03 June, 2017
British Prime Minister Theresa May's Conservative Party risks falling short of winning an overall majority of seats in parliament in a national election on June 8, The Times newspaper said, quoting research by polling firm YouGov.
According to this latest constituency-by-constituency modelling by YouGov just nine days before the general election, rather than increase the comfortable 17 seat majority she enjoyed, Theresa May is now looking at the humiliating prospect of losing 20 of the 330 seats Conservatives hold and the Labour Party could gain almost 30 seats.
Sterling was hit after one poll yesterday showed the election could end in a hung parliament.
May called the snap election in a bid to strengthen her hand in negotiations on Britain's exit from the European Union, to win more time to deal with the impact of the divorce and to strengthen her grip on the Conservative Party.
If this shock YouGov seat by seat survey of 50,000 interviews conducted for the Times accurately predicts the June 8 result, even if the LibDems campaigning on an anti-Hard Brexit platform form a coalition withTheresa May falls, she would still fall short of the 326 seats she needs to form a majority.
The policy, which was dubbed the "dementia" tax, sparked a huge outcry, forcing the party to revise its policies in the days after the manifesto launch, with a pledge to introduce a cap on the costs people would face. A separate YouGov/Times poll released Friday indicated its lead has dropped to five percentage points, from its lead of more than 20 percentage points a month ago.
Measures of expected volatility in sterling that cover the election are jumping, while last week's drop against the dollar was the pound's worst this year. "But the Conservatives' lead has more than halved in recent polls", Kallum Pickering, senior United Kingdom economist at Berenberg, said in a note.
The pound fell 0.5%to $1.28 as of 9.31am in London on Wednesday, after earlier touching $1.2788. But Mr Wilson of ETX Capital said that on Wednesday there were signs of that inverse relationship starting to break down.
Later, research company Panelbase put Theresa May's lead over the Labour Party at 15 points.
YouGov said May was still the most favoured choice for prime minister, though her 43 percent rating is the lowest it has ever been. "It is the outcome of a model that has used untested methodology to come up with this hung parliament conclusion".
Nervous traders are treading cautiously after pollsters incorrectly guessed the outcome of the USA election and the Brexit vote.
"The sharp recent reduction in the party's lead, poor poll reliability in past votes, plus an unusually high level of uncertainty about the key issues and how different groups could vote, make this election tricky to call", he said.
