Poll/publication	End date	CON (%)	LAB (%)	LD (%)
ICM Guardian	19/12/10	37	39	13
ICM Guardian	21/11/10	36	38	14
ICM/Guardian	24/10/10	39	36	16
ICM/NOTW	22/10/10	40	36	16
ICM/Sunday Telegraph	07/10/10	38	34	18
ICM/Guardian	29/09/10	35	37	18
ICM/Guardian	15/08/10	37	37	18
ICM/Guardian	25/07/10	38	34	19
ICM/Sunday Telegraph	24/06/10	41	35	16
ICM/Guardian	20/06/10	39	31	21
ICM/Guardian	23/05/10	39	32	21
ICM/Sunday Telegraph	13/05/10	38	33	21

And YES to AV has a 6% lead

There’s a new poll tonight from ICM – the only telephone pollster that past vote weights that carries out a public survey at least once a month.

The voting intention numbers are not that much different from a month ago although the direction of travel continues to be worrying for the Lib Dem. ICM is the pollster that generally gives them the highest shares and has the best record with the party when tested at general elections over the years.

Even with the drop my guess is that Nick Clegg and his team will be relieved to be at 13% rather than the 8 to 11 points recorded in recent online polls.

Also included is a question on the AV referendum where ICM finds a split in favour of YES by 44% to 38% – which is in line with a poll last month from the same firm.

The firm has been showing a very different outcome on this question compared to YouGov. As we’ve discussed here before this is mainly down to the form of words that the two firms use. YouGov prefaces its question with a reference to this being put forward by the Conservative – Lib Dem coalition while ICM confines itself to the issue itself. In this case I think ICM has the better approach.

Clearly we have hardly got into the AV debate yet and most voters are unaware of the issues and the arguments. It will be interesting to see how the campaigns develop and whether they swing the outcome.

Mike Smithson