Tories lead by 12 points with Populus
POLITICALBETTING EXCLUSIVE:
CON 39 (nc) LAB 27(+1) LD 17 (-5)
More than half those polled want an immediate general election
I’ve been given to understand that a new poll by Populus for ITV news tonight with Westminster voting intentions will show the Tories remaining on 39% with Labour up one to 27% but with the Lib Dems taking the biggest hit – down five points to 17%. The comparisons are with the last survey from the firm ten days ago.
The others broke down into: SNP 4%: Green 2%: UKIP 6%: BNP 4%: PC 1%: OTH 2%
One factor showing the impact of the MP expenses row on voting intention has been the proportion of people saying they are absolutely certain to vote at the next General Election. This now stands at 45%, down from 51% ten days ago and 57% in April before the Telegraph started publishing their exposes.
These figures suggest, surely, a low turnout on June 4th.
Just over half of those polled, 54%, said there should be an immediate General Election compared with 38% who do not. But there’s a big split here depending on what party people support. Three out of four Tory voters want it now compared with just 30% of Labour voters.
The CON-LAB figures are very similar to what we saw from ICM in the Guardian on Monday night. That was C39-L28-LD20 and probably reflects the fact that Populus has a methodology that is very similar to ICM. The polls showing the very low Labour shares have come mainly from YouGov or the YouGov- linked BPIX. ComRes did have Labour at 21%.
My guess is that a large proportion of the UKIP 6% will slip back to the Tories by the time of the general election next year.