January's ICM/Guardian poll

ICM's monthly poll for the Guardian has topline figures of CON 40%(nc), LAB 29%(-1), LDEM 21%(+3). Changes are from ICM's last poll, which was conducted straight after the Hoon-Hewitt "coup".

Clearly there is no significant change in the Conservative or Labour vote, apart from a temporary Conservative drop into the high 30s in November they seem to be settling into a pretty steady 40-30 sort of pattern. The Lib Dems however are up to 21%, their highest support in a poll for a couple of months.

In other questions, we've seen several recent polls that suggested the public evenly split over whether they supported a tax allowance for married couples. ICM asked something subtly different - whether people supported a tax cut for "couples with children" - that found 65% support with only 29% opposition. We'll have to check the actual wording of the question for that one to see whether it actually refered to married couples with children (which would seem the sensible thing to ask, but is not how the Guardian described it).

ICM also asked what class they associated the parties with, but the Guardian's report doesn't really tell us enough to judge the results. Apparently 57% of people saw the Conservatives as being for either everyone or the middle class, with 48% saying the same for Labour. Just under a third see Labour as the party of the working class, and an unspecified "substantial minority" see the Conservatives as the party of the upper class.

The poll also asked my favourite "time for a change" question. The latest figures show 66% think it's time for a change of government, with 25% who want to stick with Labour. That's down from the last time ICM asked the question in March last year when 69% thought it was time for change, but not by very much - it remains a substantial majority.

Finally ICM asked whether Gordon Brown had made the recession better or worse - 43% said he helped the situation, 50% said he made things worse.