CON 37% (-6)
LAB 31% (+5)
LD 17% (-2)
OTHERS 15%

The delayed survey has the Tory lead down to just 6pts

There are reports about that a poll due out tonight is “very good for Labour“. We haven’t seen any numbers yet and this post will be updated when we get some.

Which pollster it is I don’t know but the November Ipsos-MORI poll is long overdue. The field-work began a week last Friday in the immediate aftermath of Labour’s big Glasgow NE success and continued until Sunday.

I was expecting it out on Monday evening or Tuesday morning at about the same time as the ICM Guardian survey which had a big increase in the Labour share.

The headline figures in Ipsos-MORI polls only include the voting intentions of those who say that are 100% certain to vote – and this tends to cause more movement than those polls who others who measure and include those less certain of turning out. So Labour’s worst figures for this parliament were from the firm.

We will be getting an “England only poll” from the firm based on the data from this survey and it will be interesting to see if the margin has closed by quite the same margin as the national ones. It might be that the by election had a greater impact north of the border.

My guess is that relatively few voters are changing their minds – the driving force behind polling changes is voting certainty.

UPDATE: We now have the figures which are featured above and there can be little doubt that this is a great poll for Labour. To get to within just six points at this stage will provide real heart to the party.

Just under a week ago I was predicting this when I observed that polls taken immediately after by elections almost always produced boosts for the party that did best.

That, I believe is what happened here. The big question is whether this will be sustained and picked up by other pollsters.

It will be recalled that Labour saw a big boost in last weekend’s ICM poll where the fieldwork took place at exactly the same time as this one.

Mike Smithson