The puzzling polls

The opinion polls have been fixed on a tie for both main parties for a few months now. Both Labour and the Tories are stuck on a range of 31 to 35%. It's quite puzzling that nothing is moving the polls. Debates, manifestos, policies. Nothing has changed a thing.

As someone of the right, I also find it disturbing that anyone can think of voting for Ed Miliband and his naive policies which would wreck the economy in slow chunks.

But there have been a few chinks of light in the polls to give us some direction. The polling outliers, which we nearly always discount, show that when UKIP goes down, the Tories go up, and vice versa. I believe this is what the Tory election machine sees too. They are throwing everything at the Labour/SNP possible government in the hope that it will influence the UKIP waverers into going back to the Tories.

There's anecdotal evidence that this is beginning to cut through. No matter what Labour say, the SNP is their only way of getting back into Government and electorate knows it.

All the campaigns have been a bit weak so far, and I don't believe the electorate believes much of what they are told. They also know that the manifestos are only wish lists now, and not a promise. The surprise though is just how weak UKIP are performing. We expected Nigel Farage to steal the thunder of this election, but it's actually Nicola Sturgeon who is performing this role.


The questions I want answering now are:

- Are the Tories promising to build one house for every one they sell in rent-to-buy, or is it just a hope? What happened to the garden cities?

- What will be the level of Labour deficit at the end of 5 years?

- How does Labour know exactly how much the mansion tax will raise, but not what level they will set the tax at or any details?

- Which programmes are Labour going to ditch following their zero-based review?

- Do the Tories have any plans for Education at all?

- Where is Boris?

- If UKIP has the EU referendum and the electorate chooses to stay in, what happens to the rest of their manifesto? Is it just trash?

- What planet are the Greens on?

- When Labour says that they will do cuts, is there anything above piddling millions to contribute to the deficit reduction? And they say growth will help, do they expect higher or lower growth than current plans given their increased tax programme?

- Will the Tories make English Votes for English Laws a red line?


I know, just like Andrew Neil, that I wouldn't get any answers to these questions - but you can always hope for clarity!


Anyway, we are going to have another 2 weeks of this....

Squiffy.