Poll positions From defeat to total wipeoutthree outcomes facing Tories
The Guardian Weekly|June 28, 2024
Polls that use largescale polling data to extrapolate individual seat tallies, or MRPS-an acronym for multilevel regression and post stratification - have become popular in UK politics.
Peter Walker
Poll positions From defeat to total wipeoutthree outcomes facing Tories

Three such polls published last week all gave pretty different results. What would the scenarios illustrated mean for the Conservatives if they were replicated on 4 July?

Solid Labour majority

More in Common poll: 155 Tory MPs

Amazing as it might sound, a lot of Tory party officials and candidates would probably accept this result if it was offered now: a Labour majority of 162.

Even with this scenario there would be some high-profile casualties; understandably, given it would be a cull of 210 Tories from the 2019 election. Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, would lose his seat to the Lib Dems, with his fellow cabinet ministers Grant Shapps and Mark Harper ousted by Labour.

What would the remaining parliamentary party look like? There are many imponderables, not least an influx of new MPs. It would, at least, be the opposition by some distance the Lib Dems would have 50 MPs and there would be plenty of big beasts to fight to be leader were Rishi Sunak to step down or be challenged.

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