Andy Burnham’s Labour government ticked off another set-piece event during October, the Budget delivered by the new Chancellor, John Healey. Only three of the polls comprising this month’s polling averages were conducted after the Budget, so any movement compared with last month cannot be attributed to that.
There has indeed been movement though. Labour continue to extend the lead they have had since Andy Burnham became Prime Minister. Labour overtook Reform UK to lead in the July data, which was the month Burnham took over at No 10. In August, Labour doubled their lead from one point to two points. In September, they doubled it again, to four points and now, in October, they have doubled it again, to 8 points.
If Labour manage to double their lead again in November (somewhat unlikely) then perhaps the chatter about a pre-Christmas general election might have to be taken more seriously!
Here are the polling figures for October. Below those, we again look at the claims of a return to two-party politics, which are being made by some commentators.
October UK General Election Polling Averages
The average (mean) vote shares from the most recent October poll by each of the ten polling companies who published a UK general election poll conducted during October, is as follows:
* Compared with September’s average – each month a different combination of pollsters will publish polls, so this change is not strictly comparing like with like but gives a general sense of change.
October’s polling average was compiled using data from the following pollsters – BMG; Deltapoll; Find Out Now; Freshwater Strategy; Ipsos; More In Common; Opinium; Survation; Trajectory Partnership; YouGov.
What do these results mean?
Given that Labour and the Conservatives are up a combined 4.2 points this month, it is perhaps understandable that we have seen another flurry of think pieces heralding the return of ‘two-party politics’.
It is only fair to acknowledge that for the first time since we started collecting these data, in February 2025, over half of the public (51.2%) indicate that they intend to vote for one of the traditional ‘big two’ parties, Labour or the Conservatives.
Having acknowledged that, however, it is only right to point out that the current polling landscape remains far outside of the parameters of what most people would think of if you told them that a country has a two-party political system.
For a start, both Labour and Conservative vote shares are below what they achieved at the last general election, in 2024. Back then, the combined vote share for the big two parties, across Great Britain, was 59.0%. That was a record low since Labour overtook the Liberals to become the second party of UK politics, in the 1920s. Current polling indicates we are still some way beneath that record low.
When almost half of people are indicating that they would vote for a party other than Labour or the Conservatives, talk of a return to two-party politics just does not ring true.
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