I know it is too much to ask, but I do find it a bit exasperating reading blog after blog by people who a couple of days ago were trashing YouGov, now claiming that today’s poll of supporters (i.e. NOT members) proves, without shadow of a doubt, that Simon Hughes is the front runner. Or, if you want to stretch it even further, that Ming Campbell is now the front runner.

I’ve never put too much credence into that YouGov poll – at the time I acknowledged that if you read between the lines it still looks very much like Ming Campbell is in front. But at least it was of members and was conducted at around the time that large numbers of people were filling in their ballot papers.

A poll of supporters doesn’t tell you anything at all at this stage, except of course which candidate is the best known. What’s worse, these aren’t the people we need to worry about particularly: a good leader needs to be finding us new support if we are to move forward.

As David Howarth writes:

This poll published in the Sunday Times is like asking people in Chippenham to predict the outcome of the election in Dumfermline.

I know, I know, it sounds like sour grapes. It’s just the posts today have been so overblown, so seemingly incapable of mentioning that one little uncomfortable fact that this isn’t a members’ poll, it just irks me a little bit.