Will Roger be proved right in tomorrow’s poll?

The boss of Populus, Andrew Cooper, has just confirmed to me that their monthly survey for the Times has taken place a little earlier this month and should be appearing in the paper tomorrow. Normally fieldwork starts over the first weekend over the month and that would normally have meant next week.

The survey was carried out from Friday to Sunday so that the majority of the 1,500 respondents will have been questioned after the aborted night club bombs in London and a significant number will have been called after the Glasgow airport attack.

Populus is a past vote weighted telephone poll and is fairly similar to ICM. The main differences are that its weightings are a bit more favourable to Labour and its “spiral of silence” calculation is a bit less favourable to the Lib Dems.

Last month the pollster had CON 36%: LAB 33%: LD 17%.

One of the site’s most long-standing and prolific posters, Roger, was predicting this morning that “Brown could well get close to double figures on Populus” – hence the inspiration for my Gordon x 10 picture collage at the top.

Whatever all polls at the moment are being looked at very closely by punters on the general election betting markets which have all seen a sharp move to Labour.

Mike Smithson