ICM puts Tories just 5% ahead

A little good news for Gordon Brown at last.   An ICM survey for tomorrow's Guardian puts the Tory lead at just 5%.  The poll compares with an ICM poll at the very beginning of the month putting the Tories 11% clear and today's YouGov survey giving the Conservatives a 12% lead.

Cameron has a 34% to 33% edge on Brown as best PM.

Few people have an opinion of Nick Clegg but 19% say he makes them more likely to vote LibDem, 6% say less likely.

The Guardian has also aggregated all of its polls since August and the key conclusions are that the Tories are beginning to do noticeably better in the north of England but Wales and Scotland remain infertile territory.  Read more here.

Comments

[Alan S]

Anyone who thinks the next election is in the bag is kidding themselves.

[David]

I'm almost positive that this is a rogue poll, like that one that put the Lib Dems on 22% or whatever it was. I'm not so blind as to think that it's all easy sailing for the Tories until the next election, but the idea that Brown has done anything in the last week or so that warrants a 4 point gain is frankly a joke. Maybe they surveyed lots of people in Brown's immediate family...

[Afleitch]

Two points of not here.

1. We need to see more polls to see if there is a trend.

2. It's Christmas - bad time to poll.

[Tanuki]

The Libdems have been high-profile in the media a lot recently with their leadership contest: this is inevitably going to cause a bit of a "bounce".

Without the leadership-stuff, most people wouldn't have got to hear anything at all about the Libdems from week to week...

[mark]

Good news beneth the headline figure for Cameron. The Guardian online report of this poll says..
"A blue tide of Conservative support is spreading to David Cameron in Labour's traditional heartlands, according to analysis carried out by ICM for the Guardian.
The data suggests that Cameron may be beginning to build an election-winning platform by making progress in the Midlands and the north of England, where the Tory revival has previously been weak".

[Matt Wright]

Polling so close to Xmas is tricky, also the suggestion that we are not doing well in Wales is 'iffy as we have just had outstanging results in the Assembly election. The commentary lumps Wales in with Scotland but the two are completely different. Theres never been a really reliable opinion poll for Wales in my view, they are nearly always too small a sample and make no allowance for very different areas in Wales (some areas poll almost identical to UK polls and other areas are very different).

[Matthew]

Great.. another useless poll!

[Afleitch]

Surely we should be comparing with the last ICM poll for the Guardian? In that case it would be Conservatives up 2 and Labour up 3. The other poll was for the News of the World.

[James]

This is going to be the last time I believe the polls. 7 Points change in a day and no major events.

[Tony Makara]

Although the polls are likely to fluctuate, it would nontheless be wise to drop the idea about pushing the mothers of young children into work. That policy will cost a lot of votes.

[Goldie]

As I've said before, I don't quite understand why you are devoting so much prominent attention to opinion polls when no general election is in sight.

Keep the Poll-of-Polls, by all means, and every now and then a closer look at some of the more reliable polls...but this breathlessly dissecting of each and every poll?

It's rather silly -- since an election is years away. These polls are pretty meaningless. Overall trends are half-way interesting, interesting polls not at all.

[Josh]

It is saying something though when a five point lead is considered poor for Cammy. I believe it would have been considered rather good pre-Brown.

[HF]

Are we doing anything in Scotland?

It is time to get a new Leader there.

[Michael Davidson]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. We should stop getting so excited about winning the next general election. There's an awful long way to go until then.

[Tony Makara]

Does anyone think Gordon Brown might be tempted to go for broke and call a snap election if here were to have a few kids polls?

[Tony Makara]

Typo:

Should read "a few kind polls"

[David Sergeant]

In the 24 hours since Cameron was 12% ahead two things have happened. Brown has been found making outrageous porkies about criminal immigrants and a raft of data has turned up highlighting Brown's messing up the economy.

I wonder if people see Brown as the man to deal with a messed up economy, even if he caused it. Given the sheer lazyness of the Tories in not answering Labour spin about how good he is and how bad the Tories were perhaps there is logic somewhere.

[Steve]

The Conservatives, will never, EVER, get any substantial support and votes in scotland! - FACT!.

Why? - because they are seen as an "English" Party!, its time for them to come out as a party for a United ENGLAND!, and pledge to offer England its own Parliament (At Westminster btw) and to hold a referendum on EUssr MEMBERSHIP!.

[activist]

Erm...Con Home might wish to look at Ben Brogan on this poll:

http://broganblog.dailymail.co.uk/2007/12/daves-northern.html

"An ICM poll in tomorrow's Guardian brings some significant news for David Cameron. It suggests he has achieved a breakthrough in Labour's northern heartlands. A regional breakdown of the poll, compared to figures for August, shows the Tories are now just two points behind Labour north of Wolverhampton (sorry, my geography's a bit ropey). Support for the Tories in the north has jumped 12 points in six months, and they are now on Labour's tail, 38pc to 40pc. No wonder the Government is desperate to do anything to avoid losing Rock jobs or crocking Rock's small shareholders. The final Labour fortress is being stormed..."

[Tony Makara]

"the sheer lazyness of the Tories in not answering Labour spin"

David Sergeant, its heartbreaking to see the way Labour keep getting away with stating lie after lie and there is little or no riposte from the Conervative side at all. Whenever Gordon Brown turns around and says that we have full employment and that the economy is good, the ordinary people who don't follow politics are going to believe it, thats why its important for Conservatives to respond immediately with the truth! No false claim should go unanswered, each time Labour get away with a lie it costs votes.

[Sam R]

The "man or woman in the street" at this time of the year is probably more interested in seeking inspiration regarding what present to buy for a special friend than in standing in the cold answering some unfortunate who has to ask the questions.
My guess is that some at least have responded with an answer diametrically opposite what are their true views, while others may have said the first thing that comes into their head in order to get away.

[Moral minority]

Calm down children! The margin of error is plus or minus 3% for each party. So this poll is not significantly different from the poll of polls. Go back to your mince pies and mulled wine. Really!

[rightsideforum]

Exactly 'Moral minority'. No way is Labour doing that well, it really is slightly, but not dramatically out of sync with recent polls.

[Steve]

I wonder if the head of ICM Pollster got a call from one of Broons lackies....

[North Briton]

Interesting that this doesn't show a huge slump for us (as the headline may imply) rather a surprising leap for Labour. I don't rule out such a inevitability in the future but in the present climate I find this highly unlikely.
The local elections next May will be a huge test for the Northern revival theory (we've been stomping home in the Midlands for a few years now). The next General Election will be won or lost in Yokshire and last May we had a net loss of councillors there outside North Yorkshire.
The central party needs to invest in the regions and local candidates need to focus on local campaigining if we are to turn 40% national polling records into a working majority in the Commons

[Peter Lowe]

ICM poll tends to be the must unfavourable towards us and if 5% is the lead and it's not a rogue poll then it has to be worrying. While the government may have mesed up on a number of issues as these fade we may get a true reflection of the polls. If everything goes quiet for a while the the poll ratings may soon decline and of course we may be back to the fundamental questions of what David Cameron stands for and what does he represent that many of Con Home were asking of him just a few months ago.

We should not delude oursleves on a few polls that were taken at a time of very bad news for the government. If Brown get his act together and they manage to re-group we could be in for a difficult 2008.

[Edison Smith]

If this result ran on a uniform swing:

Conservatives - 284 seats
Labour - 298 seats

Such is the skewed nature of our democracy that the Tories can poll 5% higher than Labour, and still get 14 fewer seats...

[Roy Meadow]

There's a 1 in 950 chance of this poll being correct.

[Yet Another Anon]

The Conservatives, will never, EVER, get any substantial support and votes in scotland! - FACT!.

Why? - because they are seen as an "English" Party!
In 1959 General Election the Conservatives got a majority of the Popular Vote in Scotland, much of rural Scotland had about the most solidly Conservative seats the Conservatives had, times change and the Conservatives could recover in Scotland over time, or even another party with many shared positions.

Labour used decades ago to be quite strong in parts of South East England.

[Yet Another Anon]

I wonder if the head of ICM Pollster got a call from one of Broons lackies
I am highly sceptical generally about polls on voting intentions generally, however far from being bad news for the government, actually figures showing bad figures in mid term actually helps get the government's supporters out to vote because the PM can then raise the spectre of a historically rival party returning to power, if anything this appears to be more the case with Labour than any other party!

[James Cleverly]

I think that a graph of ConHome's poll of polls over the last year would be more enlightening.

[Ted]

Few comments:
- Moral Minority is right - Margin of error means changes aren't necessarily huge
- It's the week before Christmas so both the YouGov and ICM polls are suspect
- Yet another Anon - The Conservatives never had a majority in Scotland; the Scottish Unionists, whose members took the Conservative whip, did. The right did best in Scotland when it was a small "n" nationalist party representing Scots interests in the Union. Once absorbed into the bigger English Conservative Party it lost it's distinctive voice and it's support.
- This is lowest Conservative vote share since the last Guardian ICM poll. Since the weekend after the Conservative Conference only ICM and Populus in November have had Tories under 40%. Populus I believe use ICM to do their polling but use different weightings.
- Labour this week have reneged on their promises to improve the state pensions of women who stayed at home to look after their children, on deporting foreign criminals and now on mixed sex wards. Suggest a campaign based round Gordon promised, Gordon failed on these, which formed a major part of his speeches during the dead cat Bounce.

[Mr Angry]

"Without the leadership-stuff, most people wouldn't have got to hear anything at all about the Libdems from week to week."

Oh yes they did; not in the mainstream media perhaps, but most people will be getting a Focus through their front doors an awful lot more than they are hearing directly from us or Labour.

Do not ever make the mistake of believing that because the LimpDums do not get as much Westminster Village type media coverage that they are not reaching and being heard by the electorate. In fact with largely uninterested voters (which is most of 'em) Focus is far more electorally efective than any amount of broadsheet or Nick Robinson coverage can ever be.

[Dave B]

@Tony Makara 20:56

I think Wisconsin style welfare reform will be a vote-winner, not a vote-loser.

[Votedave]

What a constrast from YouGov which shows us 12% ahead and Labour slipping even further.
If that had been published today then there wouldn't be all this ridiculous panic!

[Dave B]

"Looking at ICM’s polls since the Tories retook the lead in October though, there seems to be a consistent pattern of lower Tory shares in ICM’s Guardian polls compared to the ones for the Sundays. Their first poll to put the Conservatives back ahead was a poll for the Sunday Telegraph that put the Tories up on 43%, the following weekend poll for the Guardian put them down 3 points at 40%. A fortnight later a poll for the Sunday Express had them back up at 43%, the following Guardian poll had them back down to 37%, a week later they were back up at 41% in a News of the World poll, down they are back down to 39%. Until this poll there was a similar up-and-down pattern to the Lib Dem score in ICM polls, with higher Lib Dem scores in polls for the Guardian." UK Polling Report

[NW Supporter]

I work just outside Liverpool and I see lots of people that have supported Labour in the past.

Immigration and the fact that it has been allowed to rocket is the thing that is really turning them away from Labour.

Plus the fact that their mortgages have gone up and nearly all of them have had their personal details lost on the discs.

When something happens that actually affects them, and they realise that they actually have less money in their pocket, that is the time they start thinking.

So yes, this downturn for Labour in the north is definitely visible. We cannot be complacent, as Conservatives, but I do feel that there is a change in the air - we just have to work really hard.

[Patsy Sergeant]

I agree with you Tony Makara @ 22.32 yesterday, I wish that CCHG could find the time to emphasise how mendacious this government and in particular this Prime Minister is being. I don't mean DC bringing it up at the Despatch Box on a Wednesday, but getting into print with the fact that Gordon Brown has already reneged on some of the key promises he made in his conference speech. It seems that GB has decided that the conservatives are not going to challenge him much outside Parliament, and of course with the ever subservient BBC on his side in Newsnight etc:, indeed why should he worry!

[Comstock-stats anorak]

"Such is the skewed nature of our democracy that the Tories can poll 5% higher than Labour, and still get 14 fewer seats..."

(sighs)

I've mentioned this time and time again on here on what feels like every poll thread, but I'll try one last time......

This isn't due to the "skewed nature of our democracy", it is because the turnout in safe Labour seats is lower than in safe Conservative ones.

(From the last election) Turnout in Sunderland south was 49% and in Bootle it was 48%. Wheras in Witney it was 69% and in Banbury 64%.... and so on.

There's loads more examples, only a handful Welsh valley seats like Rhondda buck the trend for some reason

[Sean Fear]

In all likelihood, a Conservative Party that led Labour by 39% to 34% would be the largest party (probably just short of an overall majority). Generally speaking, when there's a substantial swing to a party under FPTP, it does best in the seats where it needs to do best.

If the worst for the Conservatives is one poll showing them 5% ahead of Labour, I don't think they need to be that concerned.

[Bexie]

Lets See ICM...

The question (tongue in cheek)...

"Given that the tories are baby eating undead from the caves in Chilsehurst and the Brown Stain is actually the Second Coming personified, surrounded by a cabinet of angels, which way will you be voting if an election was held tommorrow"

Rather a bad result under those circumstances...

"Tory Clear Blue Water, removes all stains, especially Brown ones"

All the best for Christmas