Labour moves to its biggest ICM lead over the Tories since 2003
Pie chart showing today’s ICM phone poll with record Ukip share and LAB lead twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/st…
— Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) February 11, 2013
ICM finds a LAB lead of 26% (51-25) amongst women but only 7% with men
— Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) February 11, 2013
All this after Dave’s EU speech and Brussels budget
As PB regulars will know I regard the phone polls from ICM as the gold standard so this afternoon’s survey is something of a shocker.
The Labour lead is the biggest with the firm since May 2003 and the 9% Ukip share is the highest that ICM has ever recorded.
-
What must be pretty galling for Cameron and his team is that this has happened after a month which has since his EU referendum promise and last week’s Brussels budget negotiations.
It is always wise when you see such dramatic changes as this to see if other polls show the same trend. This might be an outlier. On the other hand it might not.
It’s perhaps worth noting that just 11 months ago, in the March 2012 ICM poll published just before Osborne’s budget, the Tories were 3% ahead.