There is, they say, only one poll that matters. But which one is it? That’s the question.

Is it last fortnight’s Newspoll that showed enough of the whites in the government’s suddenly rolling eyes to inspire a murmur of revolt? Or today’s less extreme version that simply offers the spectre of a rather untidy annihilation?

It’s hard to recall a moment when the almost daily vagaries of opinion polling have been exposed to such avid, obsessive scrutiny. Enough already. It might well be high time for the Government to get stuck in to what sometimes seems a secondary order of business: running the country. They might even want to develop policy. Implement vision. That sort of thing. And they might find it’s not a bad way to influence the only poll that matters.