YouGov have released two sub-national polls today – one of London, one of young people. The London poll for the Evening Standard has topline figures of CON 32%, LAB 44%, LDEM 7%, UKIP 10%, GRN 5% (tabs. This is a twelve point Labour lead in the capital, rather than the eight point lead in the YouGov/London poll a week ago. When the previous poll came out I speculated on whether the three point swing from Con-to-Lab suggested a smaller swing to Labour in London than elsewhere in Britain, this poll with its five point swing from Con to Lab is bigger than that implied by national polls, cancelling the other one out. We probably need more London polls to have any confidence on whether the swing there is bigger, smaller, or just the same.

Secondly there is a YouGov poll of young people for the British Youth Council. Amongst under 25s it shows voting intentions of CON 22%, LAB 36%, LDEM 5%, UKIP 12%, GRN 19% (tabs). Note that Green score, in third place on 19% but close behind the Tories in second. Earlier on this week I saw some people getting overexcited about an under 25s crossbreak in a YouGov poll showing the Conservatives ahead – such things are really worth ignoring. The crossbreaks for young people in GB polls are normally around 150 at best, and once you take out don’t knows and won’t votes that often shrinks to 100 or so. That gives you a margin of error of at at least plus or minus 10%, so it is inevitable that given time you are going to get weird and wacky crossbreaks that look interesting and amazing, but are just normal sample variation. If you want to know how young people are voting ideally wait for bespoke poll of young people, properly weighted to their demographics. At the very least, aggregate up figures over a long period to get beyond the daily noise.

Finally, today we’ve had another step in the ongoing debates debate, with David Cameron saying he will only take part in one, seven-way debate, in March. Naturally it’s provoked lots of comment about how the public will react. I wrote about polling on debates and what difference it makes back in January, and my opinion is pretty much unchanged from then. It’s not a wholly Westminster bubble story – the polls back in January showed that people were noticing it to some degree, and even asked in a neutral way there was a clear perception that Cameron was trying to avoid them more than other leaders, so it was being picked up. Whether that changes anything is a completely different matter – ignore the forced “does this make Cameron look like a wimp?” sort of questions we’ll inevitably get. The things to judge it by are whether it makes a difference to voting intention, or to David Cameron’s own approval ratings, best PM ratings, ratings on being out of touch and so on. Personally I doubt it will (to answer my own question, I expect the public will react with mild indifference, as they do to most political stories. The overwhelming majority of things make no difference!) but the evidence at the weekend and in weeks to come will tell.

Over the last couple of days the Evening Standard have been reporting the contents of a new YouGov London poll – yesterday here and today here.

YouGov found London voting intentions of CON 35%(nc), LAB 45%(+3), LDEM 8%(nc), UKIP 8%(-2), GRN 4%(nc). Labour are up three since June, but this poll would still suggest Labour doing slightly worse in London than elsewhere (a ten point lead for Labour in London is a 4 point swing since the general election, whereas GB polls are currently showing a 5 1/2 point swing to Labour.)

YouGov also repeated a batch of questions about Boris Johnson returning to Parliament. 37% of Londonders now think it is reasonable for him to seek to return to Parliament in 2015, but 43% think he should not consider doing so until he has completed his term as mayor. If he were to be elected as an MP in 2015 50% think he should stand down as mayor immediately, 34% think it would be okay for him to do both for a year.

Finally today’s poll looked at the possible Labour candidates for London mayor. Tessa Jowell comes top… but only on 12%, narrowly ahead of Diane Abbott on 8%. Amongst London Labour voters Jowell also comes top, but still only on 16%. I think the reality is that questions like this are largely just a recognition contest… and none of the candidates are particularly well known (I haven’t seen anyone even bother asking who should succeed Boris as the Conservative candidate!)

Tonight we have the new monthly ICM poll for the Guardian. Topline figures are CON 32%(-3), LAB 37%(-1), LDEM 12%(nc), UKIP 11%(+2).

More intriguing are the European voting intentions in the same poll – other recent European polls have been showing Labour and UKIP in a battle for first place and the Conservatives off in third place. In contrast ICM are still showing UKIP third, and the Lib Dems now equal with the Greens on a measly 6 percent – CON 25%(nc), LAB 36%(+1), LDEM 6%(-3), UKIP 20%(nc), GREEN 6%(-1).

Why ICM are showing a lower level of European support for UKIP than other pollsters is unclear – there is no obvious methodological reason. ICM weight their European voting intention by likelihood to vote which tends to help UKIP and they include UKIP and the Greens in their European election prompt, so it shouldn’t be a question wording issue. I can only assume it is something to do with the ongoing contrast between the levels of UKIP support recorded in telephone and online polls.

As well as the monthly ICM poll, we also had a YouGov London poll in today’s Evening Standard – tabs here. London voting intentions at a general election stand at CON 34%, LAB 42%, LDEM 9%, UKIP 11%, a swing of three points from Con to Lab, so actually marginally better for the Tories than in GB polls. In European voting intentions the figures are CON 25%, LAB 33%, LDEM 11%, UKIP 24% – so UKIP and the Conservatives fighting for second place behind Labour, a good performance for UKIP in what tends to be a weaker area for them. Finally in Borough elections voting intentions are CON 34%, LAB 40%, LDEM 12%, UKIP 9% – this reflects a swing of 2.5% from Con to Lab since 2010, so would probably be seen as a fairly good performance for the Tories if it was repeated in May. Note the interesting patterns of split votes – there are a lot (18%) of current Conservative voters who would give UKIP their vote in the European elections, but there are also a chunk (12%) of current UKIP voters who would give the Conservatives their vote in the local elections.

Meanwhile the twice-weekly Populus poll had voting intentions of CON 33%, LAB 35%, LDEM 11%, UKIP 13%. Tabs here.

UPDATE: The monthly ComRes telephone poll for the Indy is also out tonight. Topline figures there are CON 30%(-1), LAB 36%(nc), LDEM 9%(nc), UKIP 12%(+1).