CONSERVATIVES 43% (+4)
LABOUR 33% (-2)
LIB DEMS 15% (-2)

Has Gord stopped defying political gravity?

The first telephone poll of 2009, from Populus for the Times tomorrow is out and shows a big swing back to the Tories.

In recent surveys the phone pollsters have tended to be showing smaller Tory leads than YouGov – which does everything online.

The Populus methodology is very similar to ICM – the survey is past vote weighted and a proportion of the don’t knows and won’t says are allocated to the party respondents said they supported last time. The Populus mathematics are a touch more favourable to Labour than ICM.

So this poll is very good news for Cameron’s Tories and very bad for Gordon Brown who must have been hoping that the “do nothing” attack on the Tories would start to resonate.

The poll follows the trend of several recent surveys including the latest YouGov poll last week. After getting very close at the end of November and in early December the pollsters seem to be showing the same broad picture.

Clearly it’s going to be tough for any government in view of the current economic situation but Brown seemed to be defying political gravity. Well that appears to be coming to an end.

On the leadership ratings Peter Riddell reports: “Mr Brown and Mr Cameron are also tied on 37 per cent over who is the right leader now to deal with the recession, though the Prime Minister had a 52 to 32 per cent edge only two months ago. Mr Cameron is now ahead by 43 to 31 per cent in leading Britain forward after the next election.

This must surely put the possibility of an 2009 general election off the agenda.