
YouGov March poll
YouGov’s monthly poll for the Telegraph unsurprisingly shows voting intentions largely unchanged from their last poll, conducted just a week ago – CON 39%(nc), LAB 32%(+1), LDEM 17%(+1). The poll was conducted between the 26th and 28th March.
On the “forced choice” question, asking if people would prefer a Labour government under Gordon Brown or a Conservative goernment under David Cameron, the Conservatives lead by 10 points. Taking the responses of current Lib Dem voters as a possible guide to how tactical voting will pan out at the next election, Lib Dem voters would still prefer a Brown government to a Cameron one by 40% to 32%. This is also reflected in a question asking people who their second preference party would be – more Lib Dem voters said Labour (21%) than Conservative (16%), although the party who Lib Dem voters were most likely to name as a second preference was the Greens with 30%. Conservative voters were most likely to name the Liberal Democrats as their second preference (23%), but large sections of Tory supporters named UKIP (18%) or the BNP (12%) as second choices. There was less of a challenge to the Labour party from fringe parties – 33% of Labour voters named the Lib Dems as their second choice, 14% the Greens and 9% the Conservatives.
Asked who would make the best Prime Minister, Tony Blair is once again marginally perfered to David Cameron, perhaps reflecting the recent improvement in the public’s opinion of Blair recorded in YouGov’s brandindex trackers over the past three weeks. Cameron’s lead over Gordon Brown has risen to 5 points, with 30% naming Cameron as the best PM compared to 25% for Brown.
YouGov also carried out a voting intention poll in Scotland. Constituency voting intention, with changes from the last YouGov Scottish poll, are CON 13%(nc), LAB 29%(nc), LDEM 14%(-4), SNP 35%(nc). Regional top-up votes stand at CON 15%(+1), LAB 27%(-3), LDEM 12%(-2), SNP 33%(+1), GRN 6%(+1), SPP 2%(+1), Solidarity 2%. Weber Shandwick’s swingometer translates this into a Scottish Parliament with 46 SNP seats, 39 Labour seats, 18 Lib Dem seats, 19 Conservative seats, 5 Greens and 2 others.
47% of respondents in YouGov’s survey said that if the SNP emerge as the largest group they would like to see them form an executive through a coalition with a smaller party (10% would prefer a minority SNP exective, 18% a continuation of the Labour/Lib Dem executive). There was majority support for a referendum on Scottish independence with 64% of people respondents saying they support one. If a referendum is called, 28% of respondents said they would vote for independence, with 51% favouring the status quo.