Finchley & Golders Green – the only constituency where there’ve been two polls
The Chief Rabbi’s comments on anti-semitism put the focus once again on what’s troubled Corbyn’s Labour Party for nearly 2 years – the way it has handled anti-semitism within the movement.
One of the high-profile victims of some serious online antisemitism was the former Liverpool Wavertree MP, Luciana Berger who has now switched to the Lib Dems and will be fighting the the Finchley and Golders Green seat on December 12th. She left her original party after facing a torrent of anti-semitic abuse.
This is one of the most intriguing battles and is in a seat which covers part of the constituency that Margaret Thatcher held for many years. The recent historical performance of the Lib Dems in the seat has not been that great but their hopes could be be energised by their candidate.
What marks this seat out is that the proportion of voters who are Jewish there is just about the highest of any of the 650 constituencies which will be contested in two weeks time.
There have been two constituency polls which give very different projections of the possible outcome. In October Survation, the top poster two and a half years ago, had the Lib Dems with with a commanding lead while at the weekend Deltapoll showed the Tories clearly holding on.
We have to take into account the difficulty in sampling a single seat.
There is little doubt that large parts of British Jewish communities feel outraged by the presence of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader and see LD convert Berger as a victim of the anti-semitic culture that appears to have existed. You can see a vote for Berger being a proxy for a vote against Corbyn.
Maybe today’s focus on LAB’s antisemitism will help Berger. I have a small bet on her doing it.