Below is a footnote that E P Thompson made to his A Psessay in Ephology about the 1959 General Election. It appeared in the last issue of the New Reasoner, No.9, Autumn 1959. It merged with Universities and Left Review to become the New Left Review in 1960.
The footnote, though over 60 years old, does seem to capture quite well the relation between the media, leaders debate and opinion polls currently:
A psephologist is a man employed by the mass media to research into what people think the mass media has told them to think. An ephologist is a man employed by the ‘Observer’ or BBC to interpret the results of psephology and who makes an ephing good thing out of it
IPSOS has published an MRP poll which shows the current break down of support in each Constituency (except the 6 Counties of the North of Ireland). For those like myself who want the Tories out its good news. There is a Labour landslide coming with even people like Braverman and Truss not safe.
The map closely mirrors one that might have been found 60 years ago. Whatever Starmer’s changed Labour is the strongly working class areas of London, South Wales, the North-West and Tyneside are a sea of red just as they were in 1964.
It is though a one-dimensional politics. Turn-out is not likely to be high and the total share of the poll taken by Labour and the Tories is likely to be the lowest of recent times.There are many independent candidates standing some on socialist and Palestinian platforms. In the interests of wider democracy I hope there are some decent votes. A landslide however does tend to sweep aside all
The ISOS MRP map and analysis
https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/uk-opinion-polls/ipsos-election-mrp
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