Farage’s party moves to equal third place slot with the LDs

There’s a new voting intention poll out for the Mail on Sunday which has others, including UKIP, at 24% which I believe is a record and suggests a move away from the established parties.

The shares are with changes on March: CON 30 (-1): LAB 35 (-4): LD 11 (nc): UKIP 11 (+3).

The 30% CON share is the lowest from any pollster for the party since Cameron became leader in December 2005. You have to go back to September 2005, while Michael Howard was leader, to see a worse one.

So a bad poll for the blue and the red teams but a remarkable one for UKIP.

The survey is from newbie political pollster, Survation, which appears to have taken over from BPIX/YouGov at the paper. It only started political polling in January 2011 and, controversially in the eyes of some, offers the UKIP option as a main party choice alongside CON/LAB/LD. With other firms UKIP is not mentioned at first – you only get the party prompt at a second stage after you have responded OTHERS.

Polling is about trends and the same approach was used last month.

Generally at the moment voters apear to be turning their backs on the three established parties. I put this down to the lack of confidence in all three main party leaders and the fact that the general election is so far off.

Whether they’ll return in May 2015 who knows? But something is happening out there.

@MikeSmithsonOGH