Who will win the next general election? Latest polls and odds
Five new polls have been published, all of which show Labour holding a large lead over the Conservatives.
With little over a week to go until the general election, five separate opinion polls continue to show a large Labour lead over the Conservatives.
Prime minister Rishi Sunak will have been hoping to make a dent in Labour’s position but the campaign has been far from perfect for the Tories. It is now looking ever-more likely that Sir Keir Starmer will be prime minister by next Friday.
Nigel Farage may yet have a good election night as Reform UK are currently in third place in the polls. The polling for the party has slipped following the controversy over Farage’s comments about the war in Ukraine but the party is still some five percentage points ahead of the Lib Dems.
There was even further grim reading for the Tories on 26 June, when a separate poll conducted by Ipsos for the Evening Standard claimed that a record seven out of 10 Britons do not like the Conservative Party.
Yahoo News UK summaries the positions of the parties according to five separate opinion polls.
No major changes show Labour on course for large victory
A poll by Savanta puts Labour on 42% – 21 points ahead of the Tories, who are on 21%. Ipsos also puts Labour on 42%, compared to 19% for the Tories, while JL Partners give similar results, with Labour on 41% and the Tories on 25%.
A Verian poll shows Labour on 38%, with the Tories on 21%, while Survation show Labour on 41%, compared to a historic low of 18% for the Tories.
An average of all polls with survey work completed during the seven days to 26 June puts Labour on 41%, 21 points ahead of the Conservatives on 20%, followed by Reform on 16%, the Lib Dems on 11% and the Greens on 6% – unchanged on the figures for the previous week.
On 22 May, the day Sunak called the election, the seven-day averages stood at Labour 45%, Conservatives 23%, Reform 11%, Lib Dems 9% and Greens 6%.
Tories could slump to lowest number of seats
Earlier this month, three major polls showed the Tories were on course for a historic defeat, with one projection showing the party potentially slumping to the lowest number of seats since the party was formed.
Using the multilevel regression with poststratification (MRP) technique, which enables projections to be made at constituency level, YouGov's polling for Sky News projected Labour being on course to achieve a 200-seat majority. The poll suggested Labour would secure 425 seats, the Tories 108, the Liberal Democrats 67, SNP 20, Reform UK five, Plaid Cymru four and the Green Party two.
A More In Common UK poll for the News Agents podcast showed Labour projecting to finish on 406 seats, with the Conservatives on 155.
Meanwhile, polling by Savanta and Electoral Calculus for the Telegraph, showed Sunak could become the first sitting prime minister to lose his seat of Richmond and Northallerton to Labour. It put Labour on 516 seats, with the Tories on just 53.
What are the latest odds?
As of 26 June, Oddschecker – a website which compares odds across different bookmakers – had Labour at 1/41 to win the most seats. To put that in context, this is seen as so likely that a £10 bet would return just £10.24.
The Conservatives are 80/1 to win the most seats, a scenario seen as so unlikely that a £10 punt would return £810.
A Conservative majority government is also seen as so unlikely (125/1) that Oddschecker sees a Reform UK government as more likely (100/1).
What went wrong for the Tories?
So, why have the polls changed so dramatically? It's worth looking back on an extremely eventful four-and-a-half years in UK politics.
According to YouGov's voting intention tracker (see chart, above), Tory support peaked at 53%, with Labour on 32%, in April 2020, months after the party's stunning success in the 2019 general election and Boris Johnson's pledge to “get Brexit done”. That month also saw Starmer take over as Labour leader from Jeremy Corbyn.
This was also amid a spirit of national unity following the onset of the COVID pandemic which nearly killed Johnson himself. The then-PM had been released from hospital five days before this particular survey was taken.
Over the rest of the year, there was a downturn in support amid chaos over COVID rules, with the Tories falling as low as 35% in November 2020, compared to Labour on 40%.
However, the UK’s successful COVID vaccination programme provided a pathway out of lockdown and with it, improved poll ratings. Tory support peaked at 41% in June 2021, with Labour at 30%.
In October that year, there was a sense Johnson was untouchable. At the Tory party conference, the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg remarked how the PM was "in total command of his party, and politically dominant in the country".
But this fell apart quickly with the Partygate scandal, which emerged in November that year. Time and again, reports emerged of government and Tory staff – including Johnson – having taken part in lockdown-era social gatherings when their own COVID rules had prohibited them.
By January 2022, Tory support had plummeted to 28%, with Labour on 38%. Johnson struggled on, but never recovered and a wave of ministerial resignations forced him to resign in July that year.
His successor, Liz Truss, then embarked on arguably the most disastrous prime ministerial reign in history, characterised by the catastrophic "mini-budget", containing £45bn of unfunded tax cuts, which prompted an economic crisis. Like Johnson, she lost the confidence of Tory MPs – and voters – and had to resign.
Her 49-day spell as PM was the shortest in history, with Tory support plummeting to 19% (with Labour on 56%) the day after she announced her resignation in October 2022.
Rishi Sunak, who had lost to Truss in the previous month's Tory leadership election, took over. However, as the above YouGov chart indicates, he has failed to cut through with voters. Tory support was at 23% two days after he assumed office, with the most recent survey, carried out on Thursday, showing support is now lower than under Truss at 18%.
In short, the polls and odds, not to mention other factors such as notable by-election victories for Starmer's Labour, are pointing to a Labour government next week.
Your guide to voting
The manifestos
The leaders
Who is Rishi Sunak? The PM battling to stay in power after election gamble
Who is Keir Starmer? The toolmaker's son promising change for the UK
Who is Ed Davey? Lib Dem leader attracting attention with election stunts
Who is Richard Tice? Reform’s former leader turned Farage sidekick
