Things that might cause 'surprises' relative to polling. 11% refused is quite alot and if that has become politicsed (for example via Farage's attacks on pollsters) then they may not be random missing data. https://t.co/jRpufChj4t

— Paula Surridge (@p_surridge) July 4, 2024

This general election has thrown up things that I never expected to write. On election day I wasn’t expecting to write about Labour polling below the 36.1% David Cameron’s Tories received in 2010 but this is now a real possibility as this Ipsos poll isn’t an outlier. If Rishi Sunak hadn’t run a terrible campaign we might have actually had a hung parliament.

But the share of the vote doesn’t really matter, it’s all about net gains and bums on seats and if Starmer wins 400 plus MPs then the vote share will only be remembered by people in favour of electoral reform and deluded by Corbynites who will try and spin the 2017 general election a better result for Labour.

There may be some value in backing Labour in the 34.00% to 35.995 band but your mileage may very.

TSE