Conservatives take massive poll lead, matching Thatcher

May repeatedly ruled out a snap election until last Tuesday’s decision

British Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservatives have almost twice as much voter support as the opposition Labour Party ahead of a June 8 election, a lead equal to that commanded by Margaret Thatcher before her 1983 landslide victory, Ipsos MORI said.

Since May surprised rivals and financial markets by calling a snap election, opinion polls have shown May has far greater support than Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and that she is likely to win a big majority in the 650-seat lower house of parliament. An Ipsos MORI telephone poll of 1,004 adults conducted on April 21-25 put the Conservative lead at 23 percentage points, while a Panelbase online poll of 1,026 people on April 20-24 put their lead on 22 percentage points.

“The Conservatives are starting the campaign matching the biggest lead we have ever recorded for them during an election campaign — which was back in 1983 ahead of Thatcher’s victory,” Gideon Skinner, head of political research at Ipsos MORI, told journalists.

Thatcher, riding a wave of popularity after the Falklands War against Argentina, won a 144-seat majority in that election against Labour’s Michael Foot, whose left-wing socialist manifesto was branded by a party colleague as “the longest suicide note in history”.

May’s predecessor, David Cameron, won a majority of 12 seats in a 2015 election, the first overall Conservative victory since Thatcher’s successor, John Major, won in 1992.

May repeatedly ruled out a snap election until last Tuesday, when she announced outside her 10 Downing Street residence she would seek a new mandate.