Labour has 99 per cent chance of winning next election, says Prof John Curtice

Leading polling guru says Tories are unlikely to win even in case of hung parliament

Britain’s foremost polling guru has said there is a “99 per cent chance” of Labour winning the next election.
Prof Sir John Curtice said that it is “clearly” very unlikely the Tories will be in power after the autumn, when Rishi Sunak is widely expected to call a vote.
The political scientist also said he believes Labour will be in a “much stronger position” to form a minority government in the event of a hung parliament, as the Tories “have no friends in the House of Commons”.
It comes as a new survey for The Telegraph has found the Conservatives have sunk to their lowest poll rating since the “bloody aftermath” of Liz Truss’s misfiring mini-Budget.
Just 24 per cent of people polled by Savanta said they planned to vote Tory, compared with 44 per cent who backed Labour.
In a bleak message for Mr Sunak, Chris Hopkins, the firm’s political research director, said there is “no reason why things can’t get even worse” for the Prime Minister in the coming weeks.
With a general election to coincide with the locals on May 2 now ruled out, and Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor, suggesting the vote could be in October, Conservative strategists will be hoping to make up lost ground in the months to come.
But Sir John believes their chances are infinitesimally small.
Taking questions after a speech at the University of Strathclyde, where he is a professor of politics, he told Politico there is now a “99 per cent chance of Labour forming the next administration”.
He questioned whether that should come as a surprise, arguing: “It’s clearly a very small chance that the Tories are going to be in government after the autumn.”
In the event of a hung parliament, he said: “The Labour Party will be in a much stronger position to negotiate a minority government than the Conservatives because, apart from possibly the DUP, the Conservatives have no friends in the House of Commons.”
It comes after Mr Sunak suffered a double blow on Tuesday with the resignation of two ministers, just as the Commons rose for recess.
Robert Halfon unexpectedly quit as skills, apprenticeships and higher education minister, while James Heappey followed through on his stated intention to step down from the armed forces brief.
On Wednesday, Tory frontbencher Andrew Griffith sought to downplay the significance of the news, as he said ministerial resignations are “not unsurprising or unnatural” at this stage in the election cycle and the Conservatives have a “broad and deep bench to draw from”.
Asked why he believed ministers were quitting ahead of the general election, he told Times Radio: “These are ministers that have given a great deal to this country, they have done a big tour of duty in government and they have also been parliamentarians for a long and distinguished period of time.
“We are very fortunate in the Conservatives, we have a broad and deep bench to draw from and so it is not unsurprising or unnatural at this point in the cycle that out of the many ministers that we have in Government, some have decided that their next tour of duty lies elsewhere.
“What I can tell you is that speaking to my ministerial colleagues, people are highly engaged, they are very focused on the task in hand … and across the board we are focused on the Prime Minister’s priorities and the good news is they are working.”