Westminster voting intention:
🔴 Lab 51% (+3)
🔵 Con 25% (-1)
🟠 LD 8% (NC)
🟡 SNP 3% (-1)
⚪ Ref 5% (-2)
🟢 Green 5% (NC)
via @Omnisis , 06 - 07 Jul
Busy day for polling, and another big but increasing lead for Labour
Blair had 418 MPs to 232 opposition MPs (including 165 Tories and 46 Lib Dems). So Labour outnumbered the opposition about 2-to-1, which wasn’t great. Even then, Blair voluntarily chose to work with other parties, such as the joint committee on constitutional reform.
The Flavible prediction for these polling numbers would give Starmer 535 seats to 115 opposition - so Labour outnumbering the opposition nearly 5-to-1.
And far from working with other parties, Starmer is currently purging long-standing Labour pluralists like Neal Lawson. That’s a very different proposition to 1997.
Also Blair went into the 1997 election with 271 MPs (the 1992 result plus defections and by-elections) - so around 1-in-3 of his 1997 party were rookie MPs. Starmer is going in with 195, so roughly 2-in-3 of his MPs would be rookies - yet, to a far greater extent than 1997, we’d be relying on those rookies to hold the government to account as if they were wily experienced old hands.
