May’s Populus poll in the Times this morning provides further evidence that Labour is in for a terrible “Super Thursday” on June 10 when the Euro, London and local election take place. The survey gives the Tories their biggest lead in a non-internet poll since the fuel protests of 2000 and suggests that Tony Blair will be 19 seats short of an overall majority in the next House of Commons. This is the party split with a seat projection from Martin Baxter’s General Election calculator.

LAB 32% 305 seats
CON 36 %245 seats
LIB 22% 65 seats
Labour need 324 for an overall Commons majority

The poll’s 4% Conservative lead reinforces the internet-based YouGov’s national survey on Sunday which had a similar Tory lead and the London Mayor survey yesterday that indicates that Ken Livingstone’s re-election campaign might be in trouble. The difference is that YouGov has both the Tories and Labour at 4% more with the Lib Dems on 4% less.

Could it be that the difference between a people-based survey such as Populus and an Internet one such as YouGov is that the traditional reluctance of those interviewed to tell a live pollster that they are Conservatives now also applies to Labour?

It will be interesting to see if this effect is picked up by Mori, which still does face-to-face interviews, and ICM which like Populus uses the telephone. The raw Populus figures had the Conservative and Labour on 34% but the pollster adjusts its totals to reflect “intention to vote” – an issue that we’ve covered at length on Politicalbetting.com.

But do not draw too many conclusions for the General Election from the survey. Two fifths of Labour supporters told Populus that they intended to send a “message to Labour by not voting in the June 10 election”.

The latest poll is likely to put even more pressure on Labour on the General Election betting markets and those for the London Mayor.

Punters tempted to bet on the Conservatives for the General Election should examine closely how the Commons seat distribution works on Martin Baxter’s General Election calculator.

Even though Labour is down to less than a third of the votes it still has 60 more Westminster seats

This is why Politicalbetting.com has been saying for months that betting Labour in this market will produce a profit however bad things might appear between now and the General Election.