CON 40% (37)
LAB 31% (30)
LD 18% (20)
LAB>CON swing on 2005: 6%

Has the move to Labour run out of steam?

A new ICM poll for the News of the World goes very much against the trend of the past few weeks and has the Tories increasing their lead over Labour to the psychologically key level of 40%.

The comparisons are with the last ICM in the Guardian nearly a fortnight ago.

There’s little doubt that this will provide a real boost to the Tories and might impede the hung parliament narrative. It might also add to doubts within the red camp.

The losers in this survey are Nick Clegg’s Lib Dems.

ICM has been operating in the same broad manner since the mid-1990s and was the first pollster to take radical measures after the 1992 polling disaster.

Fieldwork took place from Tuesday until Thursday.

Also coming up tonight is the latest YouGov daily poll – in the Sunday Times.

UPDATE 2025

CON 38% (38)
LAB 33% (32)
LD 17% (17)
LAB>CON swing on 2005: 4%

But the Tory YouGov lead drops a point

We now have the second poll of the night – the YouGov daily poll for the Sunday Times. Although the differences compared to ICM are well within the margin of error the broad message is that the internet pollster is reporting no change.

Such is the closeness of this election is that these small differences have a huge impact on the outcome.

We’ve talked about YouGov methodologies a lot in recent days and I will not dwell anyt more on this issue.

So two polls tonight – one good for the blues and one for the reds. Let’s see how punters react.

Mike Smithson