Two surveys give Labour 7% leads

A poll for The Observer by Ipsos-MORI shows Labour 7% ahead.  A week ago the same pollster gave Labour an 8% advantage.

Although the headline deficit is better than other recent surveys, the underlying numbers remain worrying for the Conservatives.  When it comes to handling a crisis Brown has a 60% to 13% advantage over David Cameron.  By 37% to 32% the Prime Minister even has an advantage on this issue among Tory voters.  Labour also scores much better on party unity.  54% told Ipsos-MORI that Brown leads the most united team.  Only 12% say the same of the Conservatives.  All polls show that on fitness to be Prime Minister, economic competence and party unity - the three points of the iron triangle of political success - Labour enjoy big leads.

A BPIX poll for the Mail on Sunday also gives Labour a 7% lead.  BPIX, which is not in ConservativeHome's poll of polls because of its infrequency, finds Labour on 41%, the Conservatives on 34 and the LibDems languishing at just 12%.

Coming before the Tory Conference and before the weekend's tax relief announcements - for two parent families and for first-time homebuyers - there must be hope that the opinion polls will be better by next weekend.

Comments

[Moral minority]

All the polls show Labour on 40 to 41%. The variations are on the Tories (31 to 34%) and the Lib Dems (12 to 15%). 3% is the margin of error. Brown will wait for the post-Tory conference polls.

Cameron has four days to convince voters that they can trust him. If he fails, we face another landslide defeat with Brown enjoying a majority of well over 100 seats (even with boundary changes favourable to Dave). Gordon can afford to lose a few seats to the SNP.

The Lib Dems are facing electoral meltdown - less than 25 seats. Campbell would be finished to be replaced by Clegg or Huhne. Both would offer real competition to Cameron.

When I voted for Dave, I did not expect to be facing another electoral disaster within 2 years. He has to raise his game this week or else!

[Hudson]

The polls should be the spur to unite and go for it. the cranks on here who just want to carp need to get a life!!!

[Traditional Tory]

Hudson - The polls should be the spur to unite and go for it.

Unite and go for...er...what, Hudson?

The Opposition doesn't get to call the General Election, and Cameron baiting Brown on the issue is hardly a smart move.

The danger is that Brown may just take him up on it.

[eugene]

It is great to see much of the British electorate thinks Brown is good at handling a crisis.

Pity they do not consider who was responsible for the crisis in the first place.

Brown goes from crisis to crisis.

Greater pity our front bench team do not work to expose this.

[Richard]

What are the safeguards in place to ensure polls aren't deliberately skewed i.e. questions aimed at mostly Labour supporters. I'm trying to convince my mother that there isn't a Yougov pro-Labour conspiracy just because they haven't asked me any questions for a while!

[Traditional Tory]

What are the safeguards in place to ensure polls aren't deliberately skewed i.e. questions aimed at mostly Labour supporters

Are you being serious?

Maybe they are just making amends for last year when - presumably - they were aiming questions at mostly Tory supporters, easily identified by their blue rinses and red faces.

You couldn't make it up.

[Moral minority]

IIRC, the British Polling Council scrutinises pollsters' methodologies. The four main polling companies have had similar results this week, taking account the 3% margin of error. They can't all be biased. Grow up, Richard!

[Steve MacFarlane]

Cameron today:

""I think we have the opportunity to put a very compelling alternative to people: 10 more years of failure or real change with the Conservatives."

Shouldn't that be five more years, Dave? Or is the Tory party a no-hoper without you? If it's dependent on one callow toff, without whom it's a write-off for ten years, it's hardly a Government in waiting...

[MikeA]

I believe NuLab are in the lead in the polls, but I don't believe the scale of the lead.
1) Brown has monopolised the TV and media for the past 2 months with the the pestilence and plague hitting the UK (is someone trying to give us a hint?). We have hardly heard anything from DC & Co. That in itself is an issue but with the coverage from the conference and maybe an election, our poll numbers will improve. Hopefully
2) The LibDems are doing badly, but you really underestimate their local campaigning skills at your peril (I have found out the hard way). With some media coverage, their polling numbers will improve, taking numbers from Brown, especially from the left who don't like Browns pseudo right wing populism and like the LibDem hammer the rich tax plans
3) Yes Labour is doing well. But are they doing well in the marginals where the vote really matters? Building big majorities in urban seats in the north of England is no help to Labour. Part of the narrative for an early election is they fear Ashcrofts money in Lab-Tory marginals.
It only takes a tiny swing to knock out scores of Labour MPs......

[Didactophobe]

David Cameron knows that his entire political career depends on what he says this week. In his favour, it was at Conference two years ago that he came from nowhere to snatch the leadership and to put us ahead in the polls. As long as the party unites behind him, as I think it will, the election is not yet lost.

[Richard]

"IIRC, the British Polling Council scrutinises pollsters' methodologies. The four main polling companies have had similar results this week, taking account the 3% margin of error. They can't all be biased. Grow up, Richard!"

If you bothered to read my post carefully you'd see I didn't think that they were biased, I was just requesting evidence to convince somebody else.

[Chris Heathcote]

These polls are not good news, but stopping for a minute and thinking about how these numbers might convert to votes in constituencies, how could Brown come away with MORE seats? The Lib Dems look set to lose quite a few seats on their current polling, but in most of their vulnerable seats we are in second place, pointing to gains for us even with a resurgent Labour vote. Assuming that Labour win back all the seats the Lib Dems picked up in 2005 and where they are second (Manchester Withington, Birmingham Yardley, Cardiff Central etc)that will not give Brown a much increased majority. This means that for the prediction of a 100+ majority to be true Labour must take more seats off us. But in all seriousness, which seats, which Tory MPs does anyone seriously expect to revert to Labour? I just cant see that happening. Out vote seems to be solid, and all that is happening is that the people who left Labour over the war in Iraq and voted Lib Dem in 2005, taking them to a high of 23% have now reverted to type. The boundary changes are also pretty favourable to us (Labour-held urban and northern seats like Ed Balls's Normanton scrapped as too small) and new seats created in Tory territory (like Witham, Devon Central). So even on these apparently dire polls it still seems likely that whenever the election is held we will INCREASE our number of seats, so will Labour by a little and the Lib Dems will be the biggest losers, losing seats to both other parties.

[Yet Another Anon]

The Opposition doesn't get to call the General Election, and Cameron baiting Brown on the issue is hardly a smart move.
The issue of Gordon Brown being seen as cutting and running would work against Labour in a snap General Election - many who would vote Labour if the General Election is on 11 June 2009 will feel it is too soon now, this would be far less of a factor if the General Election was held on the same day as the May Local Elections. An early election may well encourage tactical voting against Labour as well - the Liberal Democrat vote could fall and they could end up with more seats paradoxically, Labour could get a small majority on an increased vote.