YouGov daily poll	Apr 17	Apr 16
CONSERVATIVES	33%	33%
LABOUR	30%	28%
LIB DEMS	29%	30%

 

Labour back in second but just 4% between the Big Three

Tonight’s YouGov poll has the Lib Dems dropping back behind Labour but their 29% share is still an extremely strong showing and reconfirms the trend from all pollsters since the debate on Thursday.

That these figures would produce a hung parliament is unarguable.  Quite what the shape of that parliament would be is anyone’s guess – so much would depend on where the very big swings of recent days are taking place.

The YouGov survey also had a number of questions about who the public came out of the debate best.  These are interesting as only about 10m people watched the debate – at most about a quarter of the electorate – so by far the majority of people answering will be doing so on second-hand information.  Nick Clegg storms the responses: when asked ‘who impressed most’, no less than 70% said Clegg, against 12% for Brown and just 10% for Cameron – something that may help to explain the pretty poor Tory showing in the vote shares.

There’s also a question about how the public think each is doing as PM (Brown) or party leader (Cameron, Clegg).  Brown has a net rating of -18 (Well 39%, Badly 57%), Cameron scores +21 (Well 56%, Badly 37%) but Clegg achieves an amazing +72 (Well 81%, Badly 9%).

Virtually all the parties are now in places they didn’t expect to be.  Strategies and game plans will have to be revisited and reworked.  These are going to be three extraordinary, exciting and historic weeks ahead, one way or another.

David Herdson