Following Wednesday’s Labour leadership debate televised by BBC News, Ipsos Mori published a voting-intention poll showing Labour only 5 points behind the Tories:
From a low of 14% behind just a few weeks ago, Labour had closed to 7% last week. 5% is not where Corbyn or any of his supporters would want to be, but considering the constant ‘briefing against’ by the PLP (parliamentary Labour Party) against Corbyn’s leadership abilities and (ludicrously) about his effort in the EU referendum, spurious and completely unevidenced allegations by Labour MPs of ‘abuse’ by Corbyn supporters, a concocted anti-semitism row and relentlessly negative coverage even by the so-called ‘liberal media’, to be closing the gap is remarkable.
Has the Establishment shot itself in the foot by organising the ‘Chicken Coup’ to try to force Corbyn to resign and then manufacturing a leadership challenge?
Until the referendum result, coverage of Corbyn in the media was slim and invariably negative. As a recent study by the London School of Economics showed, most articles about Corbyn gave him no ‘voice’ – that is, his actual words never featured.
But the series of leadership debates and, to a lesser extent, the grudging media coverage of his addresses to huge pro-Corbyn rallies, is giving Labour supporters and the wider public to hear from, and assess for themselves, Corbyn’s words, policies, character.
And, to the undoubted ire of the right wing of the Labour establishment (and likely the wider Establishment as well), the more people hear of Jeremy Corbyn, the more his polling, the assessment of his leadership and, yes, his ‘electability’ rise.
At the end of the BBC debate, host Victoria Derbyshire invited the ‘undecided’ section of the audience to move to the side of whichever speaker had convinced them, if any. All moved to Corbyn’s side, except for 3 or 4 non-movers and, after a long pause, one man who moved to Smith’s.
Just as the ever more ridiculous slurs that the Labour right-wingers throw at Corbyn seem each time to increase his popularity, every leadership debate merely contrasts Corbyn’s statesmanlike integrity, gravitas and genuinely different policies – in spite of the best efforts of Smith (which primarily consist of adding ‘but in GOVERNMENT!’ to the end of every sentence).
And up his ratings go. If the people behind the manufactured ‘crisis’ in the Labour party are not regretting their decision to give Corbyn a platform for us all to hear more of his views and see more of his authenticity, they ought to be.
It’s probably worth looking at the full poll rather than the bit that’s been cut out. Here’s a link. The Tories have increased their lead to the largest gap since 2009.
https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3772/New-Prime-Minister-starts-with-a-honeymoon-among-the-public.aspx
See response to similar comments.
Being pleased about a solitary poll that shows the opposition five points behind the government in midterm says a lot more about Corbyn and his supporters than any number of blogs.
Your assertion that claims of abuse are unevidenced are also wide of the mark. There is plenty of evidence.
Also, it’s not just right wingers who are tired of Corbyn’s ineptitude, there’s a sizeable proportion of us in the left who are sick to the back teeth of his inability to convert policy into a digestible message and his failure to gain traction with the bulk of the electorate. Blaming that on briefings is a cop out.
We need to change the leader, but should be wary of returning to the Blairite way of doing things. Surely it is not outside the wit of the British left to produce a leader who is actually competent rather than a posturing fool.
Yawn.
Apart from the fact polls are 3% bias towards labour,so it’s 11%’ labour was 16% ahead in 1974 and 29% ahead in 1988′ and we lost th following elections
“If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine”…
I highly appreciate your work. However, you may want to consider a few points. 1) You are not using the headline figures, but the one before adjustment that attempts to simulate likelihood of voting. 2) if you do that, you would have to compare it to the previous Ipsos Mori poll, which was mid-July and Labour was ahead by 4% (it was probably an outlier). So, it actually a decline by 9%. If you want to compare across polling companies as you did (which is problematic), you have to use the headline figures, and in the poll in your post it is 11% Tory lead (anything else would be surprising due to the May-honeymoon, and the mayhem with the PLP).
See response to other similar comments.
Karma indeed.
Why don’t you just make your own numbers up instead of quoting someone else’s out of context?
That’s basically what the pollsters doing the weighting are doing. What’s going on now is unprecedented and they have no clue how to ‘weight’ – and their recent track record shows it
Reblogged this on stewilko's Blog and commented:
The message is getting through. For the last couple of weeks, the Anyone But Corbyn brigade has been pointing to that disastrous ‘minus 14 per cent’ opinion poll to prop up their argument.
Now they don’t even have that.
This Writer predicts some really dirty tactics in the immediate future.
From a low of 14% behind just a few weeks ago, Labour had closed to 7% last week. 5% is not where Corbyn or any of his supporters would want to be, but considering the constant ‘briefing against’ by the PLP (parliamentary Labour Party) Against Corbyn’s leadership abilities and (ludicrously) About his effort in the EU referendum, spurious and completely unevidenced allegations by Labour MPs of ‘abuse’ by Corbyn supporters, a concocted anti-Semitism row and relentlessly negative coverage even by the so-called ‘liberal media’, to be closing the gap is remarkable.
Has the Establishment shot itself in the foot by organising the ‘Chicken Coup’ to try to force Corbyn to resign and then manufacturing a leadership challenge?
Until the referendum result, coverage of Corbyn, in the media was slim and invariably negative. As a recent study by the London School of Economics showed, most articles about Corbyn gave him no ‘voice’ – that is, his actual words never faltered.
But the series of leadership debates and, to a lesser extent, the grudging media coverage of his addresses to huge pro-Corbyn rallies, is giving Labour supporters and the wider public to hear from, and assess for themselves, Corbyn’s words, policies, character.
The media have completely blocked or fabricated any news pertaining to Jeremy Corbyn. Luckily Jeremy will come through and become leader. Then highlight how the austerity message. Also, the evil conservative policies have destroyed people’s lives
Reblogged this on Mark Catlin's Blog.
I can’t help but note that you’re intentionally misrepresenting polling data. The headline figures you’re using come from two different polling companies, which use different methodologies, and one is an un-weighted figure. You’re not comparing like to like.
The last Ipsos Mori poll showed a five point lead for Labour before weighting – the current five point lead for the Tory’s before weighting thus reflects a ten point swing from Labour to the Conservatives.
You’re doing a disservice to your readers and the public by presenting misleading information.
Don’t presume to know what I’m thinking, thank you. Read the response to other comments to see why the ‘weighted’ results are at best guesswork and at worst deliberately framed. Everyone keeps saying Labour under Corbyn is losing. In actual elections, Labour inconveniently keeps winning, almost always with a sizeable increase in share. The pollsters have no clue what’s happening, so their weighting is meaningless.
Wrong! Try using the actual graph that IPSOS MORI published not this cropped version. See https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3772/New-Prime-Minister-starts-with-a-honeymoon-among-the-public.aspx#gallery%5Bm%5D/1/
Pretty much every polling organisation has a recent history of getting things dramatically wrong. Things are going on that they have no idea how to factor in – which is why the raw data is as/more likely to be significant than the ‘weighted’ (guesswork). Labour keep winning when everyone says they won’t – and usually with a big increase in share, even during the period of the current chickencoup bollocks. So a weighted poll that puts Labour further back than is suspect.
Those are the unweighted figures & using them is a tad misleading & seeing as that’s what the Tories do, I’m surprised to see a Labour man doing the same.
If you were to compare Ipsos’s last unweighted sample to this unweighted sample, and assess the shift, Labour’s gone from a 5-point lead to a 5-point deficit. This is disastrous. His support has FALLEN by 2 points while the Tories’ has risen by 8 points.
The raw data is still data – and more reflective of recent election results that show Labour winning with a big increase in vote share. So the people doing the weighting know very little about what’s really going on out there – as some of them will even admit
This is a lie no such Ipsos Mori poll exists
Yes it does. You’re looking at the wrong dataset.
Here is the true poll not a made up one http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/
They’re the unweighted figures and such pretty meaningless. The weighted figures are showing an 11% Conservative lead. Don’t let reality intrude… But it says something that a 5% Conservative lead is viewed as a triumph for Comrade Corbyn.
It’s not viewed as a triumph. It’s viewed as significant, in view of the relentless sh*t the MSM and PLP are trying to shovel. And like I’ve said to others, actual election results show hugely increased majorities in almost every case, so ‘weighted figures’ are more likely to be bollocks than the raw data.
Sad. Knowingly sharing an unweighted poll and pretending the actual proper, weighted poll isn’t there. Very sad. And telling.
You won’t be able to pretend after a real election you know.
It’s not a question of pretending it isn’t there. The MSM will give plenty of weight to anything they can portray as damaging. Highlighting what the raw data say does just a tiny bit to balance the picture.
And we’ve had lots of real elections – and won all of them, almost without exception with an increased majority. Which is why I distrust ‘weighting’ (i.e. maybe-not-so-educated guesswork) – election results have reflected raw data much better than the weighted for some time.
do any of the people who are calling for the ‘weighted’ figures know what this actually means? It seems to amount to someone casting the runes and saying ‘I reckon we should lower Labour’s figures a bit’ http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/faq-weighting
Indeed!
The history of the last 10 years has been consistently weighting Labour above actual performance.
Yes. And during those years Labour has not been a ‘left’ party in any meaningful sense. The pollsters genuinely have no clue how to weight responses with a genuinely left-wing option in the picture.
Polling for the Socialist Party, Respect and TUSC has been generally accurate
You’re kidding, right? Tiny fringe parties, next to no vote except on one occasion for respect – vs a party that has added hundreds of thousands of members, is the centre of an unprecedented mass movement and has an unparallelled profile. Thanks in part to the idiocy of the chickencoup, but more people than ever are hearing Corbyn and the people enthused by him. There is no precedent – nothing on which to base weighting. It’s guesswork. The more honest among the pollsters will even admit it.