ICM show Conservatives back at 40%
There is a new ICM poll in tomorrow’s News of the World. ICM’s previous poll was in mid February, just as the polls started to really narrow, and showed the Conservatives down to 37% and their lead down to 7 points, the lowest they had recorded since December 2008. Since then YouGov’s daily poll, ComRes and MORI have all shown the lead narrowing.
Tomorrow’s poll, however, has topline figures of CON 40%(+3), LAB 31%(+1), LDEM 18%(-2), putting the Conservative lead back up to 9 points and their share back to 40%. The changes themself are the margin of error and don’t necessarily mean anything, but I’m sure it will give some cheer to the Conservatives. As ever, it is worth being wary of any apparent change in the trend in the polls until we see it picked up in other polling (we did see an increase for the Conservatives in TNS BMRB’s poll yesterday too, but as new entrants we don’t really have the measure of them yet).
Note also the drop in Lib Dem support from the company that normally gives them their highest levels of support. It isn’t unusual for the Liberal Democrats to suffer in this “pre-campaign” period. The media tend to get caught up in the horse race between Labour and the Conservatives, pushing out the Lib Dems from media coverage. They will likely recover when we reach the campaign proper and are guaranteed an increased level of media coverage.
For methodology geeks, ICM’s topline adjustment for “the spiral of silence” – the re-allocation of don’t knows according to which party they voted for at the last election – increased the Conservative lead in this poll. Before the re-allocation the topline figures would have been CON 40%, LAB 32%, LDEM 18%. For many years now this adjustment has tended to help Labour, with “shy Tories” long since replaced by “Bashful Blairites”. I very much doubt this means anything – it’s probably just a freak occurance – so please don’t get all excited about the return of shy Tories (at least, not yet!) but nevertheless it’s interesting to see it again. Ironically, without the topline adjustment the Conservative lead in the previous ICM poll would have been 9 points, so would have fallen in this poll.
In other questions, 57% of people said they expected to watch at least one of the live televised debates – while it would be nice it there were that level of interest in the election, I’ll believe it when I see it. Asked who they expected to see win, we once again see the expectation problem that David Cameron is going to face – 48% of people expect him to do best in the debates, compared to 23% for Brown and 12% for Clegg.
Asked which party has the best policies on various issues things are once again looking competitive – at some points in the last few years the Conservatives led on nearly everything. Labour are very narrowly ahead on tax, and ahead on terrorism and Afghanistan. The Conservatives are narrowly ahead on handling the recession and the NHS, ahead on schools and crime and decisively ahead on immigration. We are in quite an unusual political position when we find the Conservatives ahead on the normally Labour issue of the NHS, but Labour ahead on the normally Conservative issue of taxation.
@ ROB SHEFFIELD
Thanks – & BTW I am impressed by how often you call it correctly when polls are moving around.
Agree with you re. the economy.
Most posters refrain from personal abuse, but some just can’t help it Amber. Anthony must be out.
@ ALJ
“According to the CH4 News Poll last week the cons would be 11 seats short of a majority”
But C4 got it wrong.
It was explained in this post on pb ( and similar ones here which I can’t find now) :-
“345.This poll is proving to be one of the most embarrassing cases of misreporting for a long time.
It shows the Tories winning 95 seats from Labour, compared to the 90 which they need for a majority.
Somehow, incredibly, it is being reported as evidence for a hung parliament.
You cannot conclude this, because the poll doesn’t have anything to say about LD/Con marginals. There’s a complete absence of information on that front.
Saying we’re heading for a hung parliament because the Tories are only winning 95 of the 117 seats they need is utter madness because the poll only deals with Lab/Con marginals. The correct figure is 95 Tory gains from Labour when only 90 are needed in that category.”
by Andy JS March 4th, 2010 at 7:39 pm
@ ROB SHEFFIELD
“Get the economy back front and centre and the Tory share wobbles as does the front bench. ”
Yes that certainly was the case when Cameron & Osborne tried to finesse the message too much.
But since the Mais lecture, the city knows precisely where Osborne is headed on Regulatory institutions and Fiscal Tightening timetable.
So far as the general public are concerned I think they may be moving to a realisation that there is no difference, since the imperatives will bear down on whichever government. ( a bit like the “they’re all the same” reaction to non doms etc )
I do agree though that Brown’s “Tory Cuts Unfair / Labour Cuts Fair” still has huge traction-via a climate of fear & uncertainty.
Colin
Having had a look at the details – you are assuming that 21 Lib/Dem seats will fall to the Tories. I don’t know where you get the evidence for that happening.
Love the Lab back slapping and spin, and once again ignoring the obvious – the tory lead increasing.
Does make me laugh. GB in Afganistan – simply incredible defies belief.
Peaking back up to 40% is still not enough for a Tory majority, especially when you take account of tonight’s BPIX poll showing a Tory lead of only 2%.
The trend is clear. A month ago 2% Tory lead was unthinkable -now it’s happened twice and the norm is about 6%. Not enough for a Tory government. the marginal seats cannot deliver because the trend there also has turned Labours way.
It’s too bad there is so rarely any real polling in Scotland. It would be interesting to know if the rather “fraught” situation in Glasgow will have any results at all.
ALJ
“Having had a look at the details – you are assuming that 21 Lib/Dem seats will fall to the Tories.”
No-I’m not.
Just bringing an opinion to your attention , which explains why the C4 headline ( which you quoted) -”cons would be 11 seats short of a majority”-cannot be implied from that Poll.