When will the Tories next lead in the polls?

Anyone who bet on the Tories not getting a poll lead this year is probably feeling pretty confident right now. Smarkets have been running a market on this since June when the opening price indicated a 40% chance that they wouldn't get ahead all year; right now that probability is more like 75%.

Wikipedia: UK Opinion polling since the 2019 general election

The last Conservative lead was a two point advantage reported by Redfield & Wilton on December 6, 2021. Currently, Labour's lead averages out at 9% according to the aggregator at Politico. Still, we have a new Prime Minister, so what about that honeymoon bounce that leaders sometimes get? As far as we can tell so far, she isn't getting much of one. Some had speculated that the death of The Queen might produce a "rally round the flag" effect for the government, but there has been no real sign of that either.

Kwarteng's mini-budget: Hit or miss?

The new administration's first big opportunity to present itself to the public has now happened with Kwasi Kwarteng's Plan For Growth. The initial reactions have mostly predicted that this will be a very hard sell politically, given that the tax cutting will overwhelmingly benefit the richest. The measures also threaten to overshadow the energy price cap which, by itself, commands a high degree of public support.

My initial guess would be that overall this mini-budget will hurt the government's popularity, at least in the short term. Although that view appears to be shared by most pundits (and quite possibly even by the government itself) it's worth remembering that the initial predictions of the commentariat can quite often be wrong about things like this. Budgets which are instantly declared a vote-winning success often turn out to be the exact opposite.

You have to go back to 2013 to find the last calendar year in which a Tory government failed to post a single poll lead (although they did achieve a couple of ties). Personally, I wouldn't bet on them breaking their losing streak in 2022 at the current prices, although if the odds really drifted in response to the current news cycle I might be tempted to get involved.

Thanks to Mark Pack for his invaluable PollBase records.