For CON to have any chance the LAB share needs to erode. It’s looking pretty solid.
Remember Bob Worcester’s advice – look at the shares not the lead
The veteran pollster who founded the MORI company all those years ago, Bob Worcester, used to contact me in the early days of PB to give me a gentle admonishment whenever he thought I focused too much on polling leads. The important thing, he would always say, was to look at the respective party poll shares.
This is what I am doing today with two charts showing the trend in the LAB share from the pollsters that report more than weekly – YouGov and Populus.
As can be seen there’s been very little movement even though the LAB lead from both firms has jumped about a fair bit.
EdM’s party has been polling solidly in a very narrow range between 38% and 40%. The main movement in the CON position has been down to changes with other parties.
All this is not surprising when you look at the detailed data. Very little of LAB’S improved position compared with GE2010 has been down to switching from the Tories.
Today’s YouGov has CON 34, LAB 38, LD 11, UKIP 12