Change is a favourite word of Keir Starmer and with Labour facing a loss of more than 250 seats delegates to the Labour Party conference this week agree in demanding a change for the better. But given the hole that Labour is now in, the best outcome that poll evidence supports is a change for the less bad.
Electoral Calculus estimates that there is a 1 in 10 chance that a Labour recovery could add 143 seats to what would be the most likely outcome if a general election were held today. However, winning 296 seats would still leave it 30 seats short of a majority. There is only a 2 percent chance at present of Labour winning a majority of seats and a 17 percent probability of Labour being the largest party in a hung parliament.
Current polls show that Labour has dropped 13 percent below the vote that gave it an election victory a year ago. This would leave Labour with 153 seats in the next Parliament, below its result in the 1935 election. If it succeeded in winning back supporters that have drifted off to the Green Party, the Liberal Democrats and to Your Party, its vote would still be second to Nigel Farage's Reform UK.
Keir Starmer is whipping two horses. He is seeking to win back the limited number of Labour defectors to Reform by adopting tough anti-immigration rhetoric. Simultaneously Starmer is appealing for supporters of other parties to unite in voting tactically for Labour as the only party that can stop Nigel Farage from replacing him in Downing Street.
The bad news for Starmer is that this month's Electoral Calculus MRP analysis already takes tactical voting into account. Its tactical voting survey of 10,000 respondents estimates that tactical voting accounts for up to 4 percentage points of Labour's current share of the vote.
The worse news is that the unpopularity of the Starmer government stimulates voters to unite tactically behind the party best positioned to turn it out of office. By Starmer's own admission, this is Reform UK. Given the relative similarity of the Conservative and Reform appeals, there is no ideological barrier for more Conservative voters to vote tactically for Reform. This would significantly offset whatever Labour might gain from tactical voting on the left.
With almost four years to go before the next general election, there is ample time for Labour's support to change for the worse. Currently, there is a 1 in 10 possibility of Labour dropping to 53 MPs, just one seat better than its showing in 1931 and four seats worse than its performance at the 1918 election.
We won't have to wait long to see how successful Keir Starmer's conference speeches will be in producing less bad poll results for Labour. On 25 November Rachel Reeves will unveil a new government budget with changes in Labour's spending and taxing policies. If public reaction is negative, Labour MPs may start looking for a leader whose father was not a toolmaker but a construction worker,skilled not only at digging holes but also at getting out of them.
Prof Richard Rose, University of Strathclyde, is writing a study of "The Disruption of the British Party System", to be published next spring.