Labor are now 'favorites' to win election as Tories face 1997-style annihilation, top pollster says

Election guru Sir John Curtice says the Tories have lost ground across the electorate as the general public has decided that 'they "can't be trusted to run the country"< /p> The 2019 general election exit ballot outside the BBC headquarters in London (

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A 2024 election annihilation is a 'risk' the Tories now face as it is 'extremely difficult' for them to win the next election, a polling guru has said.

Professor Sir John Curtice said Sir Keir Starmer's Labor Party was now 'favorite' to win with a 'half-decent chance' of securing an overall majority in the House of Commons.

He said the Conservatives had lost ground "in the broader electorate" as the general public decided they "cannot be trusted to lead the country".

Sir John noted that there has been "some recovery" since Rishi Sunak, who is personally more popular than his party, became Prime Minister last week.

But he warned that voters are unlikely to forgive the Tories for the crisis unleashed by his predecessor Liz Truss.

He said that at the height of Ms Truss's unpopularity, the Tories were more than 30 points behind Labor in the polls, suggesting they could have ended up with less than 60 seats if this pattern was repeated in general elections.

Asked about the possibility of the Conservatives winning the next election, he told reporters on Wednesday: 'History suggests it will be extremely difficult.

"No government that presided over a fiscal or financial crisis ultimately survived the ballot box...1948, 1967, 1976, 1992, 2008. This is no happy litany of precedence.

"It's going to be very, very difficult."

He added that much will depend on the economy over the next two years, but warned that "the odds are against" Mr Sunak to turn the party's situation around.

Elections guru Sir John Curtice says Labor are now the ‘favorites’ (

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