New polling just released by Survation – by far the most accurate polling company during the 2017 general election – puts Labour three points clear of the Tories:
Just as importantly, it shows leave and remain tightly balanced on 51/49. Data was gathered 9-10 Jan.
This polling, from the most reliable of pollsters and without the ‘priming’ of the widely-criticised poll for the so-called “People’s Vote” group, shows that Corbyn and his team are still handling the Brexit issue intelligently – in spite of cynical attempts by centrists to portray a different picture and conjure an impression of pressure on the Labour leader.
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Disappointingly the picture isn’t quite as rosy as the above results suggest because another result from the same poll isn’t quite so encouraging.
Who do you trust with Brexit?
Mrs May 34%
Jeremy Corbyn 21%
Neither 45%
As SteveH says – nothing much has changed for a long time. At the margins, public opinion is febrile – but only at the margins. In statistical terms, the margins are not very significant, and the split in opinion is remarkably stable. This is a divided country..
It is not surprising that Corbyn is so far behind, given the propaganda campaign against him and the usual bonus that is given to an incumbent (even an unimpressive one). But it points up the hill to be climbed and the sheer degree of incompetence that is forgiven the Tories; literally – you wouldn’t make it up.
Theresa May was genuinely against holding a general election in 2017. However, she eventually succumbed to pressure to do so.
This meant that the Conservatives were actually not as well-prepared for it as Labour. This is my view after reading extensively on this issue.
Give over Tony! The Tories were 20 points ahead of Labour when the GE was called, and they thought they would skate it. As she said at the time, the reason she was calling it was so as to secure a mandate for Brexit (what with only having a small majority at the time):
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/apr/18/theresa-may-calls-for-general-election-in-bid-to-secure-brexit-mandate
IF such a rumour has been circulating since then or recently – ie that SHE was genuinely against it – then it’s just something May and her advisers have dreamt up – along with the rubbish about THEM not being as well prepared as Labour – so as to account for the disasterous result. She wanted a much bigger majority so that she could negate the ‘trouble-makers’ in her own party on the one hand, and get shod of Jeremy Corbyn on the other which – had the result turned out as they (and their Blairite buddies) obviously thought it would – he would undoubtedly have had to stand down as leader of the Labour Party. Job done!
Anyway, perhaps you would like to share some links to this extensive reading you did on the issue (but don’t put more than one link in any given post, because if there’s more than one, it has to wait to be moderated). In the meantime, I’ll see if I can find anything to verify your claims.
“As she said at the time, the reason she was calling it was so as to secure a mandate for Brexit ”
… which sort of calls into question the idea of Brexit as a vote winner.
As I said (above), I didn’t find anything to THAT effect when I did a search Tony – ie >theresa may was against calling general election in 2017< – but I DID just happen to come across something quite interesting when I skimmed through the search results, only the penny did'nt drop until a few minutes after I posted my above comment. And it was a Sun headline wot done it:
theresa on the march Theresa May decided to call snap General Election while walking in Wales on her Easter holiday – and trusts British people to back her over Brexit
So she – supposedly – made the decision whilst walking in Wales over the Easter (Easter Sunday fell on April 16th), and then announced it on April 19th, and the penny that dropped is that it was all complete fabrication – ie a Blind – that she made the decision whilst in Wales walking etc. The point being that she could hardly say that she and her advisors had it planned months beforehand! And she could hardly say – when she came to announce it – that she is calling a GE because "we are 20 points ahead of Labour and will undoubtedly increase our majority substantially, and THAT will take care of the trouble makers in my own party and, at the same time, get shod of Jeremy Corbyn when Labour loses between 50 and a 100 seats/MPs". The very fact that the Sun mentions it – put it – in their headline is/was the give-away!:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3353276/theresa-may-general-election-2017-wales-easter-holiday-brexit/
It was all calculated and planned a long, long time before the Easter, and the "walking in Wales" line was concocted and designed to pull the wool over the voting publics eyes!
Time for another burst of:
Well I just did a search and couldn’t find anything at ALL to that effect Tony, but I came across the following:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2017-40210957
Perhaps it’s just Tory Central Office shills circulating it on social media and blogs like Skwawkbox?
Note: THIS post is out of sequence and my above comments should have been BELOW it!
LibDems at 10%, up from 6%.
What Theresa May was in effect saying when she announced she was calling for a General Election to be held (in 2017) is that “because we are some 20 points ahead of Labour in the polls (and to herself: ‘thanks to our friends in the MSM’) I am calling for a snap election to be held on June 8th so that we – the Tory Party – can substantially increase the number of Tory MPs we have in Parliament AND at the same time completely screw Jeremy Corbyn and his buddies, and needless to say, despite all my rhetoric about the reasons for calling a General Election, there’s not a rat’s chance in hell that I would have been calling it if we had been neck and neck with Labour in the polls, or just a few points ahead of them.”
One last thought on the matter (and I know it’s been said before), but with relatively balanced reporting and equal time given to each of the two main parties (by broadcasters anyway) the Labour Party under JC’s leadership reduced the 20/21 point lead the Tories had down to 2.4% on the day of the election, and did so in just six weeks.
Anyway, I just came across the following (which I hadn’t seen before), which is very interesting for all sorts of reasons:
https://blog.lboro.ac.uk/crcc/general-election/ge2017-the-media-campaign-report-1/
Polls? See Killary Clinton. Polls? See David Cameron’s face,,,the hubris; the arrogance; the disbelief that PSB could not control public opinion. What if the ‘Remoaners’ lose again despite PSB support? When’s the next Voice of the People? Perhaps every year until the plebs get it right? Let’s lower the voting age to ten, so we can teach it in primary school? Support the LibDem proposal!