The blogosphere is alight with all kinds of chatter about yesterday’s Ipsos MORI poll for the Observer, which showed Labour closing the gap between them and the Tories to 6 points: from James Macintyre’s claim that the Labour fightback has begun to Nick Robinson’s call for calm.
Myself, I’m on Team Robinson. Sure, the poll is an eye-opener for CCHQ – but, by itself, it’s hardly evidence of a tidal shift in voting intentions. Indeed, going off two very useful posts by Anthony Wells and Stephan Shakespeare, there’s a considerable chance that this is a rogue.
Polls will always be imperfect, but they’ve been particularly volatile recently. Since party conference season, we’ve seen the Tories achieving 17-point leads as well as this low of 6 points. As for the reason, we can only guess. Perhaps politics is in flux. Perhaps voters are still undecided on the main parties after another round of expenses scandal.
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