The financial crisis of the last week, and the pathetic budget that showed Labour’s lack of control over the UK’s fate, appear to have caused a shift similar to that the Tories suffered over withdrawal from the ERM.

Perhaps it is a bigger surprise that we have not had polls like this ever since Northern Rock, but the Tories’ own history perhaps helps explain.

As usual, the reports underplay Other repsonse. There appears to be a shift to “Others”.

It will be interesting to see the voting intentions analyses according to reported voting at previous elections. Mu suspicion is that Labour vters are desrting to both Lib Dems and Tories, but the voters the Lib dems are gaining are being offset by Lib Dem voters switching to the Tories. This is bad news for the Lib Dems, because they would lose the many Southern seats they hold from the Tories by a narrow margin, whilst picking up votes in Northern Lib Dem/Labour marginals, of which there are fewer.