Labour should join the Tories in ignoring the polls
The IndependentThe Conservatives fear the opinion polls which are shaping the election campaign will encourage more of their many disenchanted supporters to switch to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK on the grounds the Tories are certain to lose anyway. It is not losing sleep about ministers’ warnings about a Labour “supermajority”, but it is fretting that surveys predicting a massive majority might give progressive voters with doubts about Keir Starmer’s lurch to the centre an excuse to vote for the Green Party, pro-Palestinian independents or George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain. Some Labour insiders envisage a “disappointment factor”, even if it secures a 100-plus majority, because that would fall a long way short of the pollsters’ most optimistic predictions for the party. Tom Baldwin, Starmer’s biographer and Labour’s director of communications in 2015, told me: “Polls are no longer explaining what is happening in elections but also influencing their outcomes. In government, Labour would probably judge the move unworkable: political parties and hedge funds would commission private polls and their findings might be selectively leaked.
History of this topic
How exit polls work and how much you can trust the result
The Independent
Pre-poll survey predicts landslide victory for Labour Party in UK polls
India Today
Opinion poll round-up on day nine of the election campaign
The Independent
Tories losing more voters to Farage’s Reform UK than Labour, poll finds
The Independent
Tories braced for losses as votes counted in England’s local elections
The Independent
Labour’s lead jumps four points as just 23% trust Tories to make big decisions
The Independent
Tories ‘set to lose 550 seats’ in worst local election performance in a generation
The Telegraph
Labour ahead of Tories in polls for first time since Johnson became PM
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