Poll Watch: Three New Polls Indicate Conservative Lead Growing After Labour's Budget

There are three new polls available tonight which will be published in tomorrow's papers; they all show a post-budget swing towards the Conservatives.

For The Sun YouGov has Conservatives 39% (up 2%) | Labour 32% (no change) | Liberal Democrats 18%(down 1%).

Meanwhile in The Independent, ComRes has Conservatives 37% (no change) | Labour 30% (down 2%) | Liberal Democrats 20% (up 1%).

Finally in The Daily Express, newcomer Opinium has Conservatives 38% (up 1%) | Labour 28% (down 2%) | Liberal Democrats 16% (up 1%).

YouGov’s daily poll for The Sun gives a seven point lead, up from five in YouGov's Sunday Times poll and equalling the highest they have given the Conservatives this month. ComRes show the Conservatives unchanged, but Labour dropping two since the end of last month. Opinium have a ten point Conservative lead.

The changes themself are not big, but every poll since the budget has shown a trend back towards the Conservatives. There seems little doubt that the budget has shifted things back towards the Conservatives, at least a little. The question now is whether it a lasting shift in public opinion, or whether it is just a brief downwards blip for Labour that will pass as new events take over the political news agenda.

Poll Watch: Conservatives Regain Lead Over Labour As Lib Dems Get Post Conference Bounce

Three polls are out today. An ICM survey for The Guardian has Conservatives on 40% (up 2%), Labour on 31% (n/c) and the Liberal Democrats on 20% (down 1%) based on changes from the ICM survey in the Sunday Telegraph at the weekend. This gives the Conservatives a nine point lead and will settle party nerves and would potentially give a small majority to Mr. Cameron, if a non-uniform swing occurs, with marginal seats swinging more greatly to the Conservatives. The forty percent mark is seen as a crucial benchmark for the party being successful in a General Election.

ICM Research interviewed a random sample of 1,002 adults by telephone on 12-14 March 2010. Interviews were conducted across the country and the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults.

New pollsters Opinium have a poll in The Express which gives the Conservatives an even greater lead of eleven points. And gives figures, with changes based on their previous poll from last week, of: Conservatives on 39% (up 2%), Labour on 28% (down 2%) and the Liberal Democrats on 16% (n/c)

Opinium surveyed 1,951 adults in England, Wales and Scotland for the voter intention survey Friday, 12th through Monday, 15th March 2010.

Finally the YouGov daily tracker, published in The Sun, has a more modest conservative lead of 5%, but once again shows a widening gap between Labour and Conservatives. The poll has Conservatives on 37% (n/c), Labour on 32% (down 1%) and the Liberal Democrats on 21% (up 4%), with changes based on the previous day's poll. The Liberal Democrats seem to be enjoying something of a post conference boost.

Poll Watch: Populus Poll of Marginals Shows Tory Ten Point Lead Nationally

There is a Populus poll of marginal seats in The Times today, Mr. Peter Riddell’s commentary is here.

The headline figures in the poll is Conservatives 38%, Labour 38% and the blogosphere has naturally become very excited, but what it means however, depends upon which seats were polled.


The Populus poll sampled Labour held Conservative targets from which rank between fifty and one hundred and forty-nine on the Conservative's target list, so excluding the fifty Labour-v-Conservative seats with the smallest majorities.

Mr. Riddell’s calculates these seats had shares of the vote of Conservative 31.4%, Labour 45.3% in the 2005 General Election. On that basis this poll represents a swing of approximately 6.7%, just short of the sort of swing the Conservatives will need for an overall majority to form the next government.

There has not been a national Populus poll for a month, so it is too early to tell if this poll suggests a larger lead in the marginals than at a national level, a hypothosis being spun by most attendees at the Conservatives' Spring Forum in Brighton two weekends ago.

However, the swing this poll suggests that the swing in the marginals would be equivalent of a ten point lead in the polls nationally, a larger lead than most polls from other companies have been showing in recent weeks.

Acknowledgement: UKPollingReport | Anthony Wells | 08/03/2010

Poll Watch: A Tale of Two Polls

Two new opinion polls suggest the general election will conclude with a hung parliament, although the polls are interpreted as conflicting stories.

A YouGov tracker for The Sun shows the Coservative lead boosted back to seven points, wit changes from the YouGov poll in The Sunday Times.

Conservatives 39% (+2) | Labour 32% (-3) | Liberal Democrats 17% (n/c)

Meanwhile a ComRes for The Independent, with changes from their last poll in mid February, give the Conservative lead at five points.

Conservatives 37% (-1) Labour 32% (+2) Liberal Democrats 19% (-1)

This suggests that Labour would remain the largest party.

This weekend, I was in Brighton, for the Conservative spring conference, at the Hilton Brigton Metropole. I had a really good time - and the general mood seemed to be much better than at Manchester, where a gloom reigned, as we recognised the scale of the task ahead, last autumn - but doubtlessly not because of the front page of The Sunday Times, which was outside my bedroom door as I emerged for breakfast; it read: "Gordon Brown on course to win election".


The Sunday Times had a poll which narrowed the Conservative lead to just two percentage points, with changes from the previous weeks poll.

Conservatives on 37% (-2) | Labour on 35% (+2) | Liberal Democrats 17% (n/c).
Because of the way our electoral system works and the way constituency boundaries have been drawn this would bizzarly give labour the largest number of seats if repeated at a General Election - ado those who say that changing the voting system is the answer to making it fairer, under the proposed Alternative Vote method Labour wound notfind themselves as a minority administration, they would likely as not have a majority.

In the end Anthony Wells at UK Polling Report concludes:

"It appears from this that the weekend poll was most likely an outlier, and that the Conservatives had a lead of about 6 points or so all along. Polls on the fringes of the margin of error are unavoidable, the benefit of daily polling is at least that we only have to wait 24 hours to identify them.

"Of course, in theory it is possible that Labour did narrow the gap before the weekend, but that David Cameron pulled it back over the weekend (or perhaps more likely, that it was a mixture of the two with a genuine narrowing of the lead, exaggerated by random sample error) – the reality is that we’ll never know."

He is probably right, together with the fact that Politics Home's Eletoral Index suggests that the swing at the next General Election is not going to be uniform. Time will reveal all.

GE2010: General Election Summary Day #8

A good day for the Liberal Democrats. The Liberal Democrat's Leader, Nick Clegg announced his decision to retract some of his party's favourite policies given the changed economic circumstances; this will have struck most voters as reasonable. Rather than specific policies, sounding sensible is the Liberal Democrats' biggest advantage. Clegg will have reinforced that idea today.

Frank Field MP, who was the first MP to support Hoon & Hewitt's plot last week, offered some support for the Conservatives today. He turned up to David Cameron's speech at the thinktank Demos, at the Conservatives' invitation. ConservativeHome's report on speech here. Mr. Field is too much of a Labour man to ever defect to the Conservatives, maybe he will be invited to play a role in any future Conservative government? He could take a job on welfare, the teaching of British history, democratic reform or even immigration.

David Cameron gave an excellent performance on Five Live this afternoon. Cross-examined by Richard Bacon and callers for an hour he came across as measured, warm and consistent. We should not underestimate the vote winner that Cameron is going to be for the Conservatives once the election campaign is up and running properly and voters are focused on a choice between him becoming PM and Brown staying at Number Ten.

CCHQ needs to reassure grassroots Conservatives on the shortlisting process for John Maples and other 2010 retirees. Conservative Grassroots reacted furiously in the blogosphere to John Maples' decision to stand down now and thus disenfranchise his local party members in their selection of his successor. Mr. Maples position at CCHQ as Head of Candidates means he should not have any role in drawing up the shortlists of three for his seat. CCHQ will want to avoid a row with local parties so close to an election.

And Finally, Conservatives take 16% and 13% leads in two new polls out tonight.

• Angus Reid Public Opinion have figures showing no change on their previous poll on a sample of 2,000.  Conservative 40%, Labour 24%, Liberal Democrats 20%. Read more about the Angus Reid survey at PoliticalBetting.com.
• Meanwhile, on a sample of 1,509, Populus for The Times (here) has Conservative 41% (Up 3% points), Labour 28% (Down 2% points), Liberal Democrats 19% (Down 1% point).

Acknowledgement: ConservativeHome | ToryDiary| 11/01/10

Poll Watch: 23% Lead for Conservatives in Mori Poll

Conservatives have been put at one of their highest ratings in recent times thanks to a special Endland Only poll for PoliticalBetting.com conducted by Mori which gives David Cameron's party a twenty-three point lead.

Con 47% | Lab 24% | LibDem 21%

UKPolling Report Projected Majority: 240.

Poll Watch: Conservative Continue Post Conference Surge

The Conservative Party have continued their post conference surge in the polls with a Ipsos Mori has published their monthly tracker showing a 17% Conservative lead:

Con 43% | Lab 26% | LibDem 19%

Whilst ICM’s monthly Guardian poll also has a 17% lead for the Conservatives

Con 44% | LAB 27% | LibDem 18%

The 17 point lead in both shows virtually no change since before the conference season.

Poll Watch: Continued Conservative Surge in ICM Poll

The Conservative Party have continued their post conference improvement in the polls with a News of the World/ICM poll giving a 19 point lead above Labour Which if translated to a uniform swing in a general election could see a Conservative majority in the House of Commons of around 170.

Con 45% | Lab 26% | LibDem 17%

Conservatives Surge to 17 point lead in YouGov Poll

The Conservative Party have recieved a significant bounce in YouGov's daily tracking poll, commmissioned by Sky News, following a daring strategy of telling party members and the public that hard choices needed to be taken.

Con 44% | Lab 27% | LibDem 17% | Others 12%

Full Tracker here.

Poll Watch: ComRes (Independent on Sunday)

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/openhouse/2008/07/watch-this-spac.html

The latest opinion poll in The Independent on Sunday tomorrow records the lowest Labour share of the vote, 24 per cent, in a ComRes poll. The Conservative lead, 21 percentage points, is also equal to the biggest lead recorded by ComRes, for The Independent three weeks ago. The figures, with the change since the last poll for the Independent on Sunday in mid-June:

Conservative 45%(+1)
Labour 24%(-2)
LibDem 16%(-1)
Green 5%(+3)
Other 9% -2)

They also asked if people agreed or disagreed with the statement, "The Labour Party will lose the next election regardless of who leads it": 68 per cent agreed, including 38 per cent of Labour voters, and 22 per cent disagreed.