Normally the goal for a government under attack is to fight to avoiding dropping into second place. The challenge facing Keir Starmer's government today is to stay in second place rather than drop into third or fourth place in the opinion polls.
Currently Labour is less than one percent ahead of the Conservatives in the average of November's polls. There is a drop of 16pc in Labour's support since last year's general election and of 6pc in Tory support.
Labour is now battling for second place because it is haemorrhaging almost half the vote it won at the last election in four directions. Of this total, YouGov finds that Labour is losing twice as much support to parties on the left as to parties on the right. The Greens have benefited most from the Starmer government as it has pursued fiscal responsibility and only advanced welfare benefits when forced to make U-turns by its backbench MPs. The Greens have taken one-sixth of Labour's support at the last general election.
The Liberal Democrats have gained two Labour defectors for every three that have switched to the Greens since the last election. This has helped Lib Dem support remain steady in aggregate as the party has lost as many voters to the Greens as it has gained from Labour.
The Labour government's tilt to the right on immigration has not stopped eight percent of its voters at the last election switching to Reform. The confused discussion that Chancellor Rachel Reeves generated in the run up to the budget has not stopped six percent of Labour voters now intending to vote Tory.
In theory the 15 percent of last year's Labour voters who now say they don't know how they will vote ought to be the easier for Labour to regain. However, in practice a big majority of Labour defectors have gone to parties whose support is much firmer. Reform has held the support of 87 percent of its voters at the last election and the Greens held 79 percent, compared with the 52 percent of Labour's winning vote supporting Labour in government.
The battle for seats is decided on different terms than the battle for votes. Labour's four-way loss of voter support has hit seats where it has had the most support as well as weaker seats. Thus, Electoral Calculus predicts that it would lose more than three-quarters of the seats it now holds if a general election were held tomorrow. Its 100 MPs would leave it in second place, but there is a 40pc chance of Labour falling into third place behind the Conservatives. There is even a one in six chance of Labour dropping to fourth place or worse in terms of seats.
The Labour government has more than three years to govern before the general election gives voters real ballots to mark. It has three more budgets to submit. The consensus among economists is that by the time the next election looms, the stealth taxes Rachel Reeves put in last week's budget will be in full view, increasing the income tax voters pay. One action Labour could take would be to elect a new leader who could compete more effectively with the parties of Nigel Farage and Zack Polanski than Sir Keir Starmer is doing.
Prof Richard Rose's forthcoming book is "The Disruption of the British Party System".