Labour's opinion poll blues

Labour's opinion poll blues

The Labour Party in the UK  has had a bad election campaign.  Never in front in the opinion polls, now trailing in third place. 

Gordon Brown has failed to excite the electorate - and the unfortunately named 'bigotgate' scandal where he insulted one of the party's core supporters has undoubtedly had an impact. 

Labour is hoping that it's support stands up in traditional areas, the inner cities of England, large parts of Scotland and the urban areas of Wales. 

There is a chance that even trailing in behind the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats in the share of the vote, the party could still win the largest number of seats. 

Yet, if they're basing the final result on the opinion polls, Labour supporters and politicians could be in for a very big shock.

A quick analysis of the polls and the reality of the last four elections will make deeply uncomfortable reading.  In the elections in 1992, 1997, 2001 and 2005, Labour have polled better than they've performed. 

Labour lost the 1992 election, even though many predicted a win for Neil Kinnock. 

He was facing an unpopular Conservative Prime Minister who had taken over from an adored long serving icon in Margaret Thatcher. 

The country was facing a financial crisis, had just emerged from a war in the Middle East and the ruling party was riven by divisions. 

The pre-vote polls put Labour within two points of the Conservatives.  When the ballots were counted, they ended up eight points behind.  John Major won an unlikely majority.

Labour took revenge by routing the Tories in 1997, unseating a number of prominent figures, winning a massive majority. 

But if voting had followed the polls, the Labour victory would have been much bigger. 

They suggested Labour would pick up 54 per cent of the vote.  The final figure was 43 per cent with the Conservatives doing much better than expected.

In 2001, Tony Blair became one of the few Labour leaders to win relection. 

He did it  41 per cent of the vote, even though the opinion polls suggested he's be ten points better off.  Again the Conservatives did better than predicted.

And then there is the historic win for Blair just five years ago.  He'd gone to war in Iraq - which was deeply unpopular, had indicated he might not serve a full year term, standing down for Gordon Brown, and was tied up in huge rows over civil liberties.  Yet he won. And he did it by taking a smaller percentage of the vote than the Conservatives.

The pattern over the last four elections has been quite clear.  The Labour vote is over-estimated, the Conservatives do much better than expected. 

And as for the Liberal Democrats, regarded by many as an irrelevance until this election?  Well, they always win more votes than the opinion polls suggest.

If the pattern is repeated - what was already shaping up to be a bad night for Labour is going to be a whole lot worse than they feared.