Tonight’s YouGov poll for the Sun has topline figures of CON 32%, LAB 34%, LDEM 6%, UKIP 15%, GRN 7%. All looks normal by YouGov’s recent standards (the two polls showing UKIP up at 17% and 18% that we saw immediately after the attacks in Paris seem to have gone away again – perhaps it was a Paris effect, perhaps it was just a random blip).

A word about the debates and polling on them. If the debates go ahead, they obviously have the potential to have a big impact upon public opinion and the election result – we saw that in 2010 and the boost they gave the Liberal Democrats. Think in particular of the potential impact for Nigel Farage or (if she ends up being included) Natalie Bennett – it’s the challenger candidates they are a real opportunity for. If the debates end up going ahead, but without David Cameron, that will probably have an impact too. It would really highlight his non-participation.

I’d be more wary of whether there will actually be much impact if they end up NOT going ahead, if it ends with them not happening. We’ve seen several polls on how people think it’s bad that David Cameron might not take part and so on… but regular readers will be very familiar with the flow of polls showing that people don’t like David Cameron doing this and don’t like Ed Miliband doing that which make not an iota of difference to voting intention or to people’s attitudes towards the leaders. Most Westminster stories make no appreciable difference to anything in terms of public opinion. A lot of the time, most people probably don’t even notice the story – they give an opinion because we pollsters have prodded them with a question, it doesn’t mean they care.

In this case, I think people are at least aware of what’s happening, it’s not a pure Westminster bubble story. Without giving any information about what stance the leaders had taken YouGov asked a question on Sunday on whether people thought each leader did or did not want a debate. Obviously lots of people said don’t know, but on balance people thought Miliband, Clegg and Farage did want a debate, and by 51% to 22% people thought Cameron was trying to avoid one. So, it has got through to the public.

Whether it makes any difference to their opinions of David Cameron is a different matter though. The measure to look for here – if it happens – won’t be the sort of questions saying “Does blocking the debates make Cameron look bad?”, “Is Cameron a coward?” and so on. You’ll get people cynical about politicians or hostile to David Cameron saying yes anyway. It will be whether David Cameron’s actual ratings go down – does not taking part in a debate damage his lead on being Prime Ministerial? Does it make his approval ratings worse and make him look less of a leader? Does it make his (already bad) ratings on being out of touch worse? Does it damage the Conservative party’s voting intention at all? Those are the things that count and the things to watch, if they don’t go down then, frankly, the bullet will have been dodged.

This week’s YouGov/Sunday Times poll is out here. Topline figures are CON 32%, LAB 32%, LDEM 7%, UKIP 18%, GRN 6%. YouGov’s average for UKIP this week has been running at only been 14%, so the 18% here looks unusually high – it could be an effect of the the events in Paris, or could just be a random blip.

Part of the rest of the poll addressed the attack on Charlie Hebdo – of course, these figures need to be seen in that context and people’s opinions may very be different in circumstances that are not so emotionally charged (it’s an issue I’ve sometimes commented on about polling about the death penalty – people only commission polls on the death penalty when there is a particularly heinous murder in the news, so polls are always influenced by a particular event).

Looking at the polling, a strong majority of people think the press should be free to criticise, mock and ridicule religion, but even in the current context a sizeable minority disagree. Around a quarter of people think the media should not be allowed to mock or ridicule religious beliefs or figures, 18% think the media should not even be allowed to criticise or question religion. More specifically, 69% of people think it was acceptable for Charlie Hebdo to publish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, 14% unacceptable. In the aftermath of the attack, 63% think that other newspapers should have reprinted the cartoons, 71% that the media in general have an obligation to show controversial items that might offend people if they are newsworthy.

Moving back onto party politics, YouGov asked about the two issues that dominated the first few days of campaigning last week – the economy and the NHS – along with expectations and preferences for the result.

A majority of people (58%) think that the pledges and promises that Labour have made mean they would end up having to increase taxes on people like them. However, people feel almost the same about the pledges and promises made by the Conservative party – 51% think they would end up having to increase taxes for people like them. Overall 37% think George Osborne has been a good Chancellor, 44% a bad one – a net rating of minus 7. This actually compares relatively well to people’s recollections of past Chancellors – Alistair Darling scores minus 19, Gordon Brown minus 18, Ken Clarke minus 8 and minus 19 for Norman Lamont.

Labour maintain their normal lead on the party most trusted to deliver NHS services – 31% would trust a Labour government under Ed Miliband more, 22% a Conservative government under David Cameron (there was a ComRes poll late last year that showed David Cameron more trusted than Ed Miliband on the NHS, which caused some comment. I think that’s probably just a salutory lesson of not paying too much attention to single polls with unusual results – the overwhelming majority of polls on the NHS show Labour are more trusted on it even if you do mention David Cameron and Ed Miliband in the question.

Asked about their own experience of GP services, 15% say their local GP service has got better, 34% worse, 40% that is has stayed about the same. 49% of people say they are normally able to get an appointment when they need one, 36% that they are often unable to. 8% say they have had to go to A&E when they were unable to get a GP appointment. Long waits at Accident & Emergency are mostly blamed on people turning up with minor ailments, rather than funding shortages from this or the previous government. 54% blame people turning up with minor problems, 29% blame immigration and health tourism, 28% not enough social care and 27% lack of GP out of hours service.

Looking towards the next election people are split down on the middle on their preferences – 38% would prefer the Conservatives to have the most seats, 38% for Labour to have the most seats. 52% would like one of the parties to win an overall majority, 24% would prefer a hung Parliament. Asked what they think the result will actually be, 59% expect a hung Parliament, only 18% expect a majority government. The Conservatives are seen as slightly more likely than Labour to be the largest party, 42% to 35%. Asked a more detailed question about coalition preferences, Tory voters would prefer another deal with the Lib Dems to one with UKIP (48% to 37%). Labour voters would prefer a Lib Dem deal to one with the SNP or UKIP (42% Lib Dem, 29% SNP, 12% UKIP).