Well, an election has been set for December 12th, and the papers have been full of stories claiming that Labour is 15 points behind the Tories in the polls. This is quite a reversal from last Friday, 25th October 2019, when that day’s I carried an article by Jane Merrick, ‘New opinion poll shows narrow lead for labour’. This ran
A surprise poll put Labour narrowly ahead of the Conservatives last night, suggesting the possible Christmas election could be as close as 2017.
The ComRes survey has Labour on 27 per cent, on epoint ahead of the Tories on 26 per cent. The Brexit party is on 20 per cent and the Liberal Democrats on 18 per cent.
Recent polls have given Boris Johnson’s party a comfortable lead of as much as 15 points ahead of Labour.
However, the new ComRes poll was not based on a straight question of voting intention but was dependent on whether “the deadline for the UK to leave the EU has been extended beyond 31 October 2019”.
The survey was taken on 16 and 17 October, just as the Prime Minister had reached his Brexit deal with Brussels but before the publication of the Withdrawal Agreement Bill.
The poll suggests Mr Johnson’s latest plan, to call an election and extend Brexit beyond 31 October to allow the Bill to pass through Parliament on 6 November could benefit Labour.
Well, it’s now the 31st, and the Brexit deadline has definitely been extended.
Polls, of course, are notoriously untrustworthy. The polls for the last few elections all claimed to show that Labour would be wiped out. But as many of the polling companies are run by Tories, it isn’t remotely surprising they show Labour behind them. In reality, the party actually made some gains. Much also depends on the implementation of the laws on media impartiality. These come into force at election time for broadcasters, so that the Beeb is prevented from lying quite so flagrantly about Labour and Corbyn. As a result, Labour actually rises in the polls to the point where it overtakes the Tories. My guess is that the same process will begin to kick in the closer we get to an election.
And as for the standing in the polls of the two party leaders, the last time I looked BoJob had a massive -44, by far the worse polling of any party leader.