Premature celebration

Notts MP Gloria De Piero was celebrating on Twitter this morning after the most recent YouGov poll showed Labour on level pegging with the Tories on 39%.



But as academic Philip Cowley from the University of Nottingham points out: “Not really whoo hoo”.

In 1979 the Labour opposition also pulled ahead in the polls a month after a May election, reminds Cowley, but were then out of power for 18 years.

The polls in the 2010 election, with their surprising fluctuations, caused more of an obsession with the figures than usual.

But Labour would do well to get over it. Polls only matter when there is an election in sight.