Numbers say Miliband is never going to be PM

LABOUR has been ahead in the opinion polls since 2011. But it has never taken the commanding lead necessary to be sure of winning the next election. Instead, its lead has been narrowing in recent months, and last week saw the first poll since 2012 showing a Tory lead.

Yet it is a wonder that Labour ever had the lead in the first place. Voters have consistently thought David Cameron makes a better prime minister than Ed Miliband would do.

They blame the Labour party for the 2008 financial crisis and, now that the economy is recovering, people have increasing confidence in Conservative economic management, which they have nearly always preferred to the alternative offered by the two Eds, Miliband and Balls.

So, now that we have the first postwar Coalition Government, will both governing parties recover from their mid-term doldrums? While the Liberal Democrats have been flatlining around 10 per cent, the Tories are doing better now than at this time last year. But for David Cameron to recover his mid-term losses, he needs to turn around disgruntled former Tories who have defected to UKIP. Surveys suggest that this will be harder in 2015 than it was in 2010. Cameron’s challenge is on the right.

Ed Miliband’s is in the centre. To hang on to former Lib Dem voters who switched to Labour after the Coalition will be hard in the many constituencies where Lib Dems, not Labour, are the Tories’ competitors.

But ultimately Mr Miliband’s big challenge is to convince people they want him as prime minister. After years of the public preferring Mr Cameron, it will be hard to change their minds now.