Update: 6/2
Ipsos Mori is out with a new poll: Conservative 45, Labour 40.
5 weeks ago if you told someone that Labour would get to 40 they would have told you that you were crazy.
Five weeks ago it appeared:
*The Conservatives may actually get more than 50%, and may have a majority of 200 seats or more.
*Labour had no realistic prospect not only for this election, but for the foreseeable future in taking power
*Labour’s leader, Jeffrey Corbyn was the personification of the failure of the left that started with Sanders and included Melenchon’s failure to get to the runoff in France. Corbyn’s numbers were as bad as I have ever seen in a Party Leader.
And now. Wow. As of this moment the Conservatives are flirting with the 326 seats required to form a majority government. Their fall, and the respective Labour recovery, is remarkable. The last similar shift in fortunes in the US would maybe be 1976 or 1968 (In ’68 Humphrey closed an 18 point gap in a month).
It is now widely accepted May has run a terrible campaign. She made an enormous blunder in the Conservative Manifesto’s provision for pensioners needed public support. But there is another story here: the populism that was at the heart of the Sanders’ campaign has absolutely played a role in Labour’s recovery. While Corbyn’s connections to the IRA are problematic in light of the Manchester Bombing, his personal numbers have recovered in a way I think no one could have expected.
The spread in the polls at this point is large – larger than in the US before the election in 2016. Some have noted that Labour’s strength is among the young (they win those under 25 3 to 1) and they may not turnout.
The pound has tanked in response, as it did before Brexit. The UK economy has weakened over the last few months, and there are signs that another housing bubble may be near colllapse.
This was supposed to be a boring election.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10p3RttDKmNOSJBWMCx5wGA7Xnr6zWwKveY_kqI7YJow/edit#gid=2116997
899
