John Wall is a retired engineer and former Conservative county councillor in Hampshire.
The Budget, immigration, slavery/reparations, etc. may have caused some to miss the Conservatives overtaking Reform in some opinion polls.
Polls typically have a Margin of Error of +/-3% so I follow trackers like Election Maps, which average the figures.
I previously contended that ”Changing an unpopular PM has some chance of success, if done quickly and with the right result” – Labour got it right, and their polling is heading towards 30%.
Burnham is an improvement over Starmer in almost every area, a low bar!, although he’s fundamentally a big-state, tax-and-spend leftie who, even if he correctly diagnosed Britain’s problems, hasn’t got the answers.
There is talk of an early election, which would be wagering two and half years in the hope of five. Burnham would currently be exchanging a large, albeit recalcitrant, majority for only being the largest party and having to come to an accommodation with, probably, the LibDems who, after 2010-15, are unlikely to commit to anything more than confidence and supply.
The first regicide is the hardest, would the Magic Man from Manchester survive this?
I suggest that 340-50 seats, predicted by a series of MRP polls, although down from the 2024 result, would provide a stable majority government and could be considered successful.
The route to that is by rebuilding Labour’s 2024 coalition and Burnham’s utterances and actions on Europe/Brexit, Israel/Gaza, electoral reform, immigration, etc, etc are attracting, or regaining, support from the LibDems and Greens. The former are now averaging some three points below their July 2024 figure and while the latter are still several points above it, they’ve been declining since the 2026 local elections due to the self-inflicted wounds from an influx of Corbynistas.
Burnham’s decision is difficult. There’s the argument that things can only get worse so there’s no time like the present, which has to be tempered by the likelihood of a minority government. The counter is to wait until a stable majority government is consistently predicted, but an “event” could derail things.
History provides no consistent guidance; would he emulate Johnson’s 2019 triumph or May’s 2017 debacle? He has no experience of leading a national election campaign and the number of “corrections” to what he and his lieutenants have said suggests that message discipline needs improvement.
Badenoch is following Thatcher’s lead and making her conviction, on things like the European Convention on Human Rights, the consensus. Going into an election without clear positions risks Burnham being seen as the indecisive leader of a divided party.
There are calls to “unite the right” and the improvement in Labour’s fortunes since Burnham’s arrival arguably strengthens these.
Consolidation on the left, helped by the chaos in the Greens, is driven by “progressive” moths attracted to Burnham’s left-wing light. Those seeking it on the right have but it’s difficult to contemplate Badenoch and Farage in a smoke-filled room.
Reform’s decline is due to a combination of factors. There are hostile parts of the media, but no-one in Reform complained when Starmer lost ministers due to scandals. The way to avoid having people exposed doing or saying dumb things is not to have people who do or say dumb things!
To many, Farage is Reform and Reform is Farage, but he’s the elephant in Reform. His ratings have declined, and Reform has declined with him.
His “greatest hits” are:
2014 (UKIP): 26.6%
2019 (Brexit Party): 30.5%
2025 (Reform): 30% (BBC calculated); 32% (Sky calculated)
2026 (Reform): 26% (BBC calculated); 27% (Sky calculated)
This suggests a ceiling of between a quarter and a third of the vote which could theoretically result in Reform being the largest party with an outside possibility of a small overall majority.
To Reform’s right is, former Reform MP, Rupert Lowe’s “Restore” which has been a party-pooper at some local government by-elections, taking sufficient votes to prevent Reform winning. They’re fishing in a small pool but have shown they can hurt Faragists.
Over time Farage has parted company with a number of once close colleagues, Lowe being the most recent, and he’s the common denominator.
Some in Reform are suspicious of the Conservatives as they repeatedly voted for lower immigration, got the Boriswave, and see many of the same (guilty!) people in the shadow cabinet.
Many Conservatives see Reform as a bunch of amateurs with a wrecking ball. In my area, despite winning no seats, they helped Labour take control of the borough council, their General Election vote was more than the Labour majority, and they took four out of five county council seats.
Any reconciliation, particularly with the parties close in the polls, wouldn’t be easy, but Luke Tryl (More In Common) contends that:
“You can broadly split current Reform voters into 2 groups – true believers & ‘just want a right wing govt’. The second are much more transactional & if the Tories start to look like the vehicle to defeat Labour they’ll go back to them”
Their options are:
A declining party with an unpopular leader whose ratings are comparable to Polanski’s.
A rising party with a popular leader, but which has the legacy of the Boriswave, etc.
All trends finish but Labour could gain more from the Greens, assuming their ‘decision to end local coalitions’ doesn’t backfire.
Assuming Burnham’s tack left doesn’t reinvigorate Farage the Conservatives could continue to take support from Reform, although they’re still averaging below their July 2024 level, strengthening Badenoch’s position.
She’s a long way from Downing Street but the direction of travel is right.
John Wall is a retired engineer and former Conservative county councillor in Hampshire.
The Budget, immigration, slavery/reparations, etc. may have caused some to miss the Conservatives overtaking Reform in some opinion polls.
Polls typically have a Margin of Error of +/-3% so I follow trackers like Election Maps, which average the figures.
I previously contended that ”Changing an unpopular PM has some chance of success, if done quickly and with the right result” – Labour got it right, and their polling is heading towards 30%.
Burnham is an improvement over Starmer in almost every area, a low bar!, although he’s fundamentally a big-state, tax-and-spend leftie who, even if he correctly diagnosed Britain’s problems, hasn’t got the answers.
There is talk of an early election, which would be wagering two and half years in the hope of five. Burnham would currently be exchanging a large, albeit recalcitrant, majority for only being the largest party and having to come to an accommodation with, probably, the LibDems who, after 2010-15, are unlikely to commit to anything more than confidence and supply.
The first regicide is the hardest, would the Magic Man from Manchester survive this?
I suggest that 340-50 seats, predicted by a series of MRP polls, although down from the 2024 result, would provide a stable majority government and could be considered successful.
The route to that is by rebuilding Labour’s 2024 coalition and Burnham’s utterances and actions on Europe/Brexit, Israel/Gaza, electoral reform, immigration, etc, etc are attracting, or regaining, support from the LibDems and Greens. The former are now averaging some three points below their July 2024 figure and while the latter are still several points above it, they’ve been declining since the 2026 local elections due to the self-inflicted wounds from an influx of Corbynistas.
Burnham’s decision is difficult. There’s the argument that things can only get worse so there’s no time like the present, which has to be tempered by the likelihood of a minority government. The counter is to wait until a stable majority government is consistently predicted, but an “event” could derail things.
History provides no consistent guidance; would he emulate Johnson’s 2019 triumph or May’s 2017 debacle? He has no experience of leading a national election campaign and the number of “corrections” to what he and his lieutenants have said suggests that message discipline needs improvement.
Badenoch is following Thatcher’s lead and making her conviction, on things like the European Convention on Human Rights, the consensus. Going into an election without clear positions risks Burnham being seen as the indecisive leader of a divided party.
There are calls to “unite the right” and the improvement in Labour’s fortunes since Burnham’s arrival arguably strengthens these.
Consolidation on the left, helped by the chaos in the Greens, is driven by “progressive” moths attracted to Burnham’s left-wing light. Those seeking it on the right have but it’s difficult to contemplate Badenoch and Farage in a smoke-filled room.
Reform’s decline is due to a combination of factors. There are hostile parts of the media, but no-one in Reform complained when Starmer lost ministers due to scandals. The way to avoid having people exposed doing or saying dumb things is not to have people who do or say dumb things!
To many, Farage is Reform and Reform is Farage, but he’s the elephant in Reform. His ratings have declined, and Reform has declined with him.
His “greatest hits” are:
2014 (UKIP): 26.6%
2019 (Brexit Party): 30.5%
2025 (Reform): 30% (BBC calculated); 32% (Sky calculated)
2026 (Reform): 26% (BBC calculated); 27% (Sky calculated)
This suggests a ceiling of between a quarter and a third of the vote which could theoretically result in Reform being the largest party with an outside possibility of a small overall majority.
To Reform’s right is, former Reform MP, Rupert Lowe’s “Restore” which has been a party-pooper at some local government by-elections, taking sufficient votes to prevent Reform winning. They’re fishing in a small pool but have shown they can hurt Faragists.
Over time Farage has parted company with a number of once close colleagues, Lowe being the most recent, and he’s the common denominator.
Some in Reform are suspicious of the Conservatives as they repeatedly voted for lower immigration, got the Boriswave, and see many of the same (guilty!) people in the shadow cabinet.
Many Conservatives see Reform as a bunch of amateurs with a wrecking ball. In my area, despite winning no seats, they helped Labour take control of the borough council, their General Election vote was more than the Labour majority, and they took four out of five county council seats.
Any reconciliation, particularly with the parties close in the polls, wouldn’t be easy, but Luke Tryl (More In Common) contends that:
“You can broadly split current Reform voters into 2 groups – true believers & ‘just want a right wing govt’. The second are much more transactional & if the Tories start to look like the vehicle to defeat Labour they’ll go back to them”
Their options are:
A declining party with an unpopular leader whose ratings are comparable to Polanski’s.
A rising party with a popular leader, but which has the legacy of the Boriswave, etc.
All trends finish but Labour could gain more from the Greens, assuming their ‘decision to end local coalitions’ doesn’t backfire.
Assuming Burnham’s tack left doesn’t reinvigorate Farage the Conservatives could continue to take support from Reform, although they’re still averaging below their July 2024 level, strengthening Badenoch’s position.
She’s a long way from Downing Street but the direction of travel is right.