Few on the left have any doubt that the Establishment – whether in Westminster or in the media – will try every trick in the book to try to check the ‘Corbyn surge’ that rocked the Tories in the General Election, deprived them of their majority in the Commons and has put Labour ahead in polling since.
In June, just after the General Election, the SKWAWKBOX pointed out six ‘desperation tactics’ that a reeling Labour right was planning to use in order to try to tarnish Corbyn’s popularity – and all of them subsequently made an appearance. Some of them continue to be used.
Similarly, the UK’s Establishment media are attempting their own trick to try to take the wind out of Labour’s sails.
After every party conference for years, polling companies have published new polling based on data gathered after the leader’s speech. Unless there has been a disaster at the conference, the mere additional exposure offered by coverage of the speech usually means that this polling reflects a ‘bounce‘ – an increase in polling.
Jeremy Corbyn’s speech to close a spectacularly successful Labour conference was widely considered a triumph in spite of attempts by the right-wing press to denigrate it – but no polling headlines have featured in the media.
Polling based on data collected before the Conference already showed a Labour gain:
But no national polling after.
A poll of London voting intention showed Labour with the largest lead YouGov has ever given Labour in the capital:
This might mean as much as 48% for Labour nationwide – but no polling has been published to confirm it.
The Tory conference closes tomorrow – and it’s a safe bet that the media will publish polls after Theresa May’s speech which may show a Tory bounce of around 2%.
They will then obfuscate – omitting from analysis the fact that the bounce is a temporary effect of the media’s own positive coverage of Theresa May’s speech.
This will be designed to allow Corbyn’s internal opponents to risk being a little less quiet – which will allow the press to churn out a round of anti-Corbyn articles.. This in turn is designed to let the Tories claim that they came out of conference strongly – which will be an unmitigated lie.
The truth will be that the media reported no post-Conference polling boost for Labour, but will have published a post-conference bounce for the Tories – a completely skewed and biased depiction.
This appears to be the first year in living memory in which a poll has not been published two or three days after a Labour leader’s speech. And the motive, transparently, will be to mislead voters in the hope of disguising and therefore stemming Labour’s continuing ‘surge’ under Corbyn.
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