Pollsters report Labour leads of 3 to 7%
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Tory prices marked down on betting markets
Three new opinion polls this morning should help stop some of the jitters in the Labour camp and have caused the move to the Tories on the spread-betting markets to falter. They are with changes on the last published survey by the same pollster:-
MORI in the Observer CON 33 (-6): LAB 40 (+6): LD 19 (-2).
ICM in the Sunday Telegraph CON 34 (nc): LAB 38 (+1): LDEM 20 (-1)
YouGov for Sky News CON 35 (nc): LAB 37 (+1), LD 21 (nc).
The MORI survey just included those who said they were certain to vote and we are not sure whether it was a face-to-face survey of a telephone one. What is signficant is that in spite of the different figures they are all telling the same story that the first week of the election campaign has seen a stalling of the Tory recovery and better Labour figures. The Lib Dems are also declining.
The Tories will be hoping that this batch of polls has been caused by the other big stories that have been dominating the news – the Pope, the Royal Wedding and Rover. The experience of the past few weeks is that they do better when the media focus is back on the campaign.
The Lib Dems who usually benefit enormously with the extra media focus that a formal campaign brings will also be pinning their hopes on the election becoming the main story in the next three and a hald weeks.
Labour will be relieved that the move to the Tories has been reversed although there will be a concern that good poll ratings could create complacency amongst their supports who might not turnout.
IG Index have moved increased their spread price on Labour by two seats at the expense of the Tories in response to the overnight polling news.
The best Labour price on the “most seats” conventional market is 1/12. The Betfair betting exchange has seen its Labour price harden this week from 0.13/1 to today’s 0.1/1
Meanwhile the Observer’s Nick Cohen has an interesting piece on polling accuracy today and quotes from our little experiment a few weeks back when we sought to improve our ratings with YouGov.
Mike Smithson