“Barely a month ago, Labour was a modest three points behind in the opinion polls and slowly if unspectacularly closing in on the Conservatives. Now it is all at sea”
said The Times, today.
Whilst it is true that the Populus poll conducted for The Times and published on 9th March 2008 pointed to a Conservative lead of “only” three points, other, fairly contemporaneous opinion polls indicated a much larger lead for the Conservatives (ICM, nine and YouGov, sixteen points). Even worse, the general trend of all the polls taken together showed and still shows Labour falling further behind. Though it is understandable that The Times would consider its own poll as first amongst equals, the impression given that all the polls showed a three point deficit is wrong and manifestly so. This is not an isolated misapprehension because in recent weeks a number of commentators throughout the Media have opined upon Labour’s unpopularity as if it was a mere temporary phenomenon and assumed that the very best that the Conservatives can achieve at the next General Election is to be the largest party, by just a handful of MPs, in the House of Commons. We have now moved well beyond that scenario.
Those in the Media who are sympathetic to Gordon Brown’s administration do it no favours by trying to paint too favourable a picture when in reality the prognosis is potentially so bleak. On the ground, far from the rarefied atmosphere in which most commentators exist, Labour is deeply unpopular and mistrusted. Its life force is ebbing away.