Under Ed Miliband, the Labour Party’s private polling – particularly surveys that reflected poorly on the leader – was restricted to a small circle of intimates who worried about it intensely in private and dismissed it in public.
Under Jeremy Corbyn, the distrust of polling is sincere. The Labour leader has never liked market research or focus groups, and his aversion to both was only bolstered by the general election campaign in 2017, not least because the party’s own pollster, BMG Research, called the result wrong.
As a consequence, several recent opinion polls that put the Tories ahead of Labour don’t particularly worry Corbyn or his inner circle, though there are jitters in the shadow cabinet and wider movement.
Labour’s better-than-expected election result last June has ensured that any discussions about whether the leader could and should be doing better are conducted in hushed voices among friends.
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