Introducing Ed Miliband, Labour’s best hope since Tony Blair. Oh, I’m kidding, of course — but it’s still striking that, this morning, Labour have their biggest lead in a ComRes poll for seven years. And the size of the lead? Ten points, but it could be even bigger. The Peter Cruddas revelations fell right in the middle of ComRes’s polling. Apparently, those interviews conducted after Sunday had Labour with a 17-point lead.
Of course, you can slap every caveat across this that you like: we’re still ages away from the election; one poll does not make a trend; the 17-point figure is based on a subset of a subset of people; and so on. But this ComRes poll, and a few others out today, will still jangle nerves and fray tempers along Downing Street. The combination of the Budget and ‘cash for access’ isn’t quite helping the Tory cause.
No.10’s main concern, I’m sure, will be that all this entrenches ideas about the Tories and privilege. Indeed, this is the theme that the Independent runs with in its coverage of the ComRes poll. Two-thirds of respondents regard the Tories as ‘the party of the rich’.
Some will say that perceptions have always been thus — and it hasn’t stopped the Tories winning elections before. But those eager to modernise the party won’t be among them. Last year, Nick Boles put the absence of a Tory majority down to the fact that, ‘We’re not seen as on the side of ordinary people.’ And if that doesn’t change even after schools reform, welfare reform and the increase in the personal allowance, then what can be done? There was a time when that question might have been answered by some judicious tax cuts ahead of the next election. But the deteriorated state of the public finances seems to have lessened that possibility.
All of which raises a grim prospect for David Cameron. Just as Labour MPs might ask ‘How much better would we be doing with a leader other than Ed Miliband?’, will Tory MPs soon have a question of their own: ‘Why aren’t we doing better against a leader such as Miliband?’
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