11 December 2005

Sympathy for the devil

Sometimes, being a journalist can be a tough life. Here is Iain Macwhirter in The Sunday Herald:
"When Tony Blair took over, Labour already had a clear and long-established lead over the Conservatives in the opinion polls. Today Conservatives have been trailing Labour in the national polls .
Cameron will have to achieve a remarkable and unprecedented turn-around in the opinion polls if he is to stand any chance of winning the next general election. It looks an impossible mountain to climb. "

Right on cue, here comes The Observer to show that the impossible mountain has indeed been climbed:
"ICM, in the Sunday Telegraph says if an election were held tomorrow, the Conservatives would get 37 per cent, against 35 per cent for Labour. When respondents were asked how they would vote in a future Cameron-Brown contest, the gap widened to 40 per cent for the Tories, giving them a three-point lead.
A YouGov poll in the Sunday Times showed the Tories leading Labour by 37 per cent to 36 per cent - a two-point rise for the Conservatives and one-point fall for Labour in a month. Brown's approval rating - more than 40 per cent before the general election last May - is now just 4 per cent."

It's not the whole story of course - a one-off boost in the polls does not prove anything. But the above illustrates the difficulties of writing for the Sundays.

No comments: