CON 45(+4) LAB 27(-7) LD 18(+2)

How will Brown Central deal with this?

The first full voting intention poll since the budget is out and it’s from YouGov for the Telegraph.

The numbers show a sharp reverse from the last published YouGov survey which was taken immediately after the G20 meeting and raised hopes at Brown Central because it only had a 7 point deficit. Unlike the paper which is reporting comparisons with its last poll I am following the usual PB practice of comparing with the last poll from the pollster irrespective of the publication.

This evening we are talking of an 18 point gap which is the biggest from the online pollster since September 2008 before the Lehman collapse set off the global banking crisis.

On Monday night I was talking of the Guardian’s ICM poll with a 10% Tory lead being seriously good news for Brown Central. This evening the opposite judgement should be made – this is seriously bad.

It should be noted that this is the first YouGov poll since Smeargate so it should not be taken as a straight reaction to the budget. I’m also none too confident about polls so close to big events like the budget as I was arguing on the previous thread.

So a great poll for Cameron and the Tories but let’s wait a bit until we’ve moved on from the budget period.

Needless to say if this indeed was the result of the general election then the Tories would be in with a landslide.

The real worry for Labour about these numbers is that they’ll just reinforce the media narrative. Everything about Brown/the government/the party is being reported negatively and one thing feeds on another.

Unfortunately there will not, as I was reporting earlier, be a ComRes poll this weekend in the Indy on Sunday. It might be that that the next voting intention poll of any kind will be the Independent’s ComRes survey which usually comes at the end of the month and could be out on Monday evening.