Conservatives open up a lead in new ICM poll
An ICM poll for tomorrow's Sunday Telegraph puts the Conservatives back into a commanding position. Conducted on the 10th and 11th October it is the first standard poll with fieldwork carried out over several days since the announcement that there would not be an election this year. The topline figures, with changes from ICM's previous poll conducted straight after David Cameron's speech, are CON 43%(+5), LAB 36%(-2), LDEM 14%(-2).
The 43% recorded by the Conservatives is their highest figure since July 1992. On a uniform swing it would put the Conservatives tantalisingly close to an overall majority with 320 seats in the Commons. 14% is the lowest figure ICM have given the Liberal Democrats since 2001. ICM normally give the Lib Dems a higher level of support than other pollsters and, with the party recording perillously low scores of around 11% and 12% in other companies polls ICM has been a ray of comfort. With even ICM showing them down by almost 10 points on their 2005 election support the murmurs around Sir Menzies Campbell's position that have begun in the last week are probably going to continue.
Far from peaking after their conference, this poll suggests the Conservatives have continued to improve their position and Labour have continued to fall, hardly a surprise after the embarrassment Gordon Brown suffered in having to announce there would not be an election and the torrid week the government have had in the media. What remains to be seen is whether this is still just the short term result of a bad period for the government and some positive coverage for the Conservatives, a temporary Tory lead that will fade away again, or whether there really has been a sea change in the last few weeks.
The government's inheritance tax proposals certainly don't appear to have given them any short term boost (though of course, strategically their intent was probably more to rob the Conservatives of something they could have campaigned on long term, rather than give the government an immediate boost). Asked what they would prefer out of retaining the present £300k limit, adopting the £600k limit for couples, adopting a £1m limit for all, or scrapping it entirely the government's policy was the first choice of only 16% of people. 39% of people opted for the Conservative policy.
Last month Populus asked some questions on whether people trusted Gordon Brown and Alister Darling on the economy more than they trusted David Cameron and George Osborne and found a huge majority for Brown and Darling. ICM asked people to compare the two sets of leaders in this poll, and found the Brown/Darling lead down to 11 points (47% to 36%). The questions aren't directly comparable, Populus spoke about economic crisis, rather than just the economy, and we know people say they trust Brown in a crisis, but all the same the Labour lead on the economy is still looking somewhat weaker than before.
Finally, the poll also asked about the EU treaty - there is still overwhelming support for a referendum (66% to 12%) and people would vote against it if there were one (by 47% to 29%). However, if there actually was a referendum it seems very likely that supporters would try and cast the argument as being about whether we wanted to be in the EU at all, and when asked about that a majority of people (56%) still think we should be, with 38% saying we should leave.
UPDATE: There is also a new BPIX poll in the Mail on Sunday. Topline voting intention figures, with changes from last week's poll, are CON 41%(+2), LAB 37%(-1), LDEM 11%(-1).
UPDATE 2: Sky news is insisting on reporting this as the biggest Tory lead for 15 years. It isn't. It is the biggest Tory level of support for 15 years, it is the biggest Tory lead in an ICM poll since...er...March.
