Coffee House Shots: Reform in 'poll' position

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🗓️ 4 February 2025

⏱️ 13 minutes

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Summary

It's happened. Reform are now ahead of Labour, according to a voting intention poll by YouGov. Reform leads the landmark poll with 25 points, with Labour languishing all the way down in second place on 24 points. Meanwhile, the Conservatives place third on 21 per cent, the Liberal Democrats are on 14 per cent and the Greens on 9 per cent. While there have been a handful of polls to date putting Reform in the lead, they have so far been regarded as outliers. It's a slim lead, but does it point to a long term shift in UK politics – or can it be dismissed as a blip? Does this make a Tory-Reform pact more likely?

Oscar Edmondson speaks to Katy Balls and James Heale.

Produced by Oscar Edmondson.

Transcript

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0:00.0	We're hosting our first Coffee House Shots live event of 2025 on the 26th of February at the
0:04.8	Emanuel Centre in Westminster. Join Michael Gove, Katie Bulls, Kate Andrews and very special guests,
0:10.8	Jonathan Ashworth and Robert Jenrick for a look to the year ahead. They'll be tackling such questions
0:15.7	as, can the Chancellor reframe the budget in her first spring statement? What will Trump's first
0:20.6	100 days look like? And will reform cause and upset at the local elections? For tickets,
0:25.4	go to spectator.co.com.uk forward slash coffeehouse live.
0:33.2	Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, the Spectator's Daily Politics Podcast. I'm Oskredminson,
0:38.3	and I'm joined today by Katie Balls and James Heel. And Reform are now ahead of Labor,
0:43.7	according to a voting intention poll from YouGov. Reform leads labour with 25 points compared to 24.
0:51.3	Katie, it's a pretty slim lead, so how much should we really read into it?
0:55.6	It's an important poll for a few reasons. I think UGov is generally very respected as a pollster.
1:00.7	So there have been other polls that have put reform in front, but I think they tend to be seen as
1:04.6	outliers when you're less sure about the models, and this is no disrespect to the other polling
1:08.2	companies. But UGov definitely just does carry a level of prestige of it, which means people pay attention.
1:13.5	And this is the first time you've had reform in the lead.
1:17.4	But also, as you say, it's not a huge lead, but it fits into a trend, which is reform going up and up across different pollsters over the past month or so.
1:25.5	The Tories regularly now in third place and the
1:28.9	battle really between the second and first place between Labor and Reform. So the poll is obviously
1:33.5	good news for Nigel Farage because if he can say to voters, I'm your best chance of getting
1:39.0	the Tories out. I'm your best chance of getting Labour out. I mean, they'd have to refine the
1:42.7	message depending on who they were going for. Some of the problems they had in the last general election,
1:49.3	so 2024, whereby, you know, if you say a vote for reform just gives you Kirstama.
	...

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