What will it do to the political climate?

One of the things that we see repeatedly is that it’s often not the numbers in polls that matter but how the findings are covered in the media that has commissioned them.

So on a morning when the Guardian is reporting its ICM poll with a sharp cut-back in the Tory lead the big slant is about “Cameron closing the deal“. This is based on non-voting questions about how respondents rated him and Brown across a range of issues such as toughness, being decisive and being internationally respected.

And if that is not enough there’s further coverage inside about “Labour no longer being seen as the champion of the poor”.

I just wonder whether in this part of the media at least Cameron is reaping the benefit for the decision to abandon a Lisbon Treaty referendum.

A lot is said about the Guardian but there’s little doubt that its influence extends well beyond the 320,000 people a day who buy it.

I had thought that election count-down in the paper was going to be covered like the final days of the 2008 race for the London mayor. Then, frankly, the paper seemed to have abandoned its critical faculties as it sought to present the possible ending of the Ken era as some form of Armageddon.

Mike Smithson

****On PB2: Bunnco “Cinders can go to the ball”****

PB GET TOGETHER IN THE CITY - THURSDAY 26th NOVEMBER 18.30 -. After discussing it with me Fat Steve is organising an unofficial “after-work drinks” for London-based PBers, somewhere reasonably accessible - in this case Liverpool St/ City area. The plan is totally informal - No admission charge, come and go as you please. Steve has a provisional venue. If anyone’s interested, he has set up an email address for information. Please email so that he can estimate numbers. He say he doesn't want to publicly advertise the venue, for fear of ending like a facebook kid with a wrecked parental home. I hope to be there.