Are we seeing the Observer’s poll two days early?

After the big boost for the Tories in this morning’s YouGov poll there’s another national survey out which shows a growing Conservative lead.

The MORI Monitor for April has been published on the firm’s website, apparently by mistake, and shows the following shares with the changes on March: CON 40% (nc): LAB 31% (-4): LD 19% (+1). My understanding was that this poll was for the Observer on Sunday.

The fieldwork began a week last Thursday and ended on Tuesday – so a part covered the difficult start to the week that Labour had with the 10% tax band revolt.

In recent months MORI has been reporting the worst ratings for the Tories of any of the pollsters. In January it had Labour 1% behind and in February just 2% in front.

Polling is all about trends and this latest survey reinforces the trend seen with YouGov but not with ICM.

The poll also shows a big decline in Gordon Brown’s ratings and have him at -38%. Cameron is on +2%.

On the Mayoral poll, reported in the previous thread, the firm points out that the fieldwork was carried out more than a week before the election and a third of respondents said they might change their mind.

Mike Smithson