CONSERVATIVES 39% (+2)
LABOUR 34% (-2)
LIB DEMS 16% (+2)

Has the move to Labour run out of steam?

What is surely the final opinion poll of 2008, from ComRes for tomorrow’s Independent, will bring some relief for the Tories who are up two points to 39% with Labour down a point to 35% two points to 34%. The Lib Dems are also up.

For the last two ComRes polls both had the Tories on 37% just one point ahead of Labour and this, so far, represented the peak of the Brown bounce. The nearest any other pollster got to the main parties being so close was Ipsos-MORI in November which reported a 3% gap.

Coming on top of YouGov at the weekend both the latest polls are pointing to the big move to Labour having now come to a dead stop. This surely must be the death-knell to the early election speculation?

My caution with ComRes is that Anthony Wells of UKPollingRport and I have yet to receive a reply to the questions we put more to them than a week ago on the firm’s past vote weighting formulas. For their weighting ratios seem to change very sharply from poll to poll and without further explanation it is hard to work out why.

So we end the year with all five pollsters showing figures in the same broad area. Let’s see what 2009 brings.

Mike Smithson