A month of polls

Here is a summary of the opinion polls for the last month or so. To be honest, they do not make a for tremendously good read if you are a Labour supporter. However, Liberal Democrats will not be heartened either.

		Lab	Con	LDem	UKIP	Grn
23-Jan-2017	ICM	26	42	10	13	5
17-Jan-2017	YouGov	28	39	11	13
17-Jan-2017	Survation	29	38	10	13	2
14-Jan-2017	Opinium	30	38	7	14
9-Jan-2017	ICM	28	42	9	12	4
6-Jan-2017	YouGov	26	39	10	14	4
18-Dec-2016	Opinium	31	38	6	13	4
15-Dec-2016	Ipsos MORI	29	40	14	9	3
13-Dec-2016	ICM	27	41	9	14	3
9-Dec-2016	YouGov	25	42	11	12	4
	avg	28	40	9.7	12.7	3.6

There is no General Election tomorrow, so in some minds these polls can be ignored. That, in my humble opinion, is wrong.  Whatever one thinks of Labour's performance, and the policy positions it is taking, it is not (at the moment) gaining favour with enough of the voting public. These numbers have to improve for Jeremy Corbyn to stand a chance of holding the keys to 10 Downing Street.

Of course, Labour could do nothing and still see the public swinging their way. We could be persuasive enough to encourage people to back our policies. We could see real problems in the economy that see hordes shrinking from the Conservative embrace. We could also see an end to the disunity that has dogged Labour recently.

In the end I suspect it will take a combination of all three, in differing measures.

On another point, I note that UKIP are still attracting good numbers. Those who hoped that Brexit would see an end to this right-wing party are going to be disappointed, at least in the short-term.