The Guardian’s August ICM survey should be out this weekend

After two weeks without any national voting intention surveys – a period which has seen intense speculation about how the main parties are doing in the new political context – I am advised that we should see results from the Guardian’s August ICM “over the weekend”. That’s likely to mean either tomorrow or on Bank Holiday Monday.

The paper’s uninterrupted polling series with ICM is the longest running in the UK, is one of the most respected and from a gambling point of view the most market sensitive. ICM’s last two surveys, for the Guardian in July and the Sunday Mirror a fortnight ago, both had Labour leads of 6%.

ICM operate a strict turnout filter and only include in their headline figures those who say they are seven out of ten or more in their certainty to vote. The pollster was also the pioneer of past vote weighting – the mechanism whereby samples are adjusted to be “politically representative” by finding out how respondents voted last time.

If there is to be an early general election then the Brown camp will be looking, surely, for that 6% margin to be being maintained.

ICM generally has the best figures for the Lib Dems and Ming’s party will be hoping for some good news after YouGov put them on 14%.

Sean Fear’s Friday slot won’t be appearing today. He’s been otherwise engaged.

Mike Smithson