The ICM poll showing a 2% Tory lead is being discounted as a rogue, after all YouGov and others show a single digit lead for Ed Miliband. That may be true, but there is a consistent Tory lead when poll respondents are forced to choose between Cameron and Miliband. A cabinet minister told Guido that come election day the choice will boil down to Prime Minister Miliband or Prime Minister Cameron and that is no contest. Dave, like Blair before him, is lucky in his opponents.

Dave’s luck held last week, for on the day following George Osborne telling the nation that the Coalition would fail to in its primary mission of closing the deficit by the end of this parliament, a failure to achieve the goal which Osborne set himself, the news flow turned on the unions. Any attack by Ed Balls on Osborne was drowned out by the Labour Party’s paymasters striking against deficit reducing measures.

Dave’s third piece of luck was provided by his friend Jeremy Clarkson. Clarkson’s “shoot the strikers” row drowned out the union’s message. Most of the population will remember only Clarkson’s outburst about strikers rather than the exact reason they were striking. Instead of the front page story being about pensions it was about Clarkson, some might think the unions were protesting against Jeremy. Dave couldn’t have planned it better…