ComRes show 13 point Tory lead

There is a new ComRes poll in today's Independent. Topline figures with changes from last poll a week and a half ago are CON 40%(nc), LAB 27%(-1), LDEM 18%(-1).

Clearly there is little change in the levels of support for the main parties. Notably this is also only the second poll since the BNP's appearance on Question Time. Like YouGov at the weekend, there is no significant boost for them - they are at 2% in this poll, up from 1% in the last poll, but pretty much par from the course (ComRes already had them at 2% in their poll at the

start of October).

Of course, it does still leave us with the contrast between YouGov, ComRes and Populus, who are all showing a narrower Tory lead than before the Conference season, and ICM and Ipsos-MORI who are showing the lead up at 17 points. If it persists in next month's polls I'll have to have a closer look at what's causing it.

On other questions, ComRes have had a stab at measuring tactical voting. Thay found 36% of non-Labour voters agreed with the statement "I would consider voting for a party I do not support just to try and keep Labour out of government" - that included 41% of Tory voters and 33% of Liberal Democrat voters. Of course, to put it in context we'd really need to know what people would say if asked the same about the Conservatives, and how people would have answered the question at previous elections. More grist for the mill, but we still haven't really got a good way of predicting levels of tactical voting.