ComRes show 13 point Tory lead
ComRes have their first poll of 2010 in the Indy on Sunday tomorrow. The topline figures, with changes from ComRes’s previous poll just before Christmas, are CON 42%(+4), LAB 29%(nc), LDEM 19%(nc). Others are down to 10%, from 14%.
This represents yet another post Hoon-Hewitt poll showing an increased Conservative lead, but the fact that Labour have not fallen doesn’t really tally with Labour having suffered permanent damage from the fuss. Instead this poll suggests the Conservatives benefitting from the minor parties being squeezed. It is ComRes’s highest figure for the Conservatives since July, but it also equals their highest Labour figure since March – unlike most of the other pollsters ComRes never showed Labour getting back up to thirty at the end of last year.
On other questions, ComRes asked if people agreed with the statement “The Labour party has the right ideas about how to get Britain out of recession”. 33% agreed, pretty much identical to the proportion who agreed with the same statement about the Conservatives last month (34%) – however, 59% disagreed, compared to only 46% who disagreed when asked about the Tories in December.
Asked if they agreed or disagreed that “The Iraq inquiry is a waste of time”, people were evenly divided – 46% agreed, 46% disagreed.
It’s not confirmed if we have any more polls to come tonight or not – I’ll update when we know.
UPDATE: @vincentmoss twitters that there is indeed a YouGov/Sunday Times poll tonight and it’s going to show a 9 point lead.
Shall comment more later, but it seems we are getting another poll:
YouGov/S.Times showing a Tory 9-point lead.
While this looks an odd poll with both the big two on their highest scores for a while, but the ComRes pre Christmas poll showed the Tories on what was a low score relative to other polls at that time, so the +4 increase could be partly a correction of MOE differences. If there was a coup effect intuitively I would have thought we would have seen Labour fall.
It does look like there has been a small but distinct firming of Tory support and they have reversed the small fall that saw them into the high 30 in many polls before Christmas. They will be relieved I’m sure.
Best news for ages
I have just posted a comment on the YouGov poll that also refers to this ComRes one.
We are now half way through January with just over three months to the REAL poll and the three main Parties seem to have a reasonably settled core vote of 40 – 30 – 20 which if continued through to the big day probably on May 6th should give the Conservatives a small but clear working majority.
However anything could happen to move these figures around and I still believe the final tally on the day will be 42 – 28 – 19 which if you include the huge number of English marginals which seem to have even larger Conservative leads I fully expect the Conservatives to have a good working majority of between 40 – 60 seats.
Wales should also prove very interesting with the Cons looking like taking many more seats than they did in 2005.
Alec,
Agreed. I think the big story has not been disgust with Labour due to infighting, but a firming up of Tory support after a brief and small wobble, for reasons that are probably hard to determine.
Whatever happens, the next government are going to be exhausted after nearly 3 years of election-speculation. It almost feels like Brown has never been prime minister: just a long, long pre-election period (at the taxpayers’ expense) mirrored by long, long pre-campaigning by the Tories, who tease at outlining a long list of policies.
I’ll be glad when it’s all over and the nation returns to having a government looking to govern for a few years, rather than a government looking at whether the time is ripe to go to the country. This would be true regardless of who wins: I just long for some actual governing by a government that isn’t terrified of voters.