Populus reports its biggest ever Tory lead

The May Populus survey for the Times is out this evening and shows a small increase in the Tory lead compared with what the firm reported a fortnight ago. The figures are with changes on that survey – CON 40%(nc): LAB 29%(-1): LD 19%(nc).

So yet another poll is showing the Tories in the 40s with Labour in the 20s. This, I think, is Labour’s worst ever deficit from Populus.

The fieldwork took place from Friday until Sunday so a large number of the interviews would have taken place before Boris’s win in London was made known.

Populus use the now standard model for all telephone pollsters bar MORI of weighting the sample by what people said they did at the last election but their formula is a bit more favourable to Labour than ICM or ComRes. They also apply a turnout filter.

So we have not seen a full post-Boris poll yet. That should come in the next few days.

All this will underpin the move to the Tories on the commons seat spread markets though I do not foresee and big movements there until after he Crewe and Nantwich by election.

Mike Smithson