But is the trend bad news for Brown’s party?

In the coming month or so we are likely to see many more polls like this which seek to find out the political preferences of specific professional groups.

This, from MORI, is based on a survey of 1,000 teachers in England and Wales with the fieldwork taking place over a five week period towards the end of last year.

It’s hard to know what to make of it though it does not come as a surprise. As MORI repeatedly report in their monthly political monitor people working in the public sector are much more likely to support Labour than the electorate as a whole.

UPDATE: As jsfl has reported on the thread the poll in fact shows a sharp decline in the proportion of teachers planning to vote Labour. According to a Guardian report the proportion was 43% in 2001; 29% in 2005 and now 25% now.

Given that these shares include the don’t knows and won’t says my back of an envelope calculation suggests that teachers have moved away from Labour at about the same rate as the electorate as a whole.

So more polling news where the trend is not good for Brown Central.

Mike Smithson