These are the figures, just published on the Ipsos-Mori website, of the first national political poll by the firm since January. As is usual the headline figures are restricted to those “certain to vote”.

It should be noted that the survey involving 1,983 adults aged 18+ at 176 sampling points across Great Britain was conducted face-to-face on 9-15 March 2007. So the poll is a little bit old and took place before the the last CR, ICM and YouGov surveys.

So we have only had two post-budget voting intention surveys and both pointed in different directions. YouGov showed an increased Tory lead while CR had a reduction.

Compared with the last Mori poll in January the Tories are up 2%, Labour and the Lib Dems are each down 2%.

The pollster does not seek to predict the General Election but rather give a barometer of what current opinion is based on their massive monthly face to face survey. So it does not adopt past vote weighting as is followed by ICM and Populus.

Mike Smithson