The Tories are not the only ones having poll nightmares

The Conservatives fear the opinion polls shaping the election campaign will encourage more of their many disenchanted supporters to switch to Nigel Farage's Reform UK on the grounds the Tories are certain to lose anyway. "This election is all about the polls, not the policies," groaned one senior Tory.

- ANDREW GRICE

However, Labour’s high command is privately worried about the polls, too. It is not losing sleep about ministers’ warnings about a Labour “supermajority”, but it is fretting that surveys predicting a massive majority might give progressive voters with doubts about Keir Starmer’s lurch to the centre an excuse to vote for the Green Party, pro-Palestinian independents or George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain. Others might not bother to vote. “People should remember that we haven’t won yet; we need every vote,” one Labour insider said.

Some Labour aides fear a record low turnout in modern times. They worry that MRP polls, which survey many more people than conventional polls and use socio-demographic data to predict the result in every constituency, might overstate how many 18-34-year-olds will turn out.

Some Labour insiders envisage a “disappointment factor”, even if it secures a 100-plus majority because that would fall a long way short of the pollsters’ most optimistic predictions for the party.

I’m told some of Starmer’s closest allies are genuinely concerned about the way the polls are dominating the campaign. At least one wants Labour to legislate to ban polls in the three weeks before an election once it is in government.