YouGov’s Tory lead moves from three to six per cent

The second national voting intention survey since the Queen’s Speech has shown another biggish drop in the Labour share. These are the figures with comparisons on the last surveys from the pollster more than three weeks ago – CON 41% (nc): LAB 35% (-3): LD 13% (+2).

This latest poll, for tomorrow’s Sunday Times means that Gordon Brown’s Labour has moved from an 11% margin to a 6% deficit in just seven weeks – a massive seventeen percent turnaround.

The last time Labour was this low with the internet pollster was before Gordon became PM. Interestingly the boost in the Lib Dem share from the awful 11% of October seems to have been at the expense of Labour – not the Tories.

Putting these numbers into the Anthony Wells calculator we get a projected house of commons that looks like this – CON 307: LAB 294: LD 21. The Martin Baxter calculator produces CON 311: LAB 296: LD 14

The poll also shows a dramatic change in Brown’s personal approval ratings from a net 48% in the summer to minus 10% in this latest survey.

Coming on top of last week’s ICM poll that had the Tories on 43% and eight points ahead this could lead to changes on the general election betting markets. The Tories are already favourites to get most seats and this might now be reflected on the spread markets where, currently, the spreads from all the main firms on how many seats the parties will get still have Labour ahead.

Latest commons seat spread prices:-
Spreadfair CON 282-284.7 seats: LAB 285-287.9: LD 48.5-51.5
IGIndex CON 278-284 seats: LAB 283-289: LD 47-50

Mike Smithson