they would probably read like this. Generally, of course, the Beeb’s fairly dismissive of polls, and won’t lead news items on them, so when the Conservatives passed 50 per cent for their biggest poll lead since Thatcher, it was pretty roundly ignored – mentioned only at the bottom of this article. When Labour surge by seven per cent, mostly at the expense of the Lib Dems, though, it’s crowbarred into the leading paragaphs of a story about Brown’s trip to the US. It’s a funny old world isn’t it?
UPDATE: Meanwhile, at the BBC, mention of the poll has moved a couple of paragraphs down in the story of the US trip since I wrote, but they’ve now also shoehorned it into the leading paragraphs of this piece about Ruth Kelly’s resignation as well. Do you think they’re going to try and mention it every time they write about Labour or Gordon today?