Latest ICM poll shows little impact from Hoon-Hewitt

There is a new ICM poll in the Sunday Telegraph and it doesn't suggest any great damage for Labour from their leadership ructions this week. The topline figures from ICM's previous poll for the Guardian in mid-December are CON 40%(nc), LAB 30%(-1), LDEM 18%(nc). So while Labour are down one point, this is clearly within the margin of error. The poll was conducted on the 6th and 7th, so the vast majority of responses were likely to have been after the news of the Hoon-Hewitt plot had broken.

I'm always slightly wary of polls like this and the second YouGov one this week that are carried out immediately after an event, are they too soon to measure it properly. Nevertheless, the two polls since the coup have both shown a small drop in Labour support, but nothing to get excited about and, indeed, nothing that may not turn out to be just movements within the margin of error.

The Sunday Telegraph reports the poll as Week of bungled plots boosts Labour in poll, committing my pet hate of pretending more recent polls carried out by the same pollster using identical methodology don't exist just because a different newspaper commissioned them. (I'm not sure a one point difference would qualify as a boost anyway!)

The poll also included a question on the Labour leadership (perhaps suggesting it didn't going into the field until after the Hoon-Hewitt news had broken), which found 41% of people thought Labour would do better without Brown, 35% that they would get worse.

They also asked if people trusted Cameron or Brown more on the issues of Education, the NHS and the economy. Cameron lead on all three, by 12, 8 and 7 points respectively.