Tory deficit slashed to 2%!
Labour lead slashed to 2% says the Guardian's new poll, with the parties on 36%, 34% and 22%. On a uniform swing this would give Labour a majority of 101 (the same, if I recall correctly, as Mrs Thatcher's 3rd term majority).Annoying the usual background polling detail doesn't seem to be available yet, but one thing puzzled me. The Guardian says,
"But the ICM survey also shows that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, Mr Blair is still seen as overwhelmingly popular among Labour voters, with 75% saying they are satisfied with the job he is doing. Indeed 86% of Labour voters say they see Blair as competent; 70% say he is trustworthy; 63% say he is in touch with ordinary people and only 33% say he lacks clear ideas".
This seems to me to be intuitive. As a party's support falls from 42% to 36% those who still support the party are bound to be those who were more in favour of the PM to start with. Those who have shifted (and the largest shift seems to be to the Lib Dems) will be those who never much liked Blair in the first place. Of course it's all more dynamic than this, and such analysis could be proved wrong in a few hours when The Guardian publishes the full data....
Bad news for or good news for IDS? Well it's pretty simple really. It's good news for him that Labour are imploding. It's bad news for him that he cleary is unable to capitalise on it. However one can't be too harsh -- doing nothing except offering free education is clearly better than Hague was doing at this stage of the last parliament, which basically was running around Kent trying to stoke up anti-ayslum seeker opinion.
posted by Matthew @ 7/22/2003 08:41:00 AM
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