28 June 2024

With the top jobs now agreed in Council, Helena and Alexandros from our EU team sit down to discuss what are some of the opportunities and risks coming out of this year’s election results.

To get involved in the discussion or find out more, get in touch with our team: ukpublicaffairs@h-advisors.global

And you can subscribe to our monthly UK Public Affairs newsletter to get all the latest updates.

14 May 2024

We welcome back Lizzy Tomlin and Claudia Mulholland into the Unplugged studio to talk about their favourite topic: the Lib Dems! Just a week before the UK General Election, they discuss the number of seats Ed Davey’s party can hope to win, the sorts of seats they’re fighting, and what their results might mean for their power and influence if they become the third biggest in the next Parliament.

To get involved in the discussion or find out more, get in touch with our team: ukpublicaffairs@h-advisors.global

And you can subscribe to our monthly UK Public Affairs newsletter to get all the latest updates.

24 June 2024

In this blog, H/Advisors Cicero Director and Labour Councillor Emma Turnbull talks about how Labour candidates are feeling in the final weeks of the campaign.

As the General Election looms, Labour candidates across the country are holding their nerve. After years in the wilderness, five Conservative Prime Ministers and two referendums, polls suggest the party is on the cusp of victory. But far away from Labour’s Southside HQ, their candidates are at the forefront of a hard-fought ground campaign to make the predicted majority a reality.

Division of seats being contested

Labour has had the seeds of their campaign sewn for a long time. The start of their planning process involved splitting constituency seats into three categories:

• Safe Seats: Candidates in safe seats enjoy a comfortable majority and face little risk of losing to an opponent.
• Unwinnable Seats: Candidates in unwinnable seats face an uphill battle and so are focused on supporting neighbouring colleagues in battleground seats.
• Battleground Seats: Candidates in battleground seats compete against opponents with slim majorities (10,000 or less). Flipping these constituencies is essential for Labour’s success.

Take a look at the candidates: Cicero’s PPC tracker

What’s required of Labour candidates to be successful at the polls

Acutely aware of their seat designation, candidates are expected to work towards a Labour majority in Westminster whether they’re likely to become an MP or not. To be a good candidate and team player, all have a set of core requirements during the campaign:

• Know your stuff: Whether parachuted into a seat or deeply connected, candidates must understand and be able to speak to Labour’s national commitments as well as local issues relevant to the constituency.
• Visible presence: Whether through social media or door knocking, it’s necessary for candidates to build something of a presence, at the very least in the view or minds of those in the local party.
• Hustings participation: Often taking place in school halls or churches, hustings give the public an opportunity to quiz candidates from different political parties on what they would bring to the local area if elected as the MP. With so much at stake, Labour candidates have been asked to record what they say at local hustings and other public events to help the party mitigate the risk of any potential fallout.

With many commentators complaining that the election feels like it’s over and a Labour majority inevitable, candidates are increasingly closing their minds to what happens after polling day. Many can’t afford to think that victory is certain. On the ground, there is a stark number of undecided voters who seem disillusioned with politics and the options available.

Labour’s strategy to win battleground constituencies

To secure victory in battleground seats and counter the insurgent national campaigns of Ed Davey and Nigel Farage, Labour has channelled significant resource and money into battleground constituencies:

• Battle-hardened organisers: Experienced local organisers, tested during numerous by-elections in the last Parliament, lead campaigns, rally activists through dedicated Whatsapp groups, and manage candidates.
• Printed materials: Leaflets, lawn signs, and posters flood the constituency, reinforcing Labour’s message.
• Fresh activists: Candidates in unwinnable seats are paired with battleground candidates and are required to direct their activists to their neighbour’s constituency. Labour’s regional teams do not look favourably on candidates who fail to prioritise party success and instead, focus their efforts on a seat they are highly unlikely to win.

The last few weeks of the campaign will go slowly for Labour Party candidates. The cautious six-week campaign (defined by “Ming vase” strategy) and the party’s ongoing lead in the polls has built anticipation. With the campaign soon to reach its climax, no candidate wants to be remembered as the one who dropped the ball and let the side down.   

Visit our Elections ’24 microsite for the latest on polling and election analysis, right up to 4 July.

24 June 2024

Last week, H/Advisors Cicero hosted legendary polling expert, Sir John Curtice, at our offices in London. Sir John provided an hour of insights into the current campaign polling figures, followed by a Q&A with an audience of representatives from a variety of industry backgrounds.

Read more analysis on our Elections ’24 microsite here

Topline summary of General Election polling assessments

Sir John began with a presentation on what the polls are currently reporting, focusing on Labour’s consistent lead over the Conservatives, and the increase in figures seen by Reform UK since 2019. The sentiment in the room, as well as in the polling explained by Sir John, is that this election is one driven by how badly the Conservatives are losing, rather than how much the Labour Party is winning.

Sir John detailed the ways in which polling can be a useful tool, MRP polls in particular, when looking at geographical shifts in voting, especially relevant for the Conservatives in this scenario. However, he was clear that polling reliability should not be overstated as there are some factors that can impact the outcome, such as the data exclusion of those who do not know how they will vote, or the assumptions made about their voting intentions based on historic polling.

Here is a summary of the key points from Professor Curtice’s talk:

Key points

• Polling is useful in an election campaign for a variety of reasons, notably to analyse change, separate the “knows” from the “don’t knows”, and to measure sentiment across the country. However, their reliability should not be overstated – polls should be “taken and not inhaled”.
• The “don’t knows” provide a certain level of uncertainty in the campaign polling, which is likely to last through to 4 July.
• Two key reasons driving the demise in polling figures for the Conservatives are Boris Johnson’s untenable relationship with the truth following the Covid inquiry and Liz Truss’s short-lived economic policy.
• While initially polls showed ex-Conservative voters tended to sway to Labour, recent trends indicate that these figures have gone down, as more instead are now shifting to Reform.
• Age is the biggest differentiator in terms of voting demographic in our society.
• Geography will play an important part in shifting votes away from the Conservatives in this general election:
  • You Gov’s MRP poll showed a predicted 140 seats for the Conservatives and 422 for Labour, whereas the Survation MRP poll showed a tougher election day for the Conservatives, putting them at 80 seats, and Labour at 443.
  • The conclusion one can draw from the Survation poll as opposed to YouGov’s poll is that the Conservative vote loss could be much higher in seats that are deemed “safe”, rather than marginal.
• MRP polls can of course still shift, but they are reliable insofar as we have MRP data from other elections to direct them.
• This aligns with polling in the local elections, where the Conservatives fell in many historically safe seats.
• One key issue for the Conservatives is that Reform has increased their polling position by approximately 10% and the Conservatives have done little in terms of producing a strategy to combat this threat from the right.
• Are we really facing an unprecedented election in terms of result and campaign?
  • The campaign trail itself is not unprecedented.
  • The level of Tory support we come to see on polling day could be unprecedented.
  • The share of votes won by the two largest parties may set a new record low.
  • We may end up with five UK-wide parties in Parliament, each with at least five seats. 

For more analysis of the polls and to understand what the General Election results will mean for you, get in touch.

21 June 2024

On 31 May 2024, Sir Keir Starmer officially launched the Labour Party’s flagship energy policy, Great British (GB) Energy – a publicly-owned company that will support Labour’s ambition to deliver a clean energy system by 2030.

In the first of H/Advisors Cicero’s “Decarbonising Great Britain” series, this primer looks at what we know so far about GB Energy, how it will function and the rationale for its speedy implementation within the first 100 days of a new government.

For any questions on GB Energy or how H/Advisors Cicero can help you prepare for the new Government, reach out to Tom.Wilkins@h-advisors.global.

14 May 2024

Rhoda and Simon dive into the latest news and updates from Scotland in our next instalment of our UK public affairs video series. They cover the SNP’s leadership developments, what Scottish Labour’s prospects look like, and other updates from north of the border.

We try to publish a new Cicero UNPLUGGED video on our LinkedIn page and YouTube channel each week. To get involved in the discussion or find out more, get in touch with our team: ukpublicaffairs@h-advisors.global

And you can subscribe to our monthly UK Public Affairs newsletter to get all the latest updates.