Labour’s leader could get into Downing Street with as few as 270 MPs. Though it will still be a steep and narrow path to get there
I have never trusted opinion polls less than I do now. Part of that is bitter experience, after polls proved their fallibility in 2015, 2016 and 2017. Part of it is a more specific lesson taught by the US presidential election three years ago, when Hillary Clinton learned to her cost that a hefty national poll lead means nothing in a contest that is settled one state at a time. This logic applies in spades to a UK election, which is not won nationally but seat by seat by seat.
The importance of that enduring truth was brought home afresh last weekend as I tramped the streets of Enfield Southgate, the marginal London suburb won from the Tories in 2017 by Labour’s Bambos Charalambous, best known for a rather wonderful meme in which John Bercow incants the MP’s name to the tune of Queen’s Under Pressure. I followed him for an afternoon’s canvassing, a session that would prove to be a masterclass in the inherent unpredictability of politics.
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