Tonight’s R&W poll has the LAB lead down to just 13% which is the lowest it has been since Sunak became PM. This is in line with the trend from other pollsters where all but two have the margin in the teens – not the 20s. The two exceptions have never been tested in a real election,

Where I think the betting markets are wrong is that they’re not looking at the very high proportion of 2019 Tory voters who are still telling pollsters that they don’t know. This has moved back from 25% a few moths ago to 16% in the latest survey but is still distorting the overall findings.

My strong view is that this will change much more in favour of the Tories as we get closer. Just 13% of those GE2019 CON voters have switched to Starmer’s party according to this poll.

We have the local elections a fortnight on Thursday and these could give us a better perspective. I am now betting that there won’t be a LAB majority.

Mike Smithson