The Angus-Reid poll I mentioned yesterday, puts “Yes” to AV ahead by 53% to 47%. It also includes national voting intention numbers:
CON 31, LAB 42, LD 11
Political Betting suggests that the cross-tabs allow us to distinguish between voters who voted Labour in the general election and those who have switched recently from the Liberal Democrats. If this is true, and they look like a distinct group, I wonder what the national voting intention really tells us, and if it tells us anything about voting in the council elections in May. I can think of three possibilities:
- The move to Labour is disaffection with us joining a coalition with the Tories (terminology alert; I usually say Conservatives, so the semiotics matter) but they would still naturally vote for us
- The move to Labour is a return to their natural party (i.e. the swing towards us was disaffection with Labour!)
- The group that has moved towards Labour is largely in the ABC1 social group, which leans “Yes to AV”, rather than C2DE (which is “No to AV” by 60% to 40%)
If 2) is true, then things could be very bad for us in May, so I hope instead that 1) is true and most will still vote Liberal Democrat. I think 3) is orthogonal and describes the composition of the group rather than saying anything about motives and likely voting patterns.
