Sunday, January 25, 2009

Cameron Is Winning Back the C2s

Last year I wrote repeatedly in the Telegraph that David Cameron needed to try harder to win over the C2 vote. Those are the voters who voted Margaret Thatcher in in 1979 and Tony Blair in 1997. According to the ComRes survey for the Independent, this is the lead for the various socio-economic groups.

AB +14
C1 +13
C2 +17
DE +15

Progress indeed. This will give great heart to candidates in marginal seats, especially in the West Midlands and North Kent.

UPDATE: UK Polling Report has more info.

7 comments:

Oldrightie said...

Terrific poll, Iain. Could you give a mention or link to

http://supportoursoldiers.co.uk/

Yak40 said...

C2 vote. Those are the voters who voted Margaret Thatcher in in 1979 and Tony Blair in 1997.

Idiots you mean, the easily swayed.

@molesworth_1 said...

It should be christened the 'Clarke/Pickles' effect

Chris Paul said...

If you are claiming that cam is "winning back" C2s you will need to produce a series of such breakdowns of support and show the Tories losing this group and then regaining it under Cameron.

The figures you produce are meaningless in proving or disproving your thesis. And to be honest as I've said before I'm not sure you understand what the C2 category is actually about.

How many are in each Social Grade category Iain?

How has the number changed over time?

Where is your basis for saying this group won elections for Maggie and Tone?

You would also do well to analyse the don't vote/won't say/not sures as an absolute number and proportion of the poll.

Often when leads change in this way it reflects an increase in the DV/WS/NS group. Backing off the incumbent, but available to back them again in the future when an election is in the offing.

C2s include "White Van Man" and especially WVM-made-good (although that is a crass stereotype) it isn't actually a demographic that hasn't generally preferred Tory rule that much in recent history.

Main point:

Without time series showing change and some attention to the DKs etc this is an unfounded observation Iain.

Praguetory said...

If the results in this poll were replicated in a GE, the electoral map would look very different

It Will Come to Me said...

Some would say Brown is losing the the C2s. In other words this result reflects an 'away from' Brown/NuLabour rather then a 'towards' Cameron/Tories.

The Grim Reaper said...

Very interesting.

What a shame that I haven't the foggiest idea what ABs and C2s are. I can only assume other blog readers are more intelligent than I am.