In some ways, the 2017 election went as expected for the Conservative party. When the election was called on 18 April, the seven polls that had been published so far that month had averaged 43.3%. When the election was held on 8 June, the Conservatives tallied 42.4%. Any soothsayer would have been happy with that degree of accuracy. This represented a net increase of 5.5% of the vote share on the 2015 result. Clearly the Conservative message gathered new recruits.
Comments
For the polls to change meaningfully the Labour Party has to move decisively to the centre on certain key issues or change its leadership. Neither looks likely before the election.