Trend shows support for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has grown significantly since general election

Good morning. A good rule of thumb in political reporting is that any news story about voter intention polling is wrong. That is because news stories, by definition, are what’s what new and what’s different, and polls that show anything unusual (or at least anything significantly unusual) are probably outliers. In polling, what matters is the trend (because polls are a reliable guide to voting trends) but not so much the actual numbers (where polling is much more hit and miss).

So it it is with some reservation that we start with YouGov polling, for the Times and Sky News, showing Reform UK in first place, and ahead of Labour for the first time in a national opinion poll. It has Reform UK on 25%, Labour on 24% and the Conservatives on 21%.