![]() Mrs Thatcher managed to come back despite mass unemployment in 1983, but was helped by prosecuting and winning a war in the Falklands, a deeply unpopular opposition leader regarded as unfit to govern, and a major third party intervention from the SDP. The optimism of Macmillan’s “You’ve never had it so good” looks unlikely in an economy facing recession, inflation, falling wages and rising bills in 2023-24. A strong economy helped Harold Macmillan recover in 1959, and helped Mrs Thatcher earn a third term in 1987. Nor can Sunak bank on other factors which have helped earlier rebounds. John Major’s comeback victory would not have been helped if Conservative members had opted to give Norman Tebbit a six week turn at the wheel. But there is no historical precedent for the brief and frightening reign of Liz, which drove Conservative poll numbers to their current midterm low last autumn. The switches from Anthony Eden to Harold Macmillan, and from Margaret Thatcher to John Major were both rewarded by voters with come from behind victories. Rishi Sunak will be cheered to know that two of the largest past comebacks followed changes of leader. The average Conservative government narrows the horse race margin by 18 points between the midterm low and election day Labour government make up half as much ground (9 points) on average. The differences in average performance are once again stark. By contrast, six of the seven weakest horse race comebacks have been under Labour. Eight of the nine biggest bouncebacks have come under Conservative governments, including three 25 point rebounds in 1983, 19. It is a similar story when we look at poll leads. The upswing 1: Difference between worst midterm vote share performance and subsequent general election performance ![]() Conservatives, it seems, are the better limbo dancers: they can go very low, yet still get back up. By contrast, all three Labour incumbents who fell to 34% or lower and fell more than 20 points behind went on to defeat. ![]() ![]() All four administrations who have done one or both of these things were Tory governments - and 2019 would add a fifth if we had used a six month polling cutoff. Three administrations have dipped below 30% at midterm and gone on to win and three administrations have fallen more than 15 points behind the opposition and gone on to win. The 23 point average Labour lead also recorded in October is the third largest opposition lead at midterm - both of the oppositions who chalked up bigger margins than this went on to win, as did two of the three next best place oppositions.īut there are some glimmers of hope for the government. Only three past governments went lower that the Conservatives’ current low ebb of 26%, and two of those went on to lose the next election, while in the third case, Mrs Thatcher’s first administration, the midterm polls were upended by the emergence of the SDP. Some of the performers danced on high stilts like elongated limbs while others performed spread-eagled on the ground.The current government has already notched up one of the worst mid-term lows in post-war history. I recall performances I witnessed as a boy in Georgetown, British Guiana, in the early 1930s. Limbo then reflects a certain kind of gateway or threshold to a new world and the dislocation of a chain of miles. 'drum stick knock / and the darkness is over me /knees spread wide / and the water is hiding me / limbo / limbo like me' If I may now quote from Islands, the last book in his trilogy: Limbo, therefore, as Edward Brathwaite, the distinguished Barbadian-born poet, has pointed out, is related to anancy or spider fables. There was so little space that the slaves contorted themselves into human spiders. Limbo was born, it is said, on the slave ships of the Middle Passage. The limbo dancer moves under a bar which is gradually lowered until a mere slit of space, it seems, remains through which with spread-eagled limbs he passes like a spider. "The limbo dance is a well-known feature in the Carnival life of the West Indies today.
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