People are waking up to the true horror of Corbyn
THE lesson of the past few elections is that we should take opinion polls not so much with a pinch of salt as an entire Siberian mine’s worth of the stuff. Nevertheless, something seems to be stirring in the minds of voters. The widely held assumption that the Conservatives would go down heavily to Labour in the event of an early election is starting to look doubtful.
A little-reported Kantar poll the day before the Budget even gave the Conservatives a four-point lead – something that has not occurred since June’s general election. No, I’m not heading down to Coral, either. But even so, it is remarkable that the 2,400 people who contributed to it were interviewed between November 14 and 20, which included Priti Patel’s resignation and Boris Johnson’s error over a British woman being held in Iran. It came in the immediate aftermath of the groping scandals and amid stagnation in Brexit negotiations.
The general opinion among Westminster commentators over this period was that the Government was an utter shambles – that Theresa May would struggle to make it to Christmas. Yet not for the first time opinion in the country is at odds with that of those who make a living from observing our politicians at close quarters.
While the former see politics through the prism of their earnings, their pensions, their health and their children’s education, the latter tend to focus more on how things will look in the next TV news bulletin.
IT IS easy to portray an atmosphere of chaos amid ministerial resignations but people who have their feet firmly rooted outside Westminster are beginning to admire the Prime Minister for the calm manner in which she has managed to handle a disappointing election result and its aftermath. Strong? No. May can’t claim to be in that position. But stable? Yes. She has shown herself to have remarkable resilience. How many of us could say that we could have borne the past few months in her position without cracking up?
What is especially instructive about the Kantar poll is that in asking people for their voting