SNP, Tory, Labour and other voters reveal their motivations

“Apart from Labour, up just half a point, the changes in support for all the parties average out at zero,” said the professor of politics at Strathclyde.

To put it another way, the efforts of the past week and a half may well have been for nothing. All those visits by party leaders up and down the country, the policy launches, the millions of words written, the Ed Davey water stunts, the ice creams scoffed - and the polls have not budged.

That is only to be expected this far out from polling day. From Monday there are still 31 days still to go in what already feels like the longest general election campaign in memory. Parties know they are still in the phoney war stage, and that voters will start to pay more attention the closer it gets to polling day.

Yet even with that knowledge, there is a feeling that it is quiet out there, too quiet. One group in particular are keeping party strategists awake - the undecideds.

The accepted wisdom in this election, as in so many others, is that people made their minds up long ago. Not so. Estimates vary but upwards of 10% say they are still deciding who gets their vote. According to Lord Ashcroft Polls, fewer than half of voters have decided.

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Among the undecideds some are genuine don’t knows, others are open to persuasion. As Professor Curtice pointed out, people who voted Conservative in 2019 are three times more likely than Labour voters to be undecided. Where they end up will be critical to Rishi Sunak’s fortunes.

What of the other undecideds? Who are they and what, if anything, will make them decide? Could they opt to stay at home on July 4 and upend everyone’s predictions?

One way of getting to know voters better is to dig deeper into their views via focus groups. Different, often left-field, questions are asked as a way of getting more accurate answers. You know the sort of thing: if party leader X/Y/Z was a car/boyfriend/holiday destination, what would they be?

The results can make for intriguing, sometimes strange, and occasionally bizarre reading. Take, for example, the first focus groups of the 2024 general election carried out by Lord Ashcroft Polls, the results of which landed recently.

Pollsters went to Paisley, Dundee and Aberdeen and talked to people who had voted SNP or Conservative in 2019. Previous voters for the SNP were “more critical than in any of our previous research in Scotland”, said the report.

They were also more likely to switch votes to Labour, especially to oust a Conservative. Although the party leaders in Scotland are not standing for election, opinions were sought on how well or otherwise they were doing in their jobs. One respondent was not impressed by Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, saying: “They’re not really the leader because they’re being told what to do by someone else. It’s like being a prefect at school.”

In what was described as the latest in a series of “peculiar but sometimes revealing questions”, people were asked what it would be like if the SNP got together for Sunday lunch. According to one group member, “Mum and dad would be in the dining room, the kids would be in their bedrooms, the dog will be in the back garden with a bone … That’s what the SNP is like. They’re not a family any more.”

As for the Conservatives, “They’re in a stately home. It’s offensively big but they can’t afford to run it. There are no lights and there are holes in the roof.”

Whether you find this stuff enlightening, or a lot of hot air signifying little to nothing, there will be more of it before the election is over. The best data, the day-to-day polling carried out for the parties, will remain for their eyes only.

Some events can move the dial of an undecided voter. A disastrous manifesto launch or change of policy seemingly on the hoof. Think Labour and its 1983 manifesto, famously dubbed the longest suicide note in history, or Theresa May and the so-called “dementia tax”.

Performance in a TV debate is widely thought to have an effect, though the impact can be exaggerated, as in the oft-cited encounter between Nixon and JFK. Closer to our time, Nick Clegg’s impressive showing in the 2010 debates was thought to have boosted his party at the polls, but by how much is not known.

Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak will by now be in the final stages of prep for Tuesday’s leaders debate on ITV1. The best result for them is for nothing to happen one way or another. A nil-nil draw. A dull night will not be great for the audience or the broadcasters, but it will keep the party planners happy.

Shami Chakrabarti, the Labour peer and a panellist on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg’s show, had some advice for the Prime Minister as he prepares to go toe to toe with the Labour leader.

“I remember his debates with Liz Truss which I think he blew with all that smug laughing,” she said.

Earlier in the programme the baroness had harsh words for those on her own side who she accused of briefing against Diane Abbott, a friend and colleague.

Chakrabarti said it had been a “sometimes sordid week of unauthorised, anonymous briefings by overgrown schoolboys in suits”.

Asked by Kuenssberg if the “boys in suits” worked for Keir Starmer, she said: “I have been personally assured by the leadership of the Labour Party that these briefings were unauthorised.”

Besides the “60 seconds with John Curtice” slot on Kuenssberg’s show, the broadcasters are in general boosting their output as election day grows closer. BBC Scotland’s The Sunday Show will now have an hour on television instead of half an hour. There will be extended interviews with the party leaders (yesterday it was Alex Cole-Hamilton of the Scottish Liberal Democrats), plus a panel of commentators drawn from across Scotland. The programme will also have its own pollster, Mark Diffley.