Latest YouGov poll, and some thoughts on debate polling
Tonight's YouGov poll for the Sun has topline figures of CON 32%, LAB 34%, LDEM 6%, UKIP 15%, GRN 7%. All looks normal by YouGov's recent standards (the two polls showing UKIP up at 17% and 18% that we saw immediately after the attacks in Paris seem to have gone away again - perhaps it was a Paris effect, perhaps it was just a random blip).
A word about the debates and polling on them. If the debates go ahead, they obviously have the potential to have a big impact upon public opinion and the election result - we saw that in 2010 and the boost they gave the Liberal Democrats. Think in particular of the potential impact for Nigel Farage or (if she ends up being included) Natalie Bennett - it's the challenger candidates they are a real opportunity for. If the debates end up going ahead, but without David Cameron, that will probably have an impact too. It would really highlight his non-participation.
I'd be more wary of whether there will actually be much impact if they end up NOT going ahead, if it ends with them not happening. We've seen several polls on how people think it's bad that David Cameron might not take part and so on... but regular readers will be very familiar with the flow of polls showing that people don't like David Cameron doing this and don't like Ed Miliband doing that which make not an iota of difference to voting intention or to people's attitudes towards the leaders. Most Westminster stories make no appreciable difference to anything in terms of public opinion. A lot of the time, most people probably don't even notice the story - they give an opinion because we pollsters have prodded them with a question, it doesn't mean they care.
In this case, I think people are at least aware of what's happening, it's not a pure Westminster bubble story. Without giving any information about what stance the leaders had taken YouGov asked a question on Sunday on whether people thought each leader did or did not want a debate. Obviously lots of people said don't know, but on balance people thought Miliband, Clegg and Farage did want a debate, and by 51% to 22% people thought Cameron was trying to avoid one. So, it has got through to the public.
Whether it makes any difference to their opinions of David Cameron is a different matter though. The measure to look for here - if it happens - won't be the sort of questions saying "Does blocking the debates make Cameron look bad?", "Is Cameron a coward?" and so on. You'll get people cynical about politicians or hostile to David Cameron saying yes anyway. It will be whether David Cameron's actual ratings go down - does not taking part in a debate damage his lead on being Prime Ministerial? Does it make his approval ratings worse and make him look less of a leader? Does it make his (already bad) ratings on being out of touch worse? Does it damage the Conservative party's voting intention at all? Those are the things that count and the things to watch, if they don't go down then, frankly, the bullet will have been dodged.
