Overnight political hacks have been having much fun (best summarised here) about a new MORI poll which was claimed to have a narrow Tory lead of 3%, which would fall within the margin of error and could have meant that Brown was level pegging with Cameron, but ended up being a whopping 17% Conservative lead.
The joke was, of course, on everyone - Tories who were scared that the rumours were true were buzzily doing some "expectation managing" and critiquing the work of MORI (regular readers will testify that I hold MORI in no regard at all when it coming to polling; I don't care for the 17 point lead in the same way I didn't care for the 6 point one) and Labour were spinning this was the fightback and that Gordon could still win.
Then the real result was announced and some Tories were left to delcare that MORI was, in fact, spot on and Labour were attacking the MORI methodology.
This has led, rightly, to some saying that the political commentararti ought to wait for results before speculating and looking fools.
In the last few weeks things have gone well for Labour in the narrtive if not the events; Brown has done well-ish at PMQs, the polls were narrowing and the Tories seemed to be underpressure on a number of fronts. Locally here in Norwich the activists were getting bullish, their MPs had a spring in their steps. Good news gave them hope; optimism.
And now? Things have pretty much fallen apart again - the polls are pretty much back to where they were, Cameron is back on the policy frontfoot and the government continues to stumble from disaster to disaster. And Labour MPs? Once again the storm clouds gather over their heads.
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