Is it as “devastating as we were led to believe?

Earlier this evening this appeared on the Daily Telegraph blog – “Tonight’s YouGov poll for the Telegraph is, to quote our polling guru Anthony King, ‘one of the most devastating I’ve ever seen’. That’s quite a verdict from a man who has been looking at these things for four decades.”

This set peoples’ imaginations racing especially as the last poll to publish, ComRes on Tuesday, had the Tories 13% ahead with Labour down at 27%.

This evening shares with changes on the last YouGov poll a weeks ago are: CON 43% (+2): LAB 32% (-2): LD 14% (nc). So not quite on the scale of ComRes but still the biggest ever Tory lead recorded by the internet pollster.

The changes that appear on the paper’s graphic, above, are not the same as those in our comparison which looks at the last YouGov poll and not just the last one to appear in the paper.

In many ways I consider this to be better for Cameron than ComRes. That had the Tory share down a point while this latest YouGov survey has them up two at a record 43%.

If these levels were repeated in a general election then the Tories could be looking towards an overall majority of 58. Very workable.

For punters the big question is whether this will shift the spread markets? My guess is that it will but not by that much.

Mike Smithson