The latest attempt by the Establishment – including the Labour right – to disparage Labour and its leadership is to ask ‘why isn’t Labour polling miles ahead when the Tories are in chaos?’. This nonsense, of course, ignores the fact that the ‘MSM’ ignore much of the worst of the Tory chaos while making a huge noise about any Labour issues. General Election rules are not in force at the moment, so they’re free to smear and skew again – ‘business as usual’.
But it also ignores the rank inaccuracy of the polling that we’re presented with, which completely failed – Survation apart – to predict what the SKWAWKBOX and others were telling readers about weeks before 8 June: the ‘Corbyn surge’.
Labour currently enjoy a two-point lead in the latest polling, but according Paul Brand of ITV, the Tories’ own internal polling tells a very different story:
Before the General Election was called, public polling had the Tories around twenty-five points ahead – and Labour were almost neck and neck with the Tories on voting percentages on General Election night. No mainstream commentator had given a hint of what was about to happen.
So a hidden ten-point increase in Labour’s real standing – and the BBC and right-wing media hiding the scale of the resulting Tory panic – is entirely credible.
It does, however, raise the question of why public polling is so different. Perhaps Tory commentator Peter Hitchens is right:
Polling is meant to influence public opinion, more than to reflect it.
The SKWAWKBOX needs your support. This blog is provided free of charge but depends on the generosity of its readers to be viable. If you can afford to, please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal. Thanks for your solidarity so this blog can keep bringing you information the Establishment would prefer you not to know about.
OF COURSE polls are to influence more than merely to describe. Most are anyhow. And if Labour eventually gets the sort of influence that the tories have, then there will be left biased polls dominating the news. Can’t believe anybody has any doubts about this. Like I can’t believe anybody actually believes that the evictions on Strictly are calculated through some fair equitable algorithm
It was only the other day that latrine-breathed Blair was parroting the same line about how Labour should be polling more strongly given the state of the Tories.
A quick peek behind the veil of larceny and bullshit tells a different story.
Quelle surprise.
I think Hitchens is spot on with regard to this issue. The last general election shows how inaccurate most polling results that get into the public domain via MSM are. The reporting and omissions in MSM and their continued bias against Corbyn led Labour and his supporters reveals that the ‘establishment’ is worried.
There were many of us writing about the most likely election result well before polling day. Despite only posting an article a full two days before polls opened, I had been working on it for several weeks.
Shortly after the election had been announced, the April 23rd entry in my diary reads: “May may have bitten off more than she can chew. A bad speaker in public, she doesn’t come over well, something she’s managed to conceal with the help of all the main media outlets.” If I can observe that from a small pueblo in the extreme south of Spain – which I rarely leave – why couldn’t journalists in London?
https://bryanhemming.wordpress.com/2017/06/06/may-turns-winning-hand-into-busted-flush/
Imagine a mainstream media making the most of the (at least) 120,000 deaths resulting from Tory austerity.
Imagine the face of a single victim lamented in Calumslist.org emblazoned across a newspaper front page for the whole country to see.
Journalists who turn a blind eye to this neoliberal tragedy are aiding and abetting it. The same goes for this whole sordid political polls businesses. At the end day vulnerable people die.
Good to read! You might find this interesting: https://morefollows.wordpress.com/2017/11/19/labours-in-the-lead-but-the-fight-goes-on/
I FIND IT INCREDIBLE WITH EVERYTHING GOING WRONG IN THE TORY PARTY THAT THEY ARE JUST BEHIND OR JUST INFRONT OF LABOUR!
MSM THE BBC THE MEDIA AS A WHOLE ON THE RIGHT, WOULD SAY THAT ANYWAY, WOULDN’T THEY?
Did anyone actually choose journalism as a career so they could ingratiate themselves with rich old fascists – or did they start out with Woodward & Bernstein ambitions until the laziness, drink & corruption infected them and they passed their acquiescence off as pragmatism?
At least now there’s Skwawkbox so such a person could get the truth out if he were about to retire & felt a nagging humiliation over all the sucking up and the lying.
You know who you are.
We shouldn’t overlook the very real possibility that this is a ruse – ie ‘faked’ news. I mean is it normal for “a senior Tory MP” to divulge the results of their internal polling to someone?
And just out of curiousity, can anyone tell me when the poll – mentioned above – that puts Labour two points ahead was conducted (NOT that we can trust them anyway).