Populus: Labour close the gap by 5%

Populus: Labour close the gap by 5%

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    Yet another poll shows the Lib Dems on the decline

After yesterday’s Mori poll – which was actually the pollster’s survey for May, we now have the first of the June polls – from Populus in the Times. The figures, are with changes on a month ago, CON 37%(-1):LAB 34%(+4): LD18%(-2).

After the May survey which was the first big move to the Tories I noted here “The interviews will have been taking place over the weekend while all the speculation and talk of a Labour civil war was dominating the air waves. Often surveys that take place in such a heated atmosphere produce extraordinary results..” That caution was probably right.

Today’s Populus Poll is fairly close to the ICM Guardian survey two weeks ago which had C38, L 34, LD 20. The two pollsters operate in a very similar way – the only difference being in their past vote weighting calculations which the Populus boss, Andrew Cooper, has stated reduces Labour’s deficit by a point or two.

    All polls are about trends and the one factor that all the pollsters agree on is a decline in Lib Dem support. In a month YouGov, Populus, Mori and ICM have reported drops in the range of 2-4%.

The challenge Ming’s party has is in commanding the headlines which can be diffifcult when all the political focus is, as we’ve seen in the past fortnight, on Labour. Unlike Cameron, Blair, Brown and even Chris Huhne, for that matter, Campbell does not have that instinctive news sense that helps you get attention. That is a big problem for the party though maybe a decent performance in Bromley will give them a boost.

For some reason Populus usually reports a better Labour performance in relation to the Tories in June compared May. Also the survey will have taken place at the end of the school holiday week and this can marginally affect the Tory position.

So where are we? Well the Tories are ahead and there is a reasonable amount of daylight between them and Labour but there is still much work to be done. The decline in the Lib Dem support is helping Labour more than the Tories.

On the Betfair betting exchange “most General Election seats” market Labour are at 1.02/1 with the Tories on 0.99/1. This is probably a fair representation of the state of the parties.

Roll on the next poll….

Mike Smithson

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