When should we get the first measured reactions?

Everybody has their own views of the speech but the people that will matter most in the next day or so are those chosen by the polling organisations to take part in their surveys. How will they react? Will their opinions of the parties be any different from the recent polls? Will Labour still be in a commanding position to launch a successful election campaign?

My view is that we will see a significant move to the Tories – what I can’t predict is the scale of that shift and that is everything. If we get close to level-pegging then it’s going to be a much tougher call for Brown. If not then November 1st would seem to be it.

From what I can gather several major surveys are being carried out at the moment and this is what I believe we might expect.

The YouGov Panel. It looks as though the Telegraph and the Sunday Times have commissioned surveys and we might get the former on Friday. I don’t know whether Channel 4 News will have commissioned another “quickie” survey like the one after Brown’s speech but the broadcaster ought to if only for balance. Last week their Brown survey appeared the evening afterwards. YouGov, of course, restricts its surveys to members of its polling panel and does not weight by likelihood to vote.

Populus Fieldwork by the pollster for the Times is being carried out and my understanding is that this should be appearing on Saturday morning. The last poll had Labour 10% ahead. Will there have been a significant claw-back?

ICM Fieldwork for a poll is taking place and I have yet to identify the client. It might be the Guardian though it could be for one of the Sunday papers. We have not seen an ICM poll since before the Labour conference.

Ipsos-Mori I have no direct information but its likely that a survey will be appearing in the next day or so.

Mike Smithson