Labour behind but ahead

A new poll in the Independent says that Labour are only a single percentage point behind the tories, contradicting polls at the weekend that had a tory double-digit lead. Because of the vagaries of the electoral system:

The figures would give Gordon Brown an overall majority of 10 if repeated at a general election.

Try and keep up

Obviously, the way to get a bit of publicity for your website is to do a sensational poll and give the story to a national paper. The Observer says:

Gordon Brown is set to lead Labour into an election bloodbath so crushing it could take his party a decade to recover, according to the largest ever poll of marginal seats which predicts a landslide victory for David Cameron.

Unfortunately, a p0ll on this scale (35,000 people) can be out of date before it's published. The Independent on Sunday as a poll suggesting that Labour has halved the Tory lead. This may itself not be entirely accurate but it shows how pointless it is to read detailed outcomes into a poll, however large, a year and a half before an election.

Meanwhile, some of the papers are desperate to keep the anti-Brown rebellion story going. The Times says that the rebellion has spread to, er, Charles Clarke. Also:

Tom Harris, the transport minister, risked censure by expressing sympathy with rebel MPs who called for a ballot. He wrote on his internet blog that the resignation of the Labour rebel David Cairns, the Scotland minister, was “based on honesty and principle” and that he “deserves respect for what he has done”.

Is that the best you can do?

Bottoming out?

Once again the Times spins a poll showing a seven point drop in the Tory lead as bad news for Gordon Brown. Instead of reporting that the cut in the Tory lead has been cut by a third, it says that voters think Brown isn't up to the job.

Peter Riddell describes this as a bottoming out:

This was bound to happen at some stage as Labour support could not go on falling.

It isn't clear that he understands what "bottoming out" is. It or be not be true that Labour support could not go on falling but both would imply that Labour stayed as far behind as it was. Instead it has bounced off the bottom. It may only be three or four per cent of voters who have switched back to Labour but if this happens again the Tory lead will be down to seven points and people will start to doubt whether David Cameron will have any kind of lead by the time of the next election.

Self-fulfilling and self-serving

When a newspaper headlines the detail of an opinion poll rather than the basic numbers, the chances are that it's looking for a story that better fits its view of the world. The Telegraph says that almost two thirds of people think Gordon Brown is an electoral liability. Given how badly Labour is doing, that's hardly surprising.

In fact, the Tory lead is down six points. Labour are still 18 points behind - but these are silly numbers that are unlikely to be reflected in an election in two years' time.