CONSERVATIVES 41% (-2)
LABOUR 36% (+4)
LIB DEMS 11% (-4)

What will this do to the election speculation?

A new poll by Ipsos-MORI for the Daily Mirror is out this morning and shows a four point increase in Labour support at the expense of the Lib Dems. The Tories are down two so last month’s MORI margin of 11% is reduced to 5%.

The 11% Lib Dem share equals the lowest total that Nick Clegg’s party has had in any survey since the 2005 general election and is almost certainly the product of the pollster’s methodology that does not involve past voting weighting. I’m pretty certain that tonight’s ICM survey, which does past vote weight, will show a substantially higher figure.

Judging the LAB-LD split could be critical in determining whether the much talked about 2009 general election is going to be on.

We’ve seen in the past that with MORI Labour do well when the Lib Dem total drops and that the party falls back when the Lib Dem total increases. That’s what happened between October and November.

Given ComRes’s 37% share for the Tories on Saturday night and the Populus 39% last week there will be relief in the Cameron camp that they are still there in the 40s. The poll is also better for the Tories than MORI had in October.

Whatever there is no doubt that the race is getting tighter and Brown Central can rightly feel much more confident. But Labour needs much smaller deficits than these before it can even contemplate an early general election election and the Tories need to be out of the 40s.

Remember that Gordon did not jump in September 2007 when MORI had CON 31: LAB 44: LD 15. He’s said to have become less risk-averse but he’s not foolhardy.

General election betting – here.

UPDATE: I have just had it confirmed that this survey was NOT the main Ipsos-MORI monitor for December. That is due out in the next couple of days.

Mike Smithson