Will the LAB/LD switchers will stick with Cameron?

One of the great features about the pollsters that past vote weight is that you are able to look at the detailed tables and see the cross-party dynamics.

Interestingly the broad figures that we get each month from the ComRes, ICM and Populus are in the same ball park and you can get a generalised view of what’s been going on. Reproduced above is an extract from the full tables highlighting how part of the 43% overall Tory share in the latest poll came from.

You can’t treat the precise numbers as accurate measures but the picture of sizeable slabs of 2005 Labour and Lib Dem voters now saying they will go Tory is common amongst the three firms. The question is will these voters stay until election day?

The groups featured above are particularly important because they of the simple fact that they voted last time – an indication surely that they are more likely to cast their votes in the next election than those who stayed away.

All elections are about niches like this in the 60 to 100 key seats where the outcome will be decided and what’s interesting is that the proportion of switchers has been increasing.

The key job for Brown & Co is to develop doubts in the minds of those who have or are thinking of moving about the danger of change. Can Labour develop a rhetoric that will ring true? The party did it last autumn but now things are almost back to where they were.

Do the words and lines of attack that were used so successfully then have the same potency – or have, as I believe, they been over-used? The polls seem to suggest the latter. Labour needs a fresh proposition.

On the spread-betting markets the move to the Tories continued after the piece yesterday and now the party’s spreads are at a new high. The markets have been suspended overnight – my guess is that we could see a bit more movement this morning.

Sporting Index spread markets.