READ CAREFULLY Tories up a notch
The big move to Labour seen in the recent ICM, NOP and CA polls has not been confirmed by the December Populus Poll in the Times. In fact there has been a small Tory recovery.

The headline figures of LAB 37: CON 33: LD 20 mask a change in weightings which helpfully the pollster sets out.
On the new weightings last month would have been LAB 37: CON 31: LD 21 as opposed to the LAB 34: CON 33: LD 22 that was published.

If the old weightings had been used today’s figures would have been LAB 35: CON 34: LD 21

Based on this Labour are static, the Tories are up and LDs are down. What is extraordinary is that Populus changed their weighting only in November. Their “old system” is only a month old.

At the heart of the pollsters problem is that standard phone polling techniques do not find enough Tories ready to admit it to another human being. To get round this they have to use complex weightngs which might or might not be correct.