CONSERVATIVES 41% (-4)
LABOUR 35% (+5)
LIB DEMS 16% (+1)

In what is by far and away the best poll for Labour for more than six months the November Populus poll for the Times has last month’s Tory lead of 15% down to just 6%.

This is a very big change and means that the pollster is showing a very different picture from ICM which reported at the weekend.

Putting these numbers into the UK Polling Report seat calculator and we get CON 302: LAB 292: LD 27 seats – so Brown’s party is just seats behind and Cameron is 23 seats short of an overall majority.

The bad news for Labour is that the Tories are still comfortably in the 40s and if they continue polling at that level my view is that they would gain a majority

We will need to see the detail but my guess is that part of the change is down to a hardening in the certainty to vote level of Labour supporters. This both gives them a boost and adds to the overall number of “voters” in the calculation thus diluting the Tory figure. I would also like to see how much of the change is down to the Populus “spiral of silence” adjustment.

As I suggested here on Friday the Glenrothes result would provide a great back-cloth for this survey – and that indeed is what has happened. My guess is that the spread betting markets will see a move away from Labour to the Tories.

Mike Smithson