commissioner elections people will vote like you kit one liberal Democrats second I’m not joking that that’s the reality that they are they are just you know down you know PL on all your houses sort of thing so that is uh

Just going to head off at the past before anybody asks me this if we’re having a Q&A I would never ever in a million years agree to some sort of electoral pact and the reason I wouldn’t do that is because I am a Democrat and I believe

That men in Westminster and it is always men making deals in back rooms about who will stand where and be the most is the most anti-democratic thing and you know what I trust the electorate 10 times the amount that I trust men in Westminster which is a low bar the

Electorate shouldn’t feel too happy but the idea that people where I live don’t know how to vote tactically or by themselves they are clever enough or to do it for themselves or they get the message implicitly because you know what I somehow suspect J that there won’t be

Much of a campaign labor campaign in Sur Heath or in chesham and amam exactly the same be honest I was never going to campaign in Sur Heath because it would like you know I’m not going to campaign in your city either FL but the point is the the electric pick up that message

Right you because so so you you’re right there isn’t a formal PCT but the and there won’t be any kind of pack never I would never sign up to it would let me abandon all of my there there is a de facto understanding whereby effect the I mean

And the parties only have to follow their own logic basically where the labor party will want to concentrate its resources will not be in places you say that John but in my seat the libdems will come after me yeah but you’re now you’re now very much the exception right

There are very few constituencies where labor and the lids are facing off they will absolutely come after me and there will be no PCT because no offense like I was raised to really really dislike the Tories really no offense like I’ve learned that you are just like I was

Really really raised to be like don’t say it it’s like a swear um but oh my God on a local level the way I feel about the liberal Democrats makes me literally want to punch a wall so we’re going to turn over to questions in a minute but before we

Do I just want to ask um and it’s slightly picking up on a point that John sort of raised earlier which is where will you be campaigning where are the key battle Battlegrounds for you is it your own seat or are you going to be helping particular I suppose I’m

Looking at you helping who do you so so I think the answer me has always been that you’ve got to look after your your own base first right um on the other hand uh I’ve like my nearest marginal seat is Lincoln it’s not that far away

It would be inexcusable not to go not to go and help um geography in this instance is a real Factor because there’s no point saying to someone like me can you drive for two hours to go and do a thing like that in that sense geography is a big factor but of course

LOL uh dubbing a yeah indeed I mean it’s low thousands right um but obviously the Practical thing that you’re going to do and I’m going to be encouraging my own activists to do is to say look if I ask you to go a long distance they’re just not going

To go if I ask you to go a reasonable distance they are going to go so so so this is just a practical logistical thing it’s not really a sort of philosophical trouble with Birmingham my mom always used to set it’s a great place to get away from and in the

Current byelections Birmingham is literally an hour and a half from everywhere I’m like that I could get it Blackpool could go a r could go to H Rochdale could go a Bristol could go to Welling BR I am geographically close to everyone bad gig I people like people slightly sneaky way I’m asking

For you to say what is your key what is your sort of key Battleground that you are either in your case take or for me it’s much more about heart I have to say on a personal level uh my own seat I will fight it as if uh I am and you know

It would be absolutely CR of me to say there aren’t issues in in a city seats uh that labor currently hold it would be crass uh that they there is um and so I am uh I feel very very protective over my own particular seat at the moment um but

Um for me it’s about the the heart of the places that feel like they should be and so for me it’s the black country um which maybe to you I sound like I’m from there I’m really not uh but uh when people do a Birmingham accent they always do this Mark Birmingham accent

Literally every actor in pey blinders uh which is based in my constituency that’s not what Birmingham people sound like uh but um the so so the West bromage seats the ones that like Tom Watson’s all see like there is I have like the that’s where the labor party headquarters is in

In our region like I have like this sort of heart thing that like it was when my brothers were born and stuff like it can’t be T can’t be Tory I can’t let that stay Tory so I will go with my heart into the red wall also I’m just

Much actually I’m beloved in rich areas so maybe I’ll go to places where people are really rich um but yeah I feel like I’m an asset where I sound like the people who are going to be voting and John I mean Stephen AG has been sort of identified as as as kind of

One of the key Battlegrounds it is a Belle where the seat but it’s the current um incumbent has a a majority of about eight and a half thousand presumably therefore well below the kind of Watermark where do you what would you say are kind of the three most interesting

Battlegrounds I honestly don’t know I mean I mean I really go to at the moment and saying um that um you know when we get closer to election we probably be looking to say you know some seats that we’ve never uh thought of the conservative party ever losing I mean

Beyond that I mean I think so so there there are two caveat that caveat number one we’ve already said which is the liberal Democrat fight against the conservatives the other obvious caveat is Scotland right Scotland’s fascinating where um you do have a situation where um the moment the S SMP on average is

Slightly head of labor party in in the polls but the labor votes more efficiently distributed geographically so the lab party could pick up around two dozen seats north of the Border um which could significantly enhance its ability to win an overall majority if the polls uh were to now but then what

You also have to understand that does therefore mean that virtually every seat in Scotland is marginal between labor and the S&P so I can go to Glasgow I can go to Edinburgh I can go to Dundee I can go abine and I can find you what at the

Moment will potentially be um a a a marginal seat and that of course does therefore mean that it’s the it’s almost at the moment the one place where the outcome is most uncertain because if a labor party were to manage to make a bit further progress they could well end up

Dominating Scot’s representation from Westminster but equally if the S&P con WID in the Gap a bit again all of a sudden labor party will discover that doesn’t it have more seats north of order does than than the two it has at the moment but it will may could still

Find has a relatively limmited uh uh uh re reward so that’s one place where you know it it it’s in a sense it’s it’s it’s a sideshow in a sense the truth is it’s those two s shows it’s the liberal Democrat side show and the S SMP side

Show which are going to take place in different parts of the country where perhaps what at the moment looks the most uncertain aspect of this election which is who’s going to come third is going to be determined right now you may laugh the idea that the

Tories would come no no no no no no no that’s not the point no the the point is is it the liberal Democrats or is it the SNP right the okay right it’s because of the advantage that being the third larest party gives you in terms of House of Comm procedure

Particular with respect to pmqs the little Democrats since 2015 they lost the positions the third largest party they are desperate to regain it the SNP not turning up for it the S&P are very very keen to try to hang on to those that the outcome of that proxy battle is

Going to happen into areas where there will be a lot of geographically concentrated fights um but in terms of at the moment the broad outcome I think corn will be interesting just because it’s pretty uh and down but also I just think labor laor will take some seats in

Cornwall but I think the livm have the potential to I just think it’s much more of a sort of like three-way and also it is a bit of a different world like as well a bit like Scotland it is essentially like you know it has a very

Sort of strong identity about it so the Cornwall Devon bit I think will be interesting to look at and I’m going to go there just because like one of my best mates live there and it’s like it’s pretty it’s nice I live in Birmingham

Maybe not in um Matt do you have I am going to turn it over to questions but Matt do you have somewhere that you’re looking at as a kind of place that you’re going to spend a lot of time you said Lincoln is there anywhere else well no I mean I think I

Think LOL is naturally the default if only because 201 so I i’ I’ve lived with uh the risk I’m trying to be friendly but I’ve lived with Lincoln under a labor under a labor MP and and and I and I don’t want to go back there um I was you know like you

Know I wouldn’t necessarily have picked that particular labor Empire so I’m honest about the people I do and don’t like about my own side how do you feel about Mark fris anyway right okay so let’s turn it over two questions um we’ve got one here at the front and one towards the

Back thanks um I’m haty I’m an a-level student and also a labor activist woo we discuss a lot at the moment particularly the CM in about the twinning process within the labor party and the process of twinning up the two seats I’ve heard sort of criticisms and praise for it

Both what is sort of your perspective on it particularly as an MP in pretty safe suat I think that if you twinning processes you get paired if you like a safe seat you get paired with another seat and the point is is that you meant to send your activists from there um the

Truth is that the labor party membership outside of London isn’t absolutely massive are you in a London seat har yeah yeah uh so outside of London like I mean the members I mean I know this is going to sound like Mana from Heaven to you Matt but like we only have like 400

500 members in a local area and like 5% of them come out and campaign so the idea that the answer to winning Birmingham Northfield is to send Birmingham yardley’s twinned people there I think is I mean it’s optimistic uh for you know me to send those people there to what extent is it

Won by activists on the ground versus direct mail or phone calls or I mean what I have said very clearly is air war is is the is the main thing that matters however turnout in any election turnout does matter and no offense to people when we knock on your door like I am

Fascinated to me especially my own constituency when I knock on their door I genuinely I’m just there to talk to you um but that you know like it is just to find out who you are how you going to vote so I’m going to knock on your door

On Election Day I am quite honest with people I’m like can I have your phone number so that like I don’t have to knock I can just call uh like like that that is the reality turnout it it does matter it matters much more in the

Margin of course I can’t help but live in the margin and for the rest of my life so I will always live in the margin like Matt um and so look I think not having any activists on the ground like the labor party has way more activists than the conservative party having no

Activist on the ground is problematic not so problematic if you just got loads of money to pay for and the conservative party have recently massively increased the the threshold on spending yeah in the election now like I don’t need to spend I never ever I’ve never once spent

The amount of money that I’m allowed to spend in my local area but I don’t need I don’t need to pay someone to deliver my leaflets because actually I have somebody on every street who likes the labor party slash me enough to deliver it whether they’re members of the labor

Party or not I don’t need to to to do that in election people start to Rally around you especially in an election I did a door KN the other day it’s normally three of us like 19 people turned up we didn’t know what to do with

Them we’ finished in 20 minutes I was like that W this is good um and like so because people are getting ready for the election but like it activism on the ground definitely makes the sense that you are part of something and you have to keep that going all year round that’s

What make people people ofly hate politicians they’re quite keen on their one usually and that’s because activism isn’t just a general election so a general election is an effort in Civic building of this infrastructure that you will rely on throughout the year and how are your activists feeling at the minute

Well I mean it’s an interesting example big rural consitency yeah so so it takes over an hour to drive from one end to the other to to to mind so so it doesn’t mind but only because of traffic so so so so so that sort of campaigning is is very different you

Might do a day in Boston you might do a day in skes but actually huge chunks of the vote are in The Villages in the rural areas all that so it’s just a very different model and and and say and again it comes back to sort of saying to

The people who live an hour away from the bit that I want to go out in that day for instance will you come and help it’s just harder to get people to do that so it’s just a very different uh set of circumstances and that is disproportion true for Tor MPS than it

Is for labor MPS so it’s very very different if I were to draw from one end of my constituency to another um and there were no traffic it would take me less than 10 minutes but the the research evidence is AC research evidence is also that the conservative

Party finds it more difficult to persuade its activists to campaign outside the constituency that they that they live in um which which is a disadvantage because the truth is you want to focus your resources on the on the consti IES which you think are marginal because that’s where the activism potentially

Matters yeah okay yes hi I’m interested about um low people low voter turnout yeah yeah and how that policies thinking about sort of generation to get on the property ladder I’m interested how out for young people things there there was an article last week BAS on a

Study I think talking about low voter turnouts specifically from young people um I think for for a few reasons the sort of likely negative um campaigns that we’re sort of all braced for um the fact that neither leader seems to be particularly that kind of ground swell

Kind of enthusiastic the use Quake under Jeremy Corbin wasn’t real was it well I know but I’m thinking sort of Obama and Blair type kind of was was there a use qu I mean well look I mean I literally gave birth to David Barack Obama so there’s a youth quake in my

Life is ID voter ID as well which is okay there are some particular issues potentially about turnning this election but I’m afraid the honest brutal truth is that young people have always not voed less likely to turn out and vote true and when I mean in part that’s circumstantial so

Younger people are more likely to be in the circumstances whereby they don’t get on the register or stroke they don’t manage to vote IE they live they live in multi-occupancy occupation they’ve moved they’ve moved uh their residency recently they’re less likely to be in employment um etc etc these are all

Things that are associate irrespective of age with people being being less likely to vote stroke being on the register but you know the truth is is that as they get into their 20s in their 30s and their 40s and they have a partner or they get married and if

They’re lucky these days they might even have a mortgage or that’s getting more difficult Jesus not exactly no exactly exactly what I’m saying right um where the point is they just they be that they tend to catch up with a previous generation terms level of turning out

Now what is true about this I mean to be honest I suspect that at the moment the turnout in this election will be low across all groups for a very for three very simple reasons one is there isn’t much difference between the parties much as these two will disagree with that

Statement two um at the moment it looks to be all over by the shouting and three and three and this comes back to the earlier comment um all three principal Party leaders when includes some of us of all four are as I’ve said elsewhere are as dull as ditch waterer in the eyes

Of the electorate so you so this this potentially is going to be an extremely boring election campaign led by people I really hope it’s boring who led by people who don’t Infuse the elector my job harder um um and and you certainly look at what happened particularly when

Turnout fell very heavily in the 2001 election that was that was very much linked to uh the fact that particularly the um it was very Li between the parties and it was so obvious what was going to happen given labor had already won by Landslide and there was no

Evidence of the conservative party uh making much prog so these These are the kinds of circumstances that does tend to depress turnout in general and it will that will also affect younger people answer to your question yes it is the sole reason why young people are poorly served it is

The sole reason why polic but it is a problem for your party because no I’m not saying that I’m not saying it isn’t but there is absolutely no way that the things that young people have suffered in the last you know under this conser conservative government and I’ve no

Doubt previous labor governments as well um although I was young under the last one and I have to say I feel like I owe it my entire existence I was a young mother under the last Labor government uh my son just turned 18 and literally had money in the bank that had been

Given to him by Tony Blair uh which I said to Tony Blair if my son buys a motorbike I’m going to kill you um but the um Gordon Brown yeah to be fair I got one Blair baby one brown baby the money all came from Brown um but the

The truth there’s absolutely no way the conservatives would have made it so that young people the old people could never claim housing benefit like nobody under the age of 21 can currently climb any housing benefit that’s literally not possible like that is like there’s absolutely no way they would have made a

Minimum wage that started at 25 and then ended at 55 like they would never have done that and yet I you know when I was 25 I had two children like I didn’t get a special price in the supermarket when I was buying my groceries but I would

Have been paid less because the minimum wage is different for people who are younger undoubtedly the single biggest thing that young people could do to make policies better for young people is vote like the over 50s and I certain you need to realize them up the the lower

Turnout amongst younger people is a problem for the labor party now because because age is the biggest demographic dividing line in our society the labor party is no longer the party of the working class right that that division seems to have disappeared but age is a really important Division

And it’s one of the reasons why this city is now so overwhelmingly a labor City a it’s full of younger people and B A lot of them are liberal uh professionals which is now the core labor constituency the core labor constituency is no longer the archetype of workingclass voter of the 1960s it’s

Actually young middle class professional people living in London that’s the core labor constituency but they are seeking to get one in a town rather than in a city that’s the stevenage woman archetype is is the towns that that this is a sure because because there isn’t

Much left for LA to pick up in London Lisa and Andy talking about towns quite a lot she loves a town she does I mean as a person from a city yeah I mean she’s also from a city originally but she’s she’s total Town convert but she

Was she was banging the town she loves a town before anyone else absolutely loves and now the FOC I like a I like turn I’m not saying I’m against a t so one question which I did want to ask before we kind of wrap up is um should we read

Anything into the fact that um the archetypes that I have been picking up on not just stepen ID women but also Millennial Millie and tactical Tina is it just because they have a nice ring to their nails that they’re all women or is there actually a thing happening that

Suddenly female voters are more important than they what you have to understand is this at most elections right I me well there’s a crucial thing in elections you have to distinguish between the structure and the flux okay the structure is what is the long-term relationship between uh de demography or

People’s attitudes and the party they vote for okay so for example at the moment it’s still the case that if you’re looking at the structure of Party Support brexit still divides conservative and labor supporters quite heavily okay on the other hand brexit explains very little of the by which I

Mean the change in support since the last election all right it’s for you know it’s Boris and listra Etc um and that very often usually the flux occurs evenly across the structure so if a part is doing well it will gain ground both amongst people amongst traditionally does well and also amongst

People that traditionally does badly now the interesting thing about the 2019 election was that that was not true that was Ane ction in which Boris Johnson succeeded and persuading people that the central issue was brexit and that together with what already happened in 2017 meant that indeed you got a lot of

Differential movement in different sections of our society but that is the exception rather than the rule of course one of the things we are looking and interested in is to what extent will the Legacy the the structural Legacy of 2019 still be with us or not even if the flux

Uh now means that terms of levels of party support things look different the evidence at the moment on the academic research is that the structure of the 2019 election is still going to be with us even though the flux is basically going to emaciate all of the obvious

Traces of that structure in terms of the Electoral geography were you asking specifically are women going to decide the election well basically yes okay Um I mean classically women’s support for the labor party is is for the labor party than men support for the labor party and theno the same the other way around um I mean under Boris it must have been much higher for with men he kind of famously had a a problem

Connecting with female voters even I mean not that many connected with lad well but there wasn’t I mean see there wasn’t there was a bit of a brexit gender divide on brexit but there wasn’t much and you the crucial thing about 2019 it’s brexit that’s the thing yeah

But I I think that John already hit the nail on the head earlier when we were talking about taxation is that you cannot have an argument about taxation until you’ve sorted the NHS out the NHS is currently I would say uh and the labor party is massively like so the NHS

And cost of living both of which are in most cases the absolute Bastian of a woman in a house both of those things your household the way that you manage your household budget and the way way that you and how much you worry about it actually I’m just saying my

Husband literally doesn’t worry about anything anyway he um and also your the health and well-being of your people I wish it wasn’t the case but I’m afraid to say that the vast majority of that and they are coming out I would say at the moment as the two most Prime

Issues the most significant thing so do I think women’s concerns I mean I am going to seek it to make that women’s concerns are absolutely 100% the absolute Forefront and for me that is about women’s safety which for Women Voters at the moment is way more of a

Priority than not than other things but than it’s ever been before than it’s ever been before and so there is all sorts of opportunities to lead people somewhere on particular issues outside of those two which are already troubling Women Voters to a level that I’ve never

Seen it before I do the General Public I mean I would argue I would I’d argue the question that most voters are going to be are asking themselves is can I afford to feed my kids and if I fall ill will the I’m going to lose my house even if I

Earn a six figure salary I mean literally that is the conversation I have with people I know who are living in like one of the nicer bits admittedly of Birmingham we’d be living in multi-million pound Mansions if we lived where you all live um but most of my friends are considering

Selling their homes to downsize because they can no longer afford their mortgages and these are people who are like their Collective income is three four times that of the average person where we live and like across every strata where you’re in Sur Heath there was a minister quite honestly ex George

Freeman who said he couldn’t afford his mortgage anymore because it gone from 900 to £2,000 and I thought Jesus mine started at 2500 the problem is now it’s three and a half thousand um like that’s that is everyone everybody is and it’s not the it’s not the issue of um

It’s not the issue of like it’s the worry everybody is in a worrying position men man woman beast yeah I mean in during the whole the course of this Parliament if you look at ipu’s data we have been more con consistently and deeply pessimistic about the economy

Than we have been at any time since 1920 1979 when they first started doing the poing we are and and the problem the conservative party has is you you know we can we can have an interesting intellectual argument as to where responsibility for all this lies but the

Problem the conservative party has is that all that Jess Phillips and her colleagues have to do is to pin the donkey on the conservative part pin the tail on the conservative Donkey by just mentioning it’s fault and that’s it and and and that that’s one of the fundamental reasons why it’s so

Difficult for the conservative party to turn things around right okay well I’m sorry we have slightly overrun so um to end on that high note um but thank you so much for coming this evening and thank you so much Matt John and Jess thank you and enjoy the rest of your

Evening oh thanks [Applause] over