But YouGov show lead rising to 7
Sky News have also got the figures for tonight’s YouGov poll. After a slow decline in the Conservative lead over the last few weeks tonight’s has it bouncing back up. The topline figures with changes from their Thursday poll are CON 38%(+2), LAB 31%(-1), LDEM 19%(-1) – meaning that YouGov and ICM’s figures are now very close to indentical.
The changes themself are within the margin of error, but it is the largest lead that YouGov have recorded since the beginning of the month, and perhaps a sign that the focus on Unite is moving the tide back in the Conservatives’ favour. I will add my normal caveat that one should always be cautious of sudden changes in polls: until we see YouGov’s figures on Monday we can’t tell whether the gap is widening again, or whether it is just sample error.
More to come later when the Sunday Times story goes up and the other questions in the poll are published. I’ve still no confirmation on whether there is a ComRes tonight or not.
Newbie Nick,
Book makers don’t issue odds to be an accurate prediction of the election result, they issue them to even up the spread of bets on their books. Their aim is to make the payout, which ever way the election turns out, to be less than their total income. This is how they make profits. If they have a lot of Labour win payouts, they’ll make the conservative win odds look good to attract punters, so evening their odds.
Newbie – if you are a gambler therefore, go and put money on Labour on a betting exchange, wait for the odds to narrow, then close out and rake in the money. In other words, follow Mike Smithson on PoliticalBetting, which is entirely predicated on the fact that the market lags the news by days or weeks.
Bookies carry out polls too – the fact that the books are not closed should tell you there is a degree of uncertainty out there.