Why the Tories Won

wymondham

I thought the Tories won as their greatest election asset was well used - Ed Milliband

zagfles

antrobus wrote: »

"In some places we had more Labour ‘promises’ going into the polling booth than actually voted Labour, suggesting our promises were being taken to the polling booths by Labour only to vote Tory,” said one insider."
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/08/labour-party-election-horror-soul-searching

Perceptions of what actually constitutes the Labour vote are frequently inaccurate.:)

I think Moby's signature explains the "shy Tory" effect perfectly. There are all sorts of reasons why people choose who to vote for, but there's a perception amongst Labour supporters that selfishness is the main reason people vote Tory.

So when approached by someone who supports Labour (eg a party worker) or even someone who might (eg a pollster), rather than risk their moral indignation, or have to justify themselves, they take the easy way out.

Ironic really, as I'd wager as many if not more people vote Labour for selfish reasons as vote Tory for selfish reasons.

Labour really need to drop this "Tories are evil scum who don't care about the poor/sick/disabled and are only interested in helping their rich mates" type bull. This might go down really well with left wing audiences ie those who'd never consider voting Tory anyway, but it doesn't with floating voters who might consider voting Tory, they just see it as loony leftie ranting and it puts them off.

And of course the two are contradictory - if the Tories are only interested in helping the rich, and people who vote Tory are selfish, then why did they win? They can't win just by getting votes from the rich, there aren't enough of them!

LydiaJ

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Labour under Milliband was simply too far to the left to win enough support from the all important centre of the political spectrum.

wymondham wrote: »

I thought the Tories won as their greatest election asset was well used - Ed Milliband

That's the impression I got round here. I lost count of people who said they were still undecided how to vote and implied that it was because while they weren't natural tory voters and preferred the highest polling non-tory candidate on local issues, they were considering voting tory to keep Ed out of number 10. The result here suggests that a lot of those people decided that when it came to the crunch, they cared more about who was PM than who was MP here.

However, I can quite easily imagine that somebody who felt "I don't actually like the tories but I'll vote blue because I really don't want Ed as PM" might answer "undecided" to a poll even if actually they already knew which way they were going to go. So the "opinion polls underestimating Conservative support" thing doesn't surprise me.
[X-posted with zagfles, saying something v similar about "shy tories".]

antrobus

zagfles wrote: »

I think Moby's signature explains the "shy Tory" effect perfectly. There are all sorts of reasons why people choose who to vote for, but there's a perception amongst Labour supporters that selfishness is the main reason people vote Tory. ....

You can't say things like that!:)

It's an article of faith amongst your typical left activist that they are morally superior by virtue of their politics. To question that, would be like denying the trinity, or orginal sin; you can get burnt alive for uttering such heretical notions, you know.:)

zagfles wrote: »

...So when approached by someone who supports Labour (eg a party worker) or even someone who might (eg a pollster), rather than risk their moral indignation, or have to justify themselves, they take the easy way out.

Ironic really, as I'd wager as many if not more people vote Labour for selfish reasons as vote Tory for selfish reasons.

Labour really need to drop this "Tories are evil scum who don't care about the poor/sick/disabled and are only interested in helping their rich mates" type bull. This might go down really well with left wing audiences ie those who'd never consider voting Tory anyway, but it doesn't with floating voters who might consider voting Tory, they just see it as loony leftie ranting and it puts them off. ....

Yes. But believe me, it is very hard to get that message across to your typical Labour activist. (Or at least it was. Whenever.)

zagfles wrote: »

..And of course the two are contradictory - if the Tories are only interested in helping the rich, and people who vote Tory are selfish, then why did they win? They can't win just by getting votes from the rich, there aren't enough of them!

That's because people are either (a) stupid, or (b) have been confused by the Jedi Mind Tricks inflicted upon them by the Daily Mail, the BBC, The Sun, Sky News ...........

antrobus

Mind you, I'm not 100% convinced about this 'shy Tory' theory as an explanation for the polls being wrong.

After all, the polls were about right on the level of support for UKIP, as in 12%-14%, so obviously people weren't shy about admitting an intention to vote UKIP, which you would have thought was regarded as being even a worst sin in certain quarters.

Generali

antrobus wrote: »

Mind you, I'm not 100% convinced about this 'shy Tory' theory as an explanation for the polls being wrong.

After all, the polls were about right on the level of support for UKIP, as in 12%-14%, so obviously people weren't shy about admitting an intention to vote UKIP, which you would have thought was regarded as being even a worst sin in certain quarters.

People vote for the status quo.

BobQ

I cannot believe that the polls were consistently that wrong, so it has to come down to factors like differential turnout and the way undecided voters made their decision on the day. I doubt there was any one factor but the two I find most credible are Miliband and the SNP.

I think confidence in Miliband was a key factor in this together with a vote for the status quo. Miliband did a reasonable job, but the vitriolic treatment he got in the largely right wing press was likely to put some people off, however unfair it was. The fear factor of "vote Labour get SNP" was also effective, particularly with the press stoking the argument. The polls largely got the shares of the vote correct apart from the late swing from Labour to Tory. In the end people wanted the devil they thought they knew.

Thrugelmir

BobQ wrote: »

Miliband did a reasonable job, but the vitriolic treatment he got in the largely right wing press was likely to put some people off,

Five years later. One wonders what would have happened with David as leader instead.

zagfles

antrobus wrote: »

Mind you, I'm not 100% convinced about this 'shy Tory' theory as an explanation for the polls being wrong.

After all, the polls were about right on the level of support for UKIP, as in 12%-14%, so obviously people weren't shy about admitting an intention to vote UKIP, which you would have thought was regarded as being even a worst sin in certain quarters.

Yes, but UKIP voters (IME anyway) tend to be proud and even vocal about their views, and won't care if others find them offensive. Or even relish it as an opportunity to have a rant about something they're angry about eg Europe, immigration, political correctness etc.

The idea that the Tories and Labour really were neck and neck right up to Wednesday but there was a massive swing on Thursday is ridiculous, unless something massive happened, perhaps similar to Madrid bombing which is said to have swung the Spanish election a few years ago.

But nothing like that happened here. Opinion doesn't change that much in a day.

antrobus

BobQ wrote: »

I cannot believe that the polls were consistently that wrong, ....

Why ever not? They were wrong in 1992. They have been wrong about other things since then, and they will be wrong about something else in the future.

Predicting human behaviour is not an exact science.

BobQ wrote: »

...so it has to come down to factors like differential turnout and the way undecided voters made their decision on the day. I doubt there was any one factor but the two I find most credible are Miliband and the SNP.

I think confidence in Miliband was a key factor in this together with a vote for the status quo. Miliband did a reasonable job, but the vitriolic treatment he got in the largely right wing press was likely to put some people off, however unfair it was. The fear factor of "vote Labour get SNP" was also effective, particularly with the press stoking the argument. The polls largely got the shares of the vote correct apart from the late swing from Labour to Tory. In the end people wanted the devil they thought they knew.

Late swing might not cut it.

I don’t think it was a late swing either. YouGov did a re-contact survey on the day and found no significant evidence of this.

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/9411