Polls give a glimmer in the gloom for bottomed-out English

By COLIN JAMES

It's hard to tell, but the polls might just be turning for Bill English - though from an ebb so low as to beggar the imagination.

The chart (left) is a rolling average of the past three nationally published opinion polls. The last point is an average of the latest Colmar Brunton poll published in mid-May, the UMR-Insight poll published on Friday and the Herald-DigiPoll published today.

The top line is the total support for Labour and the two supporting parties that have a genuine show of winning seats in the coming election: the Greens and Jim Anderton's Progressive Coalition. The bottom line is the total support for National, Act and United.

New Zealand First, averaging about 3 per cent, is excluded on the ground that it can go either way. Laila Harre's Alliance is highly unlikely to be in Parliament.

The left leads the right by 23 per cent. Taking out the Greens, who after the election will not automatically support Labour, the gap is 16 per cent. Labour's lead over National is 21 per cent.

Every now and then a "rogue" poll will show such a lead. But not in 33 years of national polling has a party or grouping had a consistent lead anywhere near Helen Clark's showing all this year.

Moreover, as the chart shows, the left grouping is about 7 per cent above its 1999 election score. Only briefly, after Tariana Turia's "holocaust" speech late in the 2000 winter of discontent, has the left dropped below the 1999 score.

Only four times in the past 100 years has a Government lifted its vote in the election at the end of its first term: Reform in 1914 (by 8.5 per cent), Labour in 1938 (9.8), National in a snap election in 1951 (2) and Labour in 1987 (5).

Can Mr English head off such a lift this time? In the dying months of Jenny Shipley's leadership the chart shows National appearing to climb out of a dip. Since Mr English took over it has dived to new lows - though that is probably more due to the economy working for Labour than him dragging National down.

Can he make up the difference? That is unlikely, though it does look as if he might now start to close the gap a bit.

Which is why Labour is so keen to have its election now.