REVISED

Labour lead up with ICM but down with YouGov

With the election campaign getting down to serious business after the three days lost in the first week following the death of the Pope and the Royal Wedding two new polls conducted over the weekend have Labour and the Tories going in different directions.

An ICM poll in the Mirror has with comparisons on the survey in the Sunday Telegraph yesterday LAB 38 (nc): CON 33(-1): LD23 (+2). This will provide some welcome relief for the Lib Dems who had seen their vote shares squeezed in the opening few days of the campaign. What’s interesting is that Charles Kennedy’s party’s improvement seems to have been at the expense of the Tories.

The YouGov poll in the Telegraph has with the small change from yesterday’s Sky News survey : LAB 36 (-1): CON 36 (+1) : LD 20(-1)

Such differing views are likely to happen during the campaign although so far it’s been remarkable how a trend by one pollster has been picked up by the others.

We predicted yesterday that the weekend polls would hit the Tory spread and boost Labour on the spread-betting markets. This has happened but only by a very little.

Meanwhile the Daily Telegraph has published the first of a series of pieces I have been commisioned to write on betting and the General Election. The paper is also featuring a daily General Election betting odds section on its shares page.

Mike Smithson

…..politicalbetting.com, the website where we election junkies go as an alternative to getting anything resembling a life..(Nick Cohen – Observer)