ICM/Guardian - 36/38/14

ICM's monthly poll for the Guardian has topline figures of CON 36%(-3), LAB 38%(+2), LDEM 14%(-2). Changes are from ICM's last poll a month ago. It's the highest ICM have shown Labour, and the lowest they've shown the Liberal Democrats, since the election-that-never-was in October 2007. The move towards Labour is, of course, very much in line with other companies who have now all shown Labour overtaking the Conservatives, though the last few YouGov polls have suggested that this may have been a short term shift.

The Guardian's report also highlights a rather unexpected shift in attitudes to cut. Generally speaking the drift of public opinion has been away from the cuts and towards the idea that they are being done too fast or too deeply. In this month's ICM poll they found the proportion of people thinking the cuts are going too far down 3 points to 45%, while those thinking they are about right or should go further is up 6 points to 49%. Julian Glover speculates it could be because of news stories about Ireland at the time the poll was being done - which it could be - or alternatively it could just be a blip.

Still to come tonight is the daily YouGov poll.

UPDATE: YouGov's daily poll tonight has topline figures of CON 41%, LAB 38%, LDEM 11%. This is quite surprising - all the polling companies (including YouGov, who had Labour ahead for three polls in a row) seemed to be telling the same story - Labour moving ahead of the Conservatives and establishing a small lead. Since then the last two YouGov polls have shown the Conservatives pushing back ahead - perhaps it's a fading effect from the tuition fees row, or perhaps the situation in Ireland is indeed having an effect. It'll be interesting to see YouGov's economic trackers when they start rolling around, to see if they echo the movements in ICM's monthly tracker.