Labour’s lead up to 11 with Populus (the polls are still all over the place)

Today’s Populus poll has Labour’s lead over the Tories at 11 points (up 6) – Lab 40, Con 29, UKIP 12, Lib Dem 11. That’s a huge leap in lead for Labour – and a positive note on which to end what has been a fairly unpleasant week for Labour and Ed Miliband – but as I noted a couple of weeks ago, the polls are all over the place. YouGov, which has often given double digit poll leads for Labour this parliament, currently has Labour’s lead hovering around the 6 point mark. ComRes had a Labour lead of just 3 points only a few days ago.

What’s most likely is that both the low and high poll leads are outliers, and that the Labour lead is around six points. Whilst it certainly seems that the trend is towards lower Labour leads, sporadic double digit leads like this poll and a recent one from Ipsos-Mori will give Miliband and his team hope that the polling isn’t all going one way.

The good news for Miliband though is that there doesn’t seem to be any direct correlation between the positive/negative press coverage he receives and positive/negative polling for Labour. With less than two years to go until the next election, it appears that many voters are still not tuned into the political conversation (this will be no surprise to anyone who has been canvassing lately).

Miliband’s challenge then is to grab the attention of the British public – at conference or sooner – which is not something he has been able to do with much regularity so far.