Latest Ashcroft and Populus polls
Lord Ashcroft's weekly poll today has topline figures of CON 30%(-1), LAB 29%(-2), LDEM 10%(+3), UKIP 16%(-2), GRN 6%(+1). The changes since last week are within the normal margin of error and the overall picture is inline with the broader picture of the Conservatives and Labour having extremely similar levels of support. Populus's twice-weekly poll meanwhile had topline figures of CON 34%, LAB 35%, LDEM 9%, UKIP 13% - Labour and the Conservatives again very close, but both higher than in Ashcroft's polling.
The Ashcroft poll has, of course, got rather more attention because of the 29% for Labour. This is the first time since June 2010 that any poll has shown them below 30% - the level of support they got in Great Britain at the 2010 general election. This is largely due to house effects, and polls in general are not showing Labour this low. Ashcroft's polls tend to show the highest level of support for those parties outside the traditional big three, on average around 30% over the last few months, compared to 27% for MORI, 22% for ICM and 23% for YouGov. The reasons for Ashcroft's higher "other" scores are unclear, but the knock on effect is lower support for Con and Lab. Populus on the other hand tend to show some of the lowest levels of support for parties outside the traditional big three, probably due to them weighting by current party identification. Populus's average over the last few months is 21% - hence the contrast between the two polls today: different absolute levels of Con and Lab support, but a similar sort of position relatively to each other.
