Base:
1983-1987: General Election result in regions: Northern, North West and
Yorkshire & Humberside. 1992-2010: General Election result in GORs: North
East, North West and Yorkshire & Humberside. 2014: Three month average all
ComRes voting intention polls since 26/11/2013.
Three
things stand out from this. Firstly, over the past thirty years the
Conservatives have always polled less well in the North than across Britain
generally. Second, although their vote share in the North fell dramatically in
the 1987 General Election, possible due to the Miners’ Strike, it recovered in
1992 under John Major to fractionally below where it had been in 1983. Thirdly,
since 1992, the Conservatives’ electoral fortunes in the North have then
broadly followed the national trend.
This
would suggest that in recent political history, the Conservatives have not had
a worsening Northern problem per se, but instead seen their fortunes in
the region improve when they do so nationally and fall back when their national
vote share decreases. Their ongoing lower polling results in the North simply
reflect a lower base point.
Two
courses of action could be drawn from this: the first would be for the
Conservatives to shrug their shoulders and focus on their easier, national
messages that they hope might push the party up in the polls generally, in turn
doing so for the Northern region as well.
However,
it can also be concluded, that because their voter deficit in the North has
been so stubborn over so many years, that they need instead to make very
deliberate efforts to overcome it. Not to do so would see the Conservatives
continually be forced to fight on their own back lawn, while allowing Labour to
focus their often-scant resources efficiently at the Southern and Midlands
marginals required for them to win a majority. The term “Northern marginal”, on
the other hand, is distinctly missing from British political vocabulary and while
it is, is likely to haunt the Conservatives.
It
is often complained that the electoral system is “biased”, denying the
Conservatives a majority on a higher vote share than one which gave Labour
outright victory. But while the party is storing up a huge bank of “excess”
votes in Southern safe seats while making little attempt to temper its message
in a way that might appeal to Northern voters, the complaint tends to fall on
deaf ears.
Unless
the Conservatives focus their efforts on Northern voters very deliberately,
they risk retreating further and further south, whatever the success of the
occasional electoral skirmish.
The
ideal time to do this would perhaps have been in Opposition as the party looked
to build from the ground up. However, although the deviation in the lines on
the graph above do not appear drastic, losing vote share in the North at the
2005 General Election, while increasing it nationally, can only be seen as a
failure. This is all the more so as Labour’s vote in the region fell quite
drastically in the wake of the Iraq War, suggesting that a genuine opportunity
was lost.
The
key question then comes about what to do now: recent ComRes polling has the
Conservatives on 26% in the North – roughly equivalent to 1997 levels. But this
is not necessarily due to unbridgeable disagreements between the party and
Northern voters.
Northern
voters (42%) are just as likely as the average (41%) to say the most important
priority for the next Government is ensuring that the British economy continues
to grow – an argument central to the Conservatives’ election message. On the
other hand, Northern voters are no more partial than Britons generally to
Labour messaging: 26% of Northern voters say the most important priority for
the next Government is ensuring wages rise faster than prices, compared to 25%
for the average.
Instead,
the problem the Party faces is over its image. Taking the average rating from
the first two waves of ComRes’s new Favourability Index, conducted in
partnership with The Sunday Mirror and The Independent on Sunday, more
than half of people living in Northern England view the party unfavourably.
Fewer than half as many (24%) view it favourably.
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