ComRes/Indy on Sunday - CON 40, LAB 29, LD 7, UKIP 16, GRN 3

The monthly ComRes online poll for the Indy on Sunday and Sunday Mirror is out today and has topline figures of CON 40%(-2), LAB 29%(+2), LDEM 7%(nc), UKIP 16%(+1), GRN 3%(nc). The changes since last month are likely just a reversion to the mean - the previous poll was the one giving the Conservatives a fifteen point lead that got lots of people rather overexcited. Full tabs are here.

If that was last month's Twitter overexcitement, this month everyone is getting too excited about the Scottish crossbreak in the ComRes poll which has the Conservative party ahead of Labour. Don't read anything into this: regional crossbreaks in voting intention polls are best ignored. With a sample size of 156 people the margin of error of each figure is about 8 points. On top of that GB polls are generally sampled and weighted to GB targets, so the figures within crossbreaks may be a bit off.

There aren't many recent polls of Westminster voting intention in Scotland - at the current stage in the electoral cycle most Scottish polls are asking exclusively about the Holyrood elections. Looking at those figures there are some showing Labour and the Conservatives quite close in support (the latest MORI and YouGov polls had them within two points of each other), there are other companies (like TNS) showing a bigger gap. There haven't been any proper Scottish polls showing the Conservatives ahead of Labour in Holyrood intentions.

Of course, it's possible that the Conservatives are doing better than Labour in Westminster voting intentions in Scotland - we haven't had a recent poll - but I expect this one is just a case of random noise from small sample sizes. Looking at other recent GB polls YouGov had Labour ahead of the Conservatives in Scotland, so did ICM. MORI had the Conservatives ahead. I expect the true position is that they have quite similar support, meaning that in small crossbreaks random chance will spit out some with more Tories than Labour, some with more Labour than Tories.

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