Daily catch-up: the endless and beginningless election campaign goes up and down

A round-up of the latest on the opinion polls: back at step one

1. Escher polling: as Mark Pack says, “Labour four points ahead of Tories, who in turn are four points ahead of Labour”.

I am a bit late with the catch-up service today because someone at BBC London had the bright idea of broadcasting Vanessa Feltz’s programme from a boat on the Thames (floating voter? Never mind), and I was on it talking about the state of the election as Parliament is dissolved.

I still think that we are heading for a repeat of the Conservative and Lib Dem coalition. I think Labour support will falter at the last moment, but the evidence so far points the other way, as I wrote in The Independent on Sunday yesterday.

2. As for the opinion polls, I am often wrong, but on this I was right. I said that some people were getting too excited about a 4-point Labour lead in the YouGov poll in The Sunday Times taken after the Paxman-Burley show, ignoring the 1-point Tory lead in Opinium taken before.

Last night ComRes reported a 4-point Tory lead for the Daily Mail and ITV News. No, this does not mean the polls are all over the place, as I tried to explain here. The May2015.com rolling average, as featured on the Independent website, is a tie, with Labour and the Tories both on 33.8 per cent.

3. This is very good, by Charlie Brooker and Sarah Surname via Ian Leslie: Every TV News Report on the Economy Ever.

4. Headline of the Weekend, looking forward to the seven-way debate on ITV chaired by Julie Etchingham: “Etch, a Sketch. ”

5. The Top 10 in the New Review, the Independent on Sunday magazine, was Street Names. Many more fine entries still pouring in, including this, from Truro, via Mike Rigby:

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6. And finally, thanks to Moose Allain for this:

My book, How To Say No Emphatically In German, now available – only £9.99!