Was this behind the worst ICM ratings for three months?

This morning’s ICM poll in the Sunday Telegraph is good news for the Conservatives, good news for Labour but bad news for the Lib Dems. These are the shares with comparisons on the last ICM survey just a fortnight ago – CON 43%(+1): LAB 32%(+3): LD 18%(-3). The comparisons in the previous post were with the last ICM survey in the paper in early January.

The pollster’s methodology is usually the most friendly to the Lib Dems of all the firms and has been the only one to rate them at 20% or more since Clegg came in. Today’s 18% is a blow and is the first time since in early January that the party has slipped back into the teens.

Of course this might just be one survey and poll watchers will be looking carefully at the April Populus survey in the Times which should be out on Tuesday. Last time the firm had the Lib Dems on 19% – will that, like ICM show a drop?

For the real damage from the “no more than 30 partners” admission is that it shows Clegg to be naive and perhaps a bit too ready to talk about things that most people regard as being private.

The following was in the New Statesman last October, when Clegg was fighting for the leadership and features comment by the shadow minister for culture, Ed Vaizey after spending six gruelling days with Clegg trekking to the Arctic: “Nick’s a lovely guy but he’s terribly vain. For the entire trip he harped on about how he was number one in a Sky poll of ‘Most Fanciable MPs’ and that I was only number nine. We shared an igloo and the intimate, bonding evening chat was based on how good-looking he is. I was referred to only by my fanciability ranking of number nine“

My guess is that the interviewer, Piers Morgan, was aware of Nick’s readiness to talk about these areas when he led the questioning in this direction?

Polling Averages I know that other sites and several PB contributors like to create polling averages. I now think the whole notion is totally flawed because the polls are so different. The only valid comparisons are with previous surveys from the same firm using the same approach.

Thank you to Paul Maggs for once again standing in as guest editor while I was on holiday in France. It was a busy week.

Mike Smithson