Labour's False Dawn in Oldham - Independent (blog)

Two polls carried out in Oldham East and Saddleworth were published today, too late for me fully to update my article for The Independent on Sunday, in which I predict a Labour win.

That looks pretty likely if not, perhaps, "nailed on", as I described it, although it looks unlikely that the Liberal Democrats will come third, which I suggested was a possibility. The Lib Dems are obviously more dug-in locally than I thought, and the tactical factor, by which local Conservatives are more willing to vote Lib Dem than the reciprocal, is strong.

On the average of the two polls (ignoring the Survation poll, which, as Anthony Wells reports, is not up to scratch), Debbie Abrahams for Labour (above with Ed Miliband) is 17 points ahead of Elwyn Watkins, the Lib Dem who won the court action to render void Phil Woolas's election eight months ago.

This is likely to be reported on Thursday as a great popular endorsement of Ed Miliband's leadership. It may not surprise anyone that I will not see it in that light. My view is that the Labour leader will lack credibility as a manager of the nation's finances as long as he pretends that Gordon Brown's overspending was prudent and necessary.

The data from YouGov's national poll today supports this view. Ed Miliband has a negative rating ("doing badly" minus "doing well") of 21, which has increased since mid-December by seven points. David Cameron has a positive rating of two points, which has worsened by three points. (And it won't help Miliband at the next election that Nick Clegg has a worse rating than him, minus 30, unchanged since last month.)

Photograph: Martin Rickett/PA

Tagged in: by-elections, opinion polls