MORI show an even smaller Tory lead...
Ipsos MORI's monthly political monitor shows the smallest Conservative lead so far since the figures began narrowing a few months ago. The topline figures, with changes from MORI's last poll are CON 40%(-5), LAB 37%(+7), LDEM 12%(-2). The fieldwork was conducted between Friday and Sunday, so after "baby P" had become a political issue and at the same time as the fuss over whether George Osborne was right to say that the government's policy could damage the exchange rate.
It's a big month-on-month change, and like Mike Smithson, I wouldn't be surprised if part of it is related to an increase in Labour's voters' certainly to vote, but we'll have to wait for the detailled tables to be published before we'll know for sure.
While there is a sharp drop in Conservative support here, it brings it more into line with the sort of figures most other pollsters are showing. Labour though are up to their highest figure for many months, above the support they received at the last election. The Lib Dems are right down to 12%, the same as ComRes's poll. Frankly I thought that figure looked somewhat suspicious and there seemed to be fewer former Liberal Democrats in ComRes's sample than usual - but now we've had a couple of polls in a row with dire figures for the third party.
*
While I'm here, a pre-emptive blast at anyone tempted to describe this as a statisical dead-heat (I know you, dear readers, would never stoop so low, but there are other people out there!) since the figures are within the margin of error. A 3 point margin of error (though MORI actually quote their turnout filtered figures as having a margin of error of 4 points) does NOT mean that any score within that range is equally likely. With the Tories at 40% in this poll, it doesn't mean they are equally likely to be at 43% as they are at 39%, for example. It is more likely to be towards the middle of the range, and their most likely actual level of support is 40%.
On a normal 3% margin of error, 95% of the time the "real" number will be within 3% of the given number. However, 80% of the time it will be within 2% of the given number and 50% of the time it will be within 1%. If a poll shows two parties at 49% and 51%, they are not in a dead heat; it is more likely than not that the party with the higher score is ahead.
Not of course, that any of that changes the fact that things are looking very, very close.
UPDATE: No tables, but Mike Smithson's been in touch with MORI and they've told him that the past vote in the poll was pretty much the same as last month, which had past vote shares of CON 23%, LAB 31%, LDEM 10.5%. This rules out the possiblity that the poll just had far more former Labour voters this month than last month.
UPDATE 2: The tables are here. Surprisingly none of the increase seems to be to do with Labour supporters being more likely to vote - in October 56% of Labour voters were 10/10 likely to vote, now it's 53%. The shift seems more to be 2005 Labour and Lib Dem voters who said they would vote Tory a month ago, now saying they'd vote Labour - not, I should add, that one should put too much weight on little shifts in the cross-breaks. For the record, the political balance of the sample is slightly different from last month - this month's sample is made of up 21% people who say they voted Tory in 2005, 30% people who say they voted Labour and only 9% who say they voted Lib Dem.
