After the grim polls when Keir Starmer was fighting to remain prime minister, a narrow Labour lead will doubtless cheer the party’s supporters. However, it is too early for us to be sure whether Labour’s 4 per cent lead over Reform according to More in Common is a polling blip, a short-term boost or the start of a significant and lasting change in the public mood. YouGov’s latest poll shows a move in the same direction, but somewhat smaller. It has Labour and Reform level pegging – the first time since April last year when the company has shown anything other than a Reform lead. The reality is that most voters will take weeks, possibly months, before they come to a firm view about Andy Burnham. Even so, there are important clues to what is going on, even if we can’t be sure where we shall all end up.
The first is that changing party leader was a necessary but far from sufficient condition for reviving Labour’s fortunes. In a way, Labour has the same problem as the Conservatives. Over the past nine months, Kemi Badenoch’s personal ratings have risen sharply. Averaging the polls, the number satisfied with her has almost doubled. Yet her party has risen just three points, to 20 per cent. Labour’s change of leader has produced an almost identical rise in personal approval compared with Keir Starmer’s – and, by the end of Burnham’s first week as prime minister, a similarly modest advance in party support.
The reason is not hard to find. Both parties are weighed down by dreadful brand reputations. The Conservatives have yet to be forgiven for their failings in office. Likewise, voters have taken against both Starmer and his government. Like Badenoch, Burnham needs to persuade voters that he offers not just a better driver but a better car.
If he does, there are reasons for optimism. For the past year, Reform has been the greatest threat to Labour prospects. That threat is fading. Nigel Farage’s party peaked last autumn when its polling average was 33 per cent. It has now slipped to 24 per cent.
This matters, as much to Labour and the Tories as to Reform. Our first past the post voting system (FPTP) has two features that are especially significant. The first is that a crowded political marketplace enables a party to win an overall majority with around one-third of the national vote. Labour showed that two years ago.
The second feature of FPTP is particularly relevant to Reform. Think back to the last general election. The Liberal Democrats trailed Reform by 600,000 votes (3.5 to 4.1 million votes) but trounced it in seats (72 to five). This was because the Lib Dems piled up votes where they could win, but relatively few where they couldn’t. In contrast, Reform’s vote was spread far more evenly. It won between 15 and 25 per cent in as many as 284 seats – votes that boosted its national total but gave it no MPs. Only 35 Lib Dem candidates ended up in that wasted vote territory.
For a while last autumn, when Reform was at its peak, its 18-point rise in vote share since 2024 converted the great majority of those 284 seats from far-behind to first place. Evenly spread votes ceased to be a handicap and became a huge asset.
Yet what FPTP gives, it can easily take away. A YouGov MRP survey last September, which projected 311 seats for Reform when it was at its peak, said that 82 of those seats would be won by less than five percentage points. It would take only a modest dip in support to rob the party of hopes of glory.
This seems to be happening. Shortly before Starmer’s resignation, two MRP polls by separate companies produced startlingly different figures. We could be forgiven for viewing the gulf between them as a reason to dismiss all MRP projections. In fact, they tell us something crucial. Here are their figures:
Take your pick: Farage becoming prime minister, not far short of an overall majority (More in Common); or Burnham leading comfortably the largest party, with the chance to lead a progressive coalition working with the Lib Dems and the Greens (Electoral Calculus).
Why are the two projections so far apart? You might think Labour’s overall vote is much higher with Electoral Calculus. You would be wrong. Its figure is just one point higher: 22 per cent rather than 21.
Part of the difference is that Electoral Calculus makes a tactical voting adjustment. This costs Reform 39 seats and the SNP 11, while Labour gains 22, the Tories 27 and the Lib Dems one.
However, most of the difference comes from the list of parties the two companies offer respondents. Electoral Calculus includes Restore; More in Common does not. Whereas Electoral Calculus has Reform on 22 per cent and Restore on seven, More in Common simply shows Reform on 28 per cent. They pretty well agree on the size of the hard right vote, but disagree on whether it is monopolised by one party or shared between two. (They agree almost exactly on the figures for all the other parties.)
Mr Micawber would appreciate Farage’s position. Twenty-eight per cent: result happiness; 22 per cent: result misery. And misery for Farage brings joy to Burnham and Badenoch.
Today, Reform is closer to 22 than 28 per cent. Small shifts in either direction would have big political consequences. If Reform dips a little lower, Labour has a good chance of being the largest party at the next election.
All in all, an early bounce is neither here nor there. To exploit any further weakness in Reform, Burnham’s better car needs to be charged up for a long drive, not just a spin round the block.
[Further reading: At last, a government that looks like it’s trying]