A poll with holes?

There has been predictable crowing from the Tories this morning over a poll that puts Boris Johnson 8 points ahead of Ken Livingstone with just a week to go in the race. That’s not a completely crazy result on its own – as I said when YouGov reported just a 2 point lead on Monday “I fully expected the polls to have worsened for Livingstone” – and that’s what ComRes is reporting.

However, when you look at the breakdown by borough you get some unusual results that require a few leaps of the imagination.

According to the ComRes numbers:

Boris leads in Hackney and Tower Hamlets

and

Ken leads in Wandsworth and Kensington and Chelsea (where ComRes reports he has 100% of the vote!)

I’m not saying that these numbers are definitely wrong – but London is a huge and complex electorate, and each borough has its own particular political micro-climate.

I’m not convinced the polling is necessarily picking up what is happening on the ground.