Who would win a general election?

Jeremy Corbyn says that he wants a public vote but, Sean O'Grady writes, whether he should want one is another question entirely

The Labour leader speaks during PMQs on Wednesday (EPA)

Anyone wondering why the Labour Party, consistently trailing about 10 points behind the Conservatives, sometimes seems so eager to have a general election need only be referred to the remark by Richard Burgon, the shadow justice secretary, during a routine knockabout on Sky’s Kay Burley breakfast. Reminded that his party was behind in the polls, Mr Burgon declared: “The polls said we wouldn’t win last time,” only to be sharply corrected by Ms Burley – “you didn’t”.

Indeed, speaking to Labour activists it seems that most of the wrong political lessons have been learnt from the admittedly impressive 2017 election performance, and that the lower Labour is polling, the higher the chance it will win a majority in the Commons. Some almost seem to believe that if Jeremy Corbyn managed to get his party down from its current dismal 25 per cent or so in the polls to what the pollsters call an asterisk rating (because an undetectably small level of support is represented by a * in their tables), then Labour would be set for a 1945-style landslide. It would certainly be a novelty.

As the master psephologist Professor Sir John Curtice dryly observes, then, “it’s not obvious that it should be wanting an election”.