UKIP at record high with Opinium. (But is their method a good one?)

By Paul Goodman
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The figures in today's Observer were reported yesterday evening by Harry Phibbs. They are:

Conservatives: 26% (- 1 from a fortnight ago)

Labour: 37% (No change)

Liberal Democrats: 6% (- 1)

UKIP: 21% (+ 1)

It's worth comparing the figures above with those of YouGov's daily tracker, which are:

Conservatives: 30%

Labour: 39%

Liberal Democrats: 10%

UKIP: 15%

Over at Political Betting, Mike Smithson has written and tweeted that "Opinium is only online pollster that takes no steps to ensure politically balanced sample. Doesn't even ask about GE2010 vote".

What's not in dispute, however, is the trend - so, for example, UKIP were at 17% with ComRes last weekend.  As Anthony Wells has put it: "The correct approach is to look at the broad underlying trend and ignore the odd looking polls, the media normally do the opposite.

"The trend is that UKIP support has jumped substantially following their local election success, and that the Labour lead has been narrowing."  Downing Street is hoping that better economic news pushes UKIP's figure down and trims Ed Miliband's lead back further.