Ipsos MORI show lead Tory narrowing to 8

Ipsos-MORI's monthly poll has also been published and is up on their website here. Their topline figures, with changes from their last poll in mid-December, are CON 40%(-3), LAB 32%(+6), LDEM 16%(-4).

It's a big shift back to Labour, but to some extent it seems to be a correction from a rather outlandish poll in December, which had showed the Conservatives at 43% when everyone else had them near 40% and Labour down in the mid 20s. This 8 point lead is the smallest of all the January polls so far, but only by a point.

On other questions MORI found Gordon Brown's net approval rising to minus 26 and David Cameron's dropping to plus 3. Nick Clegg retained the most positive net rating on

plus 16. Sadly MORI don't appear to have asked an economic confidence question - it would have been interesting to see if there had been an increase in economic confidence on the back of the country leaving recession.

The fieldwork was done between Tuesday and Thursday, which seems to be a slight departure - previously I think MORI did their telephone political monitors over the weekend, hence the long gap between fieldwork and publication when it appeared in Sunday newspapers.

This gives us one post-recession poll showing no change, and one showing the gap narrowing. Don't worry, there's more to come over the next week.