So there I was on Friday night, sitting next to Kelvin MacKenzie on the BBC News Channel’s new Campaign Show, listening to the ex-Sun editor and right-wing rabble-rouser claiming that the Tories had “won” the first week.
His evidence? The next morning’s YouGov daily tracker poll for the Sun, showing a 10-point lead for the Conservatives over Labour. The BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, who was also in the studio, chipped in to remind us — and the viewers — that even Alistair Darling had praised George Osborne’s tactical brilliance in the opening days of the campaign.
But even in the midst of general election campaigns, politicians, and political correspondents, remain permanent residents of the bubble often referred to as the “Westminster village” (or, in the United States, “inside the Beltway”). Last week’s “row” over National Insurance, for instance, dominated the political and media debate, but as the Indie’s Johann Hari tweeted over the weekend, “I haven’t heard a single real person talking about this National Insurance row. Has anyone? Amazing how pol coverage ignores real concerns.”
So let’s look at some of the weekend’s polls that Kelvin was so keen to highlight as evidence for his claim that the Tories are “winning”. The YouGov 10-point lead for the Tories on Satuday dropped to 8 points on Sunday and is down to 6 points today. The ComRes poll for the Sunday Mirror showed the Conservatives ahead by 7 points, suggesting Cameron would be 15 seats short of a majority.
A BPIX poll in the Mail on Sunday also gave the Tories a 7-point lead. An ICM poll of the marginals for the News of the World, despite being spun by the Murdoch-owned paper as “good news” for Cameron, gave the Tories a 6 per cent swing from Labour in those seats — 2 per cent down since January. Meanwhile, our own New Statesman poll of polls suggests a Tory lead, nationally, of a little over 7 points. It’s difficult to disagree with a Bloomberg headline from yesterday:
UK Polls Before Manifestos Point to Hung Parliament
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(Interestingly, as John Rentoul points out on his blog, eight out of eight of the nation’s top pollsters have publicly predicted a Tory majority, not a hung parliament. Do they not believe their own “data”? Or is there something they know that they’re not telling us? John has a useful guide to the opinion polls here. And as my old friend Alex Barker of the FT points out: “A unanimous consensus is always something to be wary of, particularly when it doesn’t quite reflect the evidence available.” Groupthink alert!)
So where is this imagined Tory boost, outside of the ICM poll in the Sunday Telegraph showing the Tories had doubled their lead over Labour to 8 points over the past weeks (but, with a 38 per cent share of the vote, still below the crucial 40 per cent share need to guarantee a parliamentary majority)? Where are the swing voters flocking to Cameronomics, with its intriguing combination of tax cuts, efficiency savings and deficit reduction?
According to the ComRes poll in yesterday’s Sunday Mirror, the public don’t seem to agree with the Westminster consensus that Osborne is getting the better of Darling, or the media consensus on Saint Vince as the best man for No 11:
Alistair Darling was voted the best chancellor with 23 per cent in our poll. Lib Dem finance spokesman Vince Cable was second on 21 per cent with Mr Osborne trailing in third place with the support of just 19 per cent of those surveyed. The remaining 37 per cent are listed as “don’t knows”.
I think it was a mistake for Darling to concede, even if only on a tactical level, the first week of the campaign to the Tories. So far, this election campaign has been more like a phoney war, with no real blows landed by either side. I mean, will anyone actually remember Stuart MacLennan on 6 May, for example? I doubt it. The (unprecedented) televised leaders’ debates starting this Thursday, however, could be game-changers.
Fingers crossed.
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